By Jacob Mawela.
Caption: Esther Mahlangu limned posing in front of her home in 2023. (Image by AOCA Art of Contemporary Africa on Google Arts & Culture).
On the occasion of the 91st birthday of South African artist, Dr Esther Mahlangu, Google Arts & Culture – an online platform and mobile app developed by Google in collaboration with thousands of international museums, archives and cultural entities in over 80 countries – has launched the first expansive online retrospective dedicated to her.
Developed with six cultural institutions, more than 45 stories make her art, life and legacy accessible worldwide. Inter alia, these include AI-supported films which reconstruct her undocumented childhood memories.
The Google Arts & Culture retrospective addresses a gap in Esther Mahlangu’s surviving archive, which did not document her life before 1980. Working with Google DeepMind, Google Arts & Culture Lab and Domestic Data Streamers, memories from Mahlangu’s childhood and early artistic development were traced.
Following the Synthetic Memories methodology, the team generated still images from interviews and archival material before using Google DeepMind’s Veo model to turn them into moving sequences. One memory recalls how the ten-year-old Mahlangu discovered her talent while painting with feathers instead of a brush.
The reconstructions are visual interpretations of personal memories. Rooted in interviews and archival research, they demonstrate how technology can help preserve and communicate cultural memory.
“We’re grateful for the opportunity to celebrate Esther’s extraordinary legacy and showcase how technology can thoughtfully help safeguard her memories to ensure her pioneering voice inspires people around the world,” said Amit Sood, Vice President and Founder of Google Arts & Culture.
The retrospective combines over 700 archival images with more than 100 high-resolution images of artworks, expert-curated exhibitions and Street View experiences including that of her seminal 2024 show, “Then I knew I was good at painting: Esther Mahlangu, A Retrospective.” at the Iziko South African National Gallery, curated by Nontobeko Ntombela.
Of Mahlangu’s stories featured in the retrospective, her BMW Art Car of 1991 takes a central role through previously unseen archival material, historical photographs and the online stories “Works in Motion”, “Esther Mahlangu: A Vehicle For Resistance” and “Mahlangu’s Momentum: Recent Automobiles “.
Back in 1991, Esther Mahlangu became the first woman and African artist to design a BMW Art Car. She transferred geometric patterns and vivid colours associated with Ndebele mural painting to a BMW 525i, completing the vehicle in one week. “My art has evolved from our tribal tradition of decorating our homes,” said Mahlangu.
Her Art Car can also be viewed within the context of South African car culture, in which BMW holds a prominent place through the spinning scene that emerged in Soweto. While not conceived as a direct tribute to this driving culture, her BMW 525i combines the geometric patterns of Ndebele painting with the idea of motion, highlighting the automobile as a vehicle for cultural expression.
Conceived exclusively as an exhibition piece, the car has never been driven on the road or in a race and has since travelled internationally with the BMW Art Car Collection. It is the 12th in a collection which currently comprises 20 vehicles decorated by international artists such as Andy Warhol, John Baldessari, Julie Mehretu, et al.
The car made a return to South Africa after over 32 years when it was displayed at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town and the Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg in 2024 as part of the afore-mentioned exhibition curated by Ntombela.
Mahlangu’s collaboration with the BMW Group continued beyond the BMW Art Car. In 2016, she applied her distinctive style to the interior wood trims of a BMW Individual 7 Series, which was unveiled at Frieze London and later auctioned for charity.
“Esther has been an integral part of BMW’s Art Car legacy since 1991. Her remarkable story and life deserve to be celebrated, especially as she marks her 91st birthday. Her longstanding relationship with BMW spans decades, becoming an important part of South Africa’s cultural and artistic history,” says Peter van Binsbergen, Chairman and CEO of BMW South Africa.
Explore the online retrospective on Google Arts & Culture: https://artsandculture.google.com/story/tour-esther-mahlangu-39-s-retrospective-south-african-n ational-gallery/DwXBVR57DgWtWg?hl=en.