Remember a year ago when BMW France commissioned this unusual i3 art project? Well someone, it turns out, liked it enough to pay €100,000 for it.
The “Spaghetti Car” was designed by photographic artists Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari of the bi-annual magazine Toiletpaper. It debuted at the Rencontres d’Arles festival last summer, and a year later, BMW France donated it for a charity auction.
Not just any charity auction, though – a star-studded one. The sale took place as part of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation’s Fourth Annual Saint-Tropez Gala, hosted by (you guessed it) Leonardo DiCaprio. He wasn’t the only A-lister involved, though.
Cate Blanchett, Marion Cotillard, Philippe Cousteau, Penélope Cruz, Tom Hanks, Kate Hudson, Doutzen Kroes, Jared Leto, Tobey Maguire, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Uma Thurman, Kate Winslet, and Prince Albert II of Monaco all served on the organizing committee, with big names like Adrien Brody, Sean Penn, Taylor Hill, Iman Hamman and Gerard Butler also in attendance at the event. Lenny Kravitz and Madonna performed to entertain the celebrities and dignitaries gathered to honor Mayor Anne Hidalgo of Paris.
Employing imagery popularized (in certain circles) by Cattelan and Ferrari’s work, the one-of-a-kind i3 went to a Swiss collector, who paid more than the base price in France for a 740e iPerformance plug-in hybrid limousine. But it’s all for a good cause, with proceeds going towards “protecting the long-term health and well-being of all Earth’s inhabitants.”
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