Launched on 11 November to celebrate her 91st birthday, the Google Arts & Culture project offers a colourful look at Mahlangu’s life and work, with more than 700 archival images, over 100 high-resolution artworks and stories created with six cultural institutions.
One of the more unexpected chapters in Mahlangu’s career began in 1991, when she became the first woman and first African artist to create a BMW Art Car. Her canvas was a BMW 525i, which she covered in the bold geometric patterns and vivid colours inspired by Ndebele art.
She reportedly completed the work in just one week. And while the car looks ready to hit the road, it has never been driven – it is an artwork in its own right.
The BMW collaboration was far from a one-off. Mahlangu later brought her designs to the wood trim of a BMW Individual 7 Series in 2016 and created a 50th-anniversary logo for BMW South Africa in 2023.
Her work has also featured on the BMW i5 Nostokana, which used E Ink technology to display her designs.
The new retrospective also looks back to Mahlangu’s childhood, including a memory of herself at 10 years old, learning to paint using feathers.
Using interviews and archival material, Google Arts & Culture and Google DeepMind have created AI-supported visual interpretations of these memories, bringing them to life in a new way.
It is a fitting celebration of an artist whose work has travelled far beyond its roots, while remaining unmistakably her own. From a BMW to galleries around the world, Mahlangu has spent decades showing just how much can be done with colour, pattern and a little imagination.
