BMW 325i, 1994 - video projection with sound, 4 mins. - click on image for slideshow

BMW 325i, 1994 - video still BMW 325i, 1994 - video still BMW 325i, 1994 - video still BMW 325i, 1994 - video still

BMW 325i features grainy, slowed-down, CCTV style footage of a car, parked in front of the Bank of England in the City of London. A pedestrian carrying a briefcase slowly traverses the scene as the suspense builds.

BMW 325i was made shortly after the announcement of the IRA ceasefire in 1994. The backdrop of the Bank of England in the City of London and the corporate car of choice at the time (a BMW) suggests a link between power, finance and politics. The prospect of bombings had seemed ever-present in Britain and Northern Ireland during the artist's lifetime and the artist lived close to the City of London when it was hit by several large bombs in the early 1990s.

Artist Rob Scholte's BMW 325i, Amsterdam 1994
Artist Rob Scholte was blown up in his BMW 325i on an Amsterdam street in November 1994

Page from De Telegraph, 25th November 1994

A few days before BMW 325i was first publicly exhibited in Amsterdam, the artist Rob Scholte was blown out of his BMW 325i on an Amsterdam street. Scholte survived but lost his legs in the explosion. The Netherlands police believed at the time this was a case of mistaken identity, with a high profile lawyer the intended target, however the case was never resolved.

Golf Gti test 1994, Peiter Vlamingstraat, Amsterdam.
video still from a test for Golf Gti 1994, Peiter Vlamingstraat, Amsterdam

Early test version of Golf Gti exploding on Pieter Vlamingstraat, Amsterdam.

Golf Gti, 1994
Golf Gti exploding outside Lisson Gallery, London

Golf Gti. Still from unreleased video 1994

The backdrop to Golf Gti was the Lisson Gallery in London. The idea was to take a car from a particular street and film the same car exploding in the same location. In 1995, during a meeting with a curator at the Lisson gallery about his own work, Dower gave a copy of the tape to the curator. On subsequent visits to the gallery the video was seen sitting on a shelf but it is not known if it was ever viewed by anyone at the gallery.

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