Say "bicycles" and "modern art," and the first work that comes to most people's minds is Marcel Duchamp's "Bicycle Wheel." Next might the "bull's head" Pablo Picasso made from a bicycle saddle and handlebars.
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| Ricardo Brey, "Joy" (2018) |
But even when artists aren't creating objects from bike parts or images of bicycles, the forms, motions and technology of two wheels propelled by two pedals have inspired creators for as long as there have been bicycles. "Almost every one of the Surrealists, Dadaists and Futurists did something with a bike," according to David Platzker.
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| Nina Chenel Abney, "Ridin Solo" (2020) |
He has curated, in collaboration with Alex Ostroy (of the NYC bicycle clothing line that bears his name) Re: Bicycling, a group exhibition in New York's Susan Inglett Gallery. Spanning the period from the Industrial Revolution to the present, the show includes more than 20 works and pays homage to, not only the bicycle itself, but its potential for autonomy and freedom. The artists past and present, according to Platzker, "took it to heart" that the bicycle is "a means of self-powered locomotion."
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| Ebecho Muslimova, "Fatabe Dirt Unicycle" (2021) |
For that reason, he says, "Modernism--and modern art--would never exist without bicycles."
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| Claes Oldenberg and Coosje Van Bruggen, "Bicycle Ensevelie, Fabrication Model of Pedal and Arm" (1988) |
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