Forever Bicycle
Forever Bicycle is an installation work of art by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei .
prehistory
Ai Weiwei chose New York as his own exile between 1981 and 1993. At first he was barely able to work as an artist because he had to work for a living. Nevertheless, he moved early on in the New York art scene, which was dominated by neo-expressionism in the late 1980s . However, he was more fascinated by the currents of surrealism , dadaism and pop art . In his early New York works, a reference to precisely these currents and their representatives can be made out.
With his works Violin , Safe Sex , One Shoe and later Forever Bicycle , Ai Weiwei ties in with the dreamy, imaginative thoughts of the surrealists, the serial works of Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades .
Work description
After returning to China in 2003, Ai Weiwei was again inspired by Marcel Duchamp. The incentive for his work Forever Bicycle was Marcel Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel , which was proclaimed ready-made in New York in 1913.
Ai Weiweis Forever Bicycle is an installation consisting of 42 bicycles, 275 cm in height and 450 cm in diameter, which was set up in 2003 at the Tate Modern in London. 42 bicycles are placed on top of each other in a circular shape. In the bottom row, every second bike is upside down on the floor, while their saddle and the next upright front wheel give them support. The wheels are thus connected. The fork grips the rear tire of the next upright wheel. Its front wheel is in turn attached to the rear end of the next reversed bicycle. In the second row, every second wheel is upside down and the head tube and seat tube are built into one another with the upright wheels in the lower row. Here, too, the fork and rear frame hold the subsequent tires. The third row on top continues this technique. It is noticeable that the bicycles in the middle rows have no saddles. None of the bikes have pedals or handlebars. Without saddles, pedals and handlebars, the wheels obey the lower and upper bicycles that indicate the dynamic direction.
Interpretative approach
As in his work Violin , as in Duchamp's thinking, the mental functions and associations of the everyday objects are cut off and placed in a new context. This never-ending cycle of the Forever Bycicles is supported by the choice of the name of the brand bike Forever. The use of the prestige brand Forever also suggests a reference to Andy Warhol's commercial art, which primarily made the repetition and reproduction of brand names his activity. Ai Weiwei makes this his own and also ironically ironizes the bicycle as a cliché recognized in the West and a symbol of mass production in Chinese society. In doing so, he also puts aside his perception and a critical statement on the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, the mass production of which is controlled by the state.
An architectural influence can also be prescribed in Weiwei's work Forever Bicycles . The architectural and static forms of the bicycles change with the direction of the observer. Bypassing the installation opens up a previously unperceived perspective to the viewer, which creates a new space. This experience was made possible by Ai Weiwei's activities in the field of architecture, which he began to collect in the late 1990s.
literature
- Interviews with Hans Ulrich Obrist: Ai Weiwei speaks . Translated from the English by Andreas Wirthensohn. C. Hanser, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-446-23846-6 .
- Ai Weiwei- According to what? Exhibition organized by the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. Edited by Deborah E. Horowitz, Washington, DC / Tokyo: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Mori Art Museum 2012, ISBN 978-3-7913-5240-4 .
- Ai Weiwei. Works - Beijing 1993-2003 . Kunsthalle Bern 2004. Timezone 8, Hong Kong 2003, ISBN 988-97262-8-9 .
- Bernhard Fibicher , Hans Ulrich Obrist , Karen Smith : Ai Weiwei . London: Phaidon 2009.
- Francis M. Naumann: Marcel Duchamp - The Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Harry N. Abrams, New York 1999, ISBN 0-8109-6334-5 .
- Ai Weiwei. Architecture. Edited by Caroline Klein. Daab Media, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-942597-01-2 .