Cyclist – unavailable
Wyślij zapytanieMATERIAL: Patinated bronze and steel
HEIGHT: approx. 190 cm
EDITION: 6/6
The sculpture is signed and numbered.
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The concepts of order, tension, movement and festivities were the main signposts in my work on the Bike. The sculpture shows a figure trying to keep his balance on a unicycle. Such a vehicle is usually used by clowns in a closed circus arena. A person driving this “means of transport” usually has little chance of getting anywhere. This cyclist is similar to the character created by Chaplin in the film Circus, and unknowingly takes part in a performance.
Both the cyclist and his vehicle are made of metal-bronze and steel. I distinguished the head and foot with the colors: white and red. I try to make every formal decision subordinate, or at least not in contradiction with the content to which I am referring. The material used, the figure’s massiveness and muscularity, and movement are to give the impression of weight and emphasize the difficulty of the task of maintaining balance. The figure and the wheel are, as it were, the same matter. The wheel, an attribute of a cyclist, is a part of it, an unstable position, an indispensable element of his life, and the struggle for verticality is the content of this life. The elements of the body remain in opposition to find a balance from this sum of opposites, from continuous counterpoints. The face is hidden in piled up forms that allow only one profile to be read. These disappearing features have been brought out again and highlighted with a light patina that echoes the makeup worn by clowns and mimes. Paradoxically, what is a kind of mask to hide the true identity, in this case, makes it easier to recognize the face.
The red foot may appear to be bloody. I do not reject such an interpretation (a trace of suffering which life is paid for), but the main inspiration for using this color in this particular place is a parable popular in the Middle Ages:
The hunters, knowing the monkey’s imitation tendencies, gave her red shoes, then took off their shoes and began to put them on again. Seeing this animal, unable to resist its nature, it began to imitate the actions of hunters. When everyone was indifferent, the hunters attacked the monkey. Not knowing how to move otherwise than barefoot, she got caught easily. In medieval iconography, the devil was sometimes depicted as a hunter, a monkey is a sinful man, and red shoes usually symbolized a bad attachment to matter and the sensual world.
Peter Bruegel, when painting “The Fight of Fasting with Carnival”, referred to a commonly accepted ritual that included in a conventionalized framework opposing human needs: fun, chaos and sensuality on the one hand, and reflection and order on the other. I think we have lost this rhythm … Today, more than ever, we are doomed to independence in finding balance.