July 2007
I built this during the time that I was a participant in the artwork Beautiful City by Maria Pask, which took place during the summer of 2007 as part of Skulptur Projekte Münster. I had always wanted to construct some type of bicycle, and this proved to be a good opportunity to do so.
The intention of Beautiful City was to build a city of ideas in place of one of concrete and stone. A large tent was set up in the Schlossgarten in Münster, where a talk was held every Sunday by a representative of a religion or belief – including a Buddist heavy metal band, no less than two witches, and a lesbian catholic priestess. At the same time, the city was populated by a different group of people every week, most of whom were art students from the Netherlands – including myself.
The equipment which I had available was pretty limited, which made things quite difficult. All the parts which I needed were salvaged from the nearby university, and hauled through the streets of Münster to the park where we were staying.
It went through a couple of versions before it was able to work successfully, and it must be admitted that it is not the most practical thing I have ever built. It’s really heavy, and also a bit dangerous if someone sits on the front without there being someone on the back to counteract their weight. This became a bit of a problem during on of the Sunday lectures, when a German Buddhist named Winfred Kopps decided that it would be nice to deliver his talk whilst sitting on the bicycle. We tried hanging jerrycans full of water on the back, which was not too successful, and so instead myself and one of the project organisers took it in turns sitting on the back while he spoke. Happy memories indeed.
