For August, we have a 5-part series written by Laura Fisher exploring how bicycles are used as a dissident object in contemporary art. Laura Fisher is a post-doctoral research fellow at Sydney College of the Arts (University of Sydney). Originally published in long format in Artlink, the five projects Laura details are examples not only of how bicycles create positive social (and other) change, but how this achieved utilizing the arts and performance. In this first instalment, Laura describes the importance and impact of one of Ai Weiwei’s most iconic pieces ‘Forever’. Enjoy! NG.
The bicycle as dissident object: Ai Weiwei’s ‘Forever’
One of the centrepieces of Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria is a fresh iteration of Ai’s Forever sculpture. Located in the foyer, the sculpture consists of a towering arch of over 1,500 interconnected bicycles, all uniformly produced to a minimalist design. The Forever series is now among Ai’s most known works, having been exhibited in many configurations in museums and public spaces in London, Taiwan, Taipei, Venice and Toronto and elsewhere. The namesake is China’s Yong Jiu (which translates as“Forever”) brand of bicycle.
Established in the 1940s, the prized Forever brand dominated China’s cycling culture for several decades before the car became more widely used. For Ai there is a tainted nostalgia about the Forever bicycle. In the remote village where he was raised after his father – an enlightened and popular poet – was exiled from Beijing, the bicycle was not only needed for travel but for transporting things. It was also out of reach to all but the well-off, a high status object of intense desire for a child like Ai living in poverty.
In the first version of the work (in 2003) Ai suspended real Forever bicycles in a circle, and removed the chains, handlebars, pedals and seats. Eliminating these features set him on a path of abstraction, which in turn allowed him to introduce ambiguity to the object and play with patternation. Subsequent versions of the work left the readymade quality of the original behind and embraced a manufactured aesthetic, with the sculptures acquiring spectacular architectural proportions.
The bicycles seem to be self-propagating as grand crystalline structures, yet they are strikingly immobilised: ossified in gleaming stainless steel. In light of Ai’s ongoing critique of the constraints on liberty and individuality in China, it is hard not to interpret Forever as a potent vision of arrested movement, and its mass-produced elements as a metaphor for a particular kind of circumscribed sociality.
With Flowers
A more lo-fi object and performance that attests to the importance of bicycles (and flowers) to this critique is Ai’s With Flowers. Daily, from 30 November 2013, Ai placed fresh flowers into the basket of a bicycle leaning on a tree outside his Beijing studio gate to protest the confiscation of his passport (in 2011), and documented the bouquets on Flickr. His passport was finally returned in July 2015.
The National Gallery of Victoria installation
The National Gallery of Victoria’s installation is just the most recent in a long line of commissions and adaptations of Forever. And you might ask why the work has had such longevity. While it is no doubt a testament to Ai’s growing fame, it surely also says something about the bicycle’s symbolic currency at this historical moment.
In the coming years, the bicycle is likely to be a significant gauge of our cities’ progress towards finding a more sustainable equilibrium and it is a very tangible instance of the idea that a personal choice, when embraced en masse, can translate swiftly into extraordinary collective good. In this light, the scaled-up Forever seems to be suggestive of the grand promise associated with this disarmingly simple tool of urban transformation.
What is striking about the bicycle in the age of electronics is that it is an honest machine: its means of operating are transparent and its action truthfully felt. As Ai himself points out “They’re designated for the body and operated by your body. There are few things today that are like that”.
As a machine comprising simple cogs and wheels that efficiently convert human energy into movement, the bicycle has unique kinetic and haptic qualities that lend themselves to aesthetic investigation.
Thus, while Ai’s bicycles are polished and quiescent, many other artists have employed the bicycle’s movement to activate different kinds of individual and social behaviour – which is what we will be exploring in the next post!
Laura Fisher is a post-doctoral research fellow at Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney. In October 2015 she co-curated Bespoke City with Sabrina Sokalik at UNSW Art & Design, a one night exhibition featuring over 20 practitioners celebrating the bicycle through interactive installations, sculpture, video, design innovation, fashion and craft. This event was part of Veloscape, an ongoing art–research project exploring the emotional and sensory dimensions of cycling in Sydney.
The contents of this post was written by Laura Fisher and first published online by Artlink (2015). Minor edits and hyperlinks added and footnotes removed to aid short-form continuity. Images from Artlink unless attributed.
