Have a titter

bmetcalf

bmetcalf

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The Cycle World article on the bike had so much double talk that the racing bits may not really be as claimed.
 
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A-BCD

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My granddad told me the best job he ever had was when he worked in theatres with a stand-up comedian. He was the titter that ran through the audience :)
 
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Bazlerker

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"Double talk"... If this rolling sculpture had been presented as just that, an american post war bobber influenced piece..then the discussion would be quite different. The creator of this piece is obviously well skilled at the art of self promotion and lacks any understanding of the history or the genius of the original design. Let us judge it as that alone.
 
H

Holger

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"Do you like the `get you home, hand change` ?"

I liked the " It is especially rare being a ‘sculpture’ by a famous artist which can actually be ridden down the road, and ridden hard" even better! Ridden "hard" in between long pauses to change ratios, he means...

What a load of....
 
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Upstreeter

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I'm afraid I really can't become exercised about this interpretation of a Vincent - after all there have been plenty over the years, but none as far as I can recall by a sculptor. Funny, isn't it how we cannot find it in ourselves to view this motorcycle as a piece of moving sculpture? Maybe the hyperbole is a little overblown and maybe practicality has gone out of the window but for my money it's a beautiful object just standing there. The fact that it is capable of movement at all, albeit with the hindrances all so readily pointed out is a bonus! The fact too that it is an aural as well as a visual experience transforms it into a sort of 'installation'. I suppose Mr Decker could have merely taken a mould from a complete engine and fabricated everything else from bare metal...it would have looked the same...but this work actually lives! Now of course all of us Vincent owners do not become artists overnight simply because we own and ride such machinery, in the same way that if we spin a piece of paper in a centrifuge and dribble paint on it we are automatically Damien Hirst. The mistake and possibly the reason it did not make its high reserve price was to place this motorcycle in a car/motorcycle auction at all, rather than in a sale of contemporary art.

Of course it may not be art at all, and just the product of a sculptor who's also a known motorcycle enthusiast indulging an engineered hot-rodder's fantasy. It's good to debate.
 
vibrac

vibrac

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Upstreeter said:
if we spin a piece of paper in a centrifuge and dribble paint on it we are automatically Damien Hirst. The mistake and possibly the reason it did not make its high reserve price was to place this motorcycle in a car/motorcycle auction at all, rather than in a sale of contemporary art.
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I would not become embroiled in discussions on what is called art nowadays,being married to a real artist I have nothing but contempt for objects produced without real years long acquired skill.
But one thing is for sure a sale of contemporary art would not sell that 'bike'. these so called 'artistic' free thinkers have limits and for most real world 'art' people motorcycles are outside. I went with wife to Coventry transport museum and having time to spare went to a gallery. On one wall there were about 15 fans and when you stepped on brass floor plates they spun up. I called to my wife who sensibly had walked on "They call this art!" a person passing by said "Yes! (philistine) everything can be art" to which I replied "Does that include a Matchless G45 racing motorbike" (which I still think is one of the most beautiful objects I know) to which they replied "Well perhaps not everything".
Having said that I did ride the Egli that was in the art exibition in Spain a few years ago-that went even better than it looked:)
 
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Upstreeter

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You've said it all Vibrac - "being married to a real artist I have nothing but contempt for objects produced without real years long acquired skill." - and in so saying you cannot avoid becoming embroiled "in discussions on what is called art nowadays". We could have an endless and doubtless boring debate upon the merits of 'skill' in art...there are many skilful wielders of brush, pencil, pen and chisel who will never be artists. It all comes down to the endless discussion about what constitutes art and there we will surely differ. Picasso in his early life would (I guess but I don't know) fulfil your definition of a 'skilful' artist, producing figurative accessible work of intrinsically high technical merit...whereas his later works might not match that criteria. Incidentally, I too share your admiration of the look of what was,compared to the G50, the relatively unsuccessful Matchelss G45. A long way from Vincents I know.
 
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