We’ve noticed that art connected to bicycles is en vogue this summer. So we decided to research and write a short article—an incomplete tour de l’art—mentioning a few artworks, films, artistic videos, and performances that caught our attention and combine art and cycling.

Escapism and Endorphins

On a hot summer’s day this June, twenty cyclists met up for a ride along the riverbank of the Rhine in Kleinbasel. In the cooling shade of the urban landscape, the relaxed group, all wearing the same Dodgers baseball team shirts, cycled across the Kraftwerk in Birsfelden and passed by the Basler Münster to end up at Kannenfeldplatz, where a cold drink awaited them.

The tour was a tribute, a reenactment of a performance that the artist Ted Stamm did in New York in 1971, when he cycled from his studio in Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge and Sea Breeze Avenue to the Coney Island boardwalk. He understood public space and the city as both his source of inspiration and his canvas. A large part of his works, currently on view at von Bartha, can be traced back to urban forms, architectural layouts, and transportation designs. Yet, Stamm’s relationship to his city and its streets is a reciprocal one. The artist processed what he discovered on his walks and rides through the city to make art, and then took these shapes back to where they originated, using spray cans and stencils.

It was around the same time, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in Amsterdam, that an artist plunged into a canal while riding his bike. Fall 2 (1970) is a short film by Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader who, like Stamm, created and documented his performative works in public space photographically and cinematically. Both pursued a conceptual approach to their work; while Ader’s practice seems deliberately mysterious and unwieldy, he was aware of the power of the images he created and left behind. It is unclear if Ader and Stamm knew each other—however, their lives are tied up by another fact: both died young, while they were still in their thirties, which contributed to the myth of their respective oeuvres. Ader disappeared without a trace while attempting to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a sailing boat, and Stamm passed away from a heart ailment.

Another work that caught our attention is Ridley Scott’s first cinematic work, Boy and Bicycle (1965). You can find the full version here on Dailymotion. Shot on 16mm film while he was a photography student at the Royal College of Art in London, this experimental black-and-white short shows a boy exploring his surroundings on a bicycle. It embodies the feeling of aimless pastime and escapism and leads the boy from an urban space to the waterfront, as in Stamm’s and Ader’s performances. In Scott’s film, the narrator underscores what connects these works: navigating an urban environment and the release of endorphins, seen through the artists’ talented eyes for strong imagery, editing, and arcs of suspense.

A Cyclist’s Attitude

Whether sitting on one or just pushing a bicycle along, the two-wheeler conveys attitude in both a physical and metaphorical sense. Deana Lawson, whose portraits document and celebrate the beauty and diversity of Black life, exemplifies this in her work Bicycle Love (2015), depicting a couple on the side of a road, facing the camera. Joseph Beuys, whose understanding of art was both politically and socially motivated, was known to ride a bike. It served him not only as a means of transportation but also a symbol of his social and political ideals. The reclaiming of public space, which in the German postwar period was literally paved over with roads for the flourishing automotive industry, is another aspect of his practice. Artists such as Jeremy Deller continue this attitude in a certain sense. With his Rejected Tube Map (2007), the British artist provided an impetus for more safety on the streets. In 2022, Deller submitted this design as a proposal for the London Underground’s pocket Tube map, suggesting that it was better to cycle for commuting. It comes as no surprise that the proposal was rejected.

Bike Parts Art

One could fill an entire bicycle store (or museum) with artworks consisting of bike parts. Here are a few highlights worth mentioning: Pablo Picasso’s Bull’s Head (1942) is certainly one of the most striking and famous works, as is Bicycle Wheel (1951) by Marcel Duchamp, who coined the term “ready-made” by declaring existing things unchanged to be art. Two Swiss artists who integrated bicycles and moving parts into their work and cannot be missing here are Jean Tinguely and Roman Signer. In the case of Signer, the traces of black paint on the wall suggest the impression that the artist himself was pedaling to create Fahrrad mit Farbe (Bicycle with Paint, 1995–2003). In addition, a few honorable mentions (some illustrated below) include Alicja Kwade, David Hammons, Ai Weiwei, Gabriel Orozco, Erwin Wurm, Peter Weibel, Vincent Scheers, etc.

The above list is just a selection, and will be continued in the upcoming months. Let us know if you stumble across more artworks related to cycling. And should you be spending your vacation on a bike, don’t forget to wear a helmet at all times. Bonne route!