Chicago-based bicycle parts company SRAM gives artists the opportunity to show how creative they can be by equipping them with a box of 100 bike components and challenging them to make something for their pART PROJECT competition. This year, over 80 artists have participated, contributing their inventive creations that range from figurative sculptures to abstract collages. Each piece presents an imaginative transformation of gears and chains into anything from an artistic rendition of a robotic ostrich to a surrealistic creature with a baby doll’s head mounted at the top.
The created works will be displayed at a juried gallery exhibition and then auctioned off at a live event in New York for the charity of their choice, World Bicycle Relief. The foundation that all proceeds will be donated to works to provide bicycles to people in underprivileged areas in Africa. By offering a cost-effective and manageable mode of transportation, the people in these areas are given better opportunities to access healthcare and educational facilities, not to mention the ability to get to their destinations quicker and safer.
The auction will be held at Cedar Lake Theater in New York on November 29, 2012.
Top image:
Artist: Mark Castator
Title: Heart Lode
Materials: SRAM parts, used bicycle chains, silicon bronze
Artist: Billie Grace Lynn
Title: Lion
Materials: Sram parts, welded steel, bicycle inner tubes, epoxy
Artist: Ebitenyefa Baralaye
Title: When I Spin, My Dress Spins Too
Materials: SRAM bike parts, bike wheel, plaster, ceramic shards and spray paint
Artist: Lewis Tardy
Title: Free Wheeling
Materials: SRAM parts, steel bicycle parts, surgical devices, aluminum
Artists: Mark Grieve and Ilana Spector
Title: Mask Composition with Bike Parts and Altered Deer Skull
Materials: SRAM parts
Artist: Alex Bogusky
Title: Fresh Air
Materials: SRAM parts, leather, foam
Artist: Michael Tingley
Title: Sramble
Materials: SRAM parts, mixed media
Artist: Dominic Sansone
Title: The Clouds Drink Deeply from my Electromechanical Soul
Materials: SRAM parts, oil-painted urethane foam, rubber tubing, model plane
Artist: Rob Millard-Mendez
Title: Ostrich
Materials: SRAM parts, wood, hardware
Artist: Daniel Michael Bertelli
Title: Sram’s Best Friend
Materials: SRAM parts, nuts, bolts
Artist: Darcy Meeker
Title: Dragonfly
Materials: SRAM parts, cogs, pipe, glue, wire, string
Artist: Bruce White
Title: The Amazing Hjalmer and His Astonishing One-Person Self-Propelled Circus Machine
Materials: Bike parts, rubber tubing, aluminum wire, o-rings, nuts, washers, a brass tube, wooden dowel