Your parents and grand-parents certainly dreamt about sport-cars, your old brother or your uncle probably dreamt about sneakers & skateboards. Today’s young generations are more likely to dream about bike (& smart phones) especially if they live in San Francisco or Berlin.
The evolution of bicycle is one that is not well known, but the results are apparent throughout the world. There have been many improvements on it and technology has helped a lot. Websites like ScooterAdviser have reviewed the best bikes made by many manufacturers. There is no shortage of options when it comes to choosing one and kids have loved it since.
Publikat & Kiriakos Losifidis from Carpe Diem who published previously the Mural Art series (vol 1 – vol 2 – vol 3) probably think the same way, and they made that big book about bicycles in art. I just hope they don’t plan to make a book about smart phones :-)
I may sound a bit sarcastic but the book is -much to my surprise- extremely good.
There are several chapters in that book to celebrate bicycle: Urban Art (aka street/graffiti-art), Paintings, Illustrations, sculptures…
The 1st one about Urban art is not the most interesting, it looks a bit artificial to me, like a random selection of photos of graffiti where a bike has been painted, nothing more. I’m also a bit disappointed that Erosie work about bikes is not even mentioned.
The main part of the book consists of an amazing selection of paintings & illustrations of bike in very different styles. Honestly I’m often tired of watching illustrations books & Tumblr, but I must confess I really enjoyed this book, and last days I regularly took a moment to enjoy a few more pages.
The last pages of the book are devoted to sculptors and bicycle designers who present their original creations.
I do ride sometimes, but I rarely watch ‘Le tour de France’, I’ve never thought about ordering a fixie or even replacing my mtb pedals with a new one, nevertheless I would definitely recommend this book for anyone loving good illustrations.
Bike Art Hardcover, 256 pages Format: 21cm x 29cm Text: english/Greek ISBN: 978-3-939566-37-3 29.90€ (Release 11/2011)
great!
How did you get one already?! Cool.
I received a kind of preview copy for press & bloggers.
But the book seems to be available online now:
http://publikat.de/204-1-Bikeart.html
I have seen this book in person and just LOVE it! REally impressive artwork :-) And even cooler is the fact I have one of the pieces of art hanging on one of my walls…HOw COOL!
I heART it :-)
Jacqui