3114 bicycles have taken over Nathan Phillips Square to celebrate Toronto’s Nuit Blanche. Covered with heavenly fluorescent wires,
they have been stuck together to give life to an installation resembling a colossal vortex. As the spectators walk around the sculpture, the wheels seem to move, creating a dynamic visual effect. Forever bicycles is the name of the installation, ideated by Ai Weiwei.
Bikes are still the main mean of transport for Chinese workers, and mass production (represented by the incredible number of wheels and frames) is the Asian Dragon’s force. By putting Forever Bicycles together, the artist wanted to denounce the exploitation of the labour force; the serially produced two-wheelers are a metaphor for Ai Weiwei’s working class nationals.
The Chinese artist was actually not in Canada to help put the bikes together: after 81 days of arrest in 2011, Beijing let him free, but confiscated his passport. He now cannot leave China, but keeps sending messages to the world through his art. An example is the famous documentary Never Sorry, which impressed the western audience a couple of years ago. In addition, in 2010 he decided to flood the lower floor at Tate with porcelain sunflower seeds (a stack of them is still available on one of the upper floors). Another very effective sculpture was made putting together 9000 backpacks, representing the kids killed by an earthquake in China and accusing the government’s suppression of information about the tragedy. His love for great quantities has definitely the goal to impress and make people more aware of China’s social and civil issues.
The size of Ai Weiwei’s sculpture and the immediacy of their messages have certainly increased the artists’ fame not only politically but also artistically. The hymn to geometry in Toronto’s main square has indeed captured the sight of numerous passers-by. Don’t you wish the 3114 bicycles were in London instead? Such a mountain of bicycles would be every East London biker’s Mecca!
