Shimmering Bicycles Below Austin’s Skyline

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AUSTIN — Walking the Lady Bird Lake Trail while in ATX is a required activity, and we invariably stay at a hotel near the trail for easy access. My Beautiful Mystery Companion and I enjoy studying the wide variety of dogs loping along with their owners. “Look, there’s a Great Pyrenees!” “Did you see that sweet beagle?” And so it goes. The snippets of conversation one hears can be fascinating as well: folks talking about failing relationships, their bosses, a party last night. I once had the notion to set up a parabolic microphone along the trail and record these snatches and turn them into a play: “Tales of the Trail.” That is as far as I got.

As we rounded the curve near the Waller Creek Boathouse, a mountain of chrome bicycles welded together towered over the trail, shimmering in the morning sun. Beneath the sculpture, workers set up tables and chairs, while others erected tents. I had read that famed Chinese artist — and dissident — Ai Wei Wei had struck a deal with the Contemporary Austin Museum to exhibit two of his works. We were standing before one of them — Forever Bicycles — which he had created in 2014. “Forever” is a Chinese brand of bicycle once ubiquitous in Beijing and described on the exhibit sign as a coveted luxury item when Wei Wei was growing up in China. The Forever Bicycle represented freedom to him as a boy, the ability to move about the city. Now, the bicycles largely have been replaced by automobiles, which heavily contribute to an already-polluted sky.

Ai, who turns 60 in August, is the son of a noted poet who was denounced by the Communist regime during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1950s. As a result, the family was sent to a labor camp near the border with North Korea where they were forced to stay until the mid-1970s. Ai as an adult lived for a dozen years in the United States before returning to China, where he became a vocal critic of the authorities. He suffered a brain hemorrhage after being beaten by police for protesting the shoddy school construction that resulted in many deaths after a 2009 earthquake. Two years later, he was detained for 81 days after landing at the Beijing airport, purportedly for tax evasion. Protests were held worldwide, and eventually he was released.

Ai works in photography, video, sculpture and music. He was a key designer of the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics. But his use of Twitter angered Chinese authorities, as he was openly critical of his country’s violation of human rights. His appearance is distinctive — flowing salt-and-pepper goatee partially covering a round face, piercing eyes and a partially shaved skull.

“Forever Bicycles” consists of 1,254 steel bicycles welded together and covered in chrome. The sculpture, which has already attracted hundreds of visitors in its first few days of installation, stands about 25 feet tall and 40 feet across. One can walk under the center of the piece, touch the smooth surfaces of the bikes, admire how they seem to shimmer against the downtown skyline.

My BMC and I returned the next morning on our daily trek. At first we decided not to visit the various food-and-drink vendors set up, since neither of us had brought any money when we left the hotel. A kind woman asked if we were going to get anything to eat or drink, and highly recommended the mango ice cream. “”It’s free!” the woman exclaimed, and we promptly returned and got in line — not for ice cream but for a bottle of cold-brew coffee from an Austin company, Chameleon Cold-Brew. We grabbed their thick burlap coozies with their logo and the slogan, “Decaf is Against My Religion.” Amen to that.

“Forever Bicycles” is a lovely addition to the Lady Bird Lake trail. I hope to enjoy many more years of walking past it when visiting Austin.

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