Peugeot Taipan, Commemorative Model (Discontinued Line)
Ricky SWALLOW: artist
Ricky Swallow made this life-size BMX bike out of plastic tubing. Titled Peugeot Taipan Commemorative Model he has said that it is "an authentic replica, a replacement if you like". Though perfectly detailed (down to the individual, nubby hand-made tyre grip) and featuring parts that move (the wheels, the chain), it is absolutely un-rideable. On one level it as a bike translated into an artwork by virtue of its labour intensive, non-industrial, technical construction and separation from the original's function. The word "commemorative" in the title references the now exclusive nature of what was once a mass-produced object. Swallow's ghostly BMX also deals with memories of objects we might have had as children. Apparently brittle and pale, it signals how these associations exist in an unobtainable, unaccessible past.
Title
Peugeot Taipan, Commemorative Model (Discontinued Line)
Artist/Maker and role
Ricky SWALLOW: artist
Date
1999
Medium
PVC, epoxy putty, synthetic polymer paint
Measurements
130 x 113 x 25 cm
Credit line
Purchased 2004
© Courtesy the artist and Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney
The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia
Accession number
2004/0165.a-o