UNTITLED PROJECT: HONDA CB77 SUPER HAWK, oil paint on carved wood, 2013-2014 –– A carved/painted sculpture of a 1964 Honda CB77 Superhawk motorcycle at 1:1 scale. The Honda CB77 Superhawk is known for its speed, power and reliability and in many ways set the paradigm for modern motorcycles. This particular motorcycle also has a specific literary connection––to the 1970’s best selling novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The author, Robert M. Pirsig, rode a Honda CB77 Super Hawk on a cross country trip with his son in 1968. As Robert Pirsig states in the novel: “the real cycle you are working on is the cycle called yourself.“ A significant part of this project is embedded in its conflation of construction-as-maintenance as part of a dialectical motion, connecting labor to material to economies—a complex gathering of a self in the world.

This project was exhibited alongside Untitled Project: Honda CB77 Superhawk [Parts] in the group exhibition: Motopoétique, curated by Paul Ardenne for the Musee d’Art Contemporain, Lyon (France). This entire project now exists in the collection of FRAC (Le Fonds régional d’art contemporain) Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France.

http://www.untitledprojects.com/conradbakker