Kurt Wold:
DADA rode a Bicycle/MOMA was a Peddler

Artist Bio

Kurt Wold holds an M.F.A in sculpture from University of Wisconsin-Madison and a B.S. in Studio Art from University of Wisconsin-Stout: Menomonie. His art focuses greatly on the use of bicycles.

Artist Statement

The Ancient Greeks (Plato in particular) established a hierarchy in the arts by elevating the purely contemplative art forms from the lower functional crafts. This idea struck me as I was taking down another of my gallery installations and jamming the mere functional remains into a dumpster. I had adopted a belief that artistic expression was a vital bridge, spanning the distance between idea and reality, which, in turn, established a situation of exchange for both mental insight and physical experience. It was through this belief that I made artworks for the gallery. However, eight years ago in the parking lot, in a dumpster, I had questions. I could envision a painting which inspired awe throughout the gallery being relocated in the parking lot where every patron would drive over it as they backed their car out and headed home. I saw that the gallery had become the sanctuary for the pure, contemplative art object and that the gallery walls protected it from the realities of functional mundaneness. This rarefied space was filled with what appeared to be objects which could not support life on their own and seemed completely non-vital to me. I was moved to reincorporate the contemplative and functional in a body of work. The bicycle, I thought, would be the natural vehicle. Aesthetically it engages the viewer immediately with its figurative suggestions and strong compositional geometries. And, because it is a functional machine with a commonly shared childhood experience, I felt it elicited a kinesthetic accessibility for the viewer. Folk wisdom claims you never forget how to ride a bicycle.

As a child I was schooled on the inventive spirits of Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, and the Wright Brothers. The latter took the seminal machine of that time – the bicycle – and invented the airplane. Today’s advances in technology leave one about as comfortable staring at the instrument panel of a jumbo jet as they do stumbling into a conceptual art exhibition and whispering, “Where are the paintings?” Bafflement and alienation are rapidly replacing awe over human potential. In a somewhat quixotic fashion, I make these machines to remind myself and others what it is like to be human; what restrictions are implied therein and what dreams seek expression beyond. People have always dreamed of super-human locomotion. I have offered up a few human-scale actualizations.

Exhibition Statement

DADA refers to the title of a European art movement during World War I, with its wry interest in the machine aesthetic. The bicycle was an image used (read “rode”) by many of this group… especially the artist Marcel Duchamp. MOMA refers to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The museum has long set the American and International gold standard for what is considered to be Fine Art. But MOMA’s rise to power can be traced back to the fledgling New York Armory Show of 1913. A minor European artist was catapulted (read “peddled”) into International stardom there with a small, sensationalized painting. The painting was “Nude Descending A Staircase.” The artist was Marcel Duchamp.

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