Simple, Bikes, and Car Parts Equal Awesome

Bull’s Head by Pablo Picasso

    Pablo Picasso’s sculpture, “Bull’s Head” (1942), made from a bicycle seat and handlebars, is a witty, childlike, yet sophisticated piece of art. “It stands as an assertion of the transforming power of the human imagination at a time when human values were under siege.” It is simple, yet so clever, taking two items and transforming it into something completely different. 

“Guess how I made the bull's head? One day, in a pile of objects all jumbled up together, I found an old bicycle seat right next to a rusty set of handlebars. In a flash, they joined together in my head. The idea of the Bull's Head came to me before I had a chance to think. All I did was weld them together... [but] if you were only to see the bull's head and not the bicycle seat and handlebars that form it, the sculpture would lose some of its impact.” –Picasso (1943)

    Some critics comment that this sculpture is so simple, “anyone could of done it,” but the only difference why Picasso’s “Bull’s Head” is more famous than “anyone” is because he first to be known to do it. The more I look at this painting, the more I am reminded of simple things when combined together, make amazing things. Artists Mark Grieve and Ilana Spector created a huge monument made from bicycle parts, stands 60 ft tall in Santa Rosa, California. It is literally amazing. Another artist who I’m pretty amazed with right now is the Australian artist James Corbett, who makes sculptures made out of scrap car parts. It is a "little" (chuckle) more detailed than Picasso's, and will knock your socks off when you take at look at his master pieces  Things so simple just come together, to make me so impressed and happy. 

James Corbett