This summer, “Motorcycle As Art”, the flagship annual exhibit curated by Michael Lichter at the legendary Buffalo Chip during the Sturgis Rally, will be focusing on the origins and renewed popularity of the Café Racer movement. As I wrote many times, shades of the 50’s and 60’s are everywhere in our motorcycle industry with a huge revival of the Cafe Racer Subculture, not only in its birthplace of England but everywhere around the world.
Co-curators Michael Lichter and Paul d’Orléans have assembled a comprehensive display of 32 machines from 12 makes and 6 decades, plus never-published photography – from the original café racing scene in 1960s England to the present, paintings by Triumph ‘resident artist’ Conrad Leach, images from the Ace Café Collection, vintage leather ‘Rocker’ jackets from the Lewis Leathers archive, the “One-Show” 21-helmets display of custom painted helmets, painting by Andrea Chiaravalli and photography by Erick Runyon with other artists to be announced.
Each year, the “Motorcycles as Art” exhibition is a prominent event during the Sturgis Rally, garnering tremendous media coverage from around the globe, and thousands of enthusiasts in person visiting it. This year’s exhibition will certainly get even more recognition as it will live on in a coffee-table book “Ton Up – Speed, Style and Cafe Racer Culture,” published by Motorbooks International. Michael Lichter will photograph in his Sturgis studio all the motorcycles, jackets, artwork, and photographs from the exhibit. In complement, Paul d’Orléans is writing a comprehensive history of the Café Racer movement, from its deep origins in speed-modified road bikes to the ‘classic’ period in England in the 1950s/60s, through its various resurrections in the 1970s, 80s and especially with the advent of Internet motorcycle blogs, TV shows, and ‘Café Racer’ magazines, the explosive popularity of the style in the 21st Century. Continue reading ‘2013 Annual “Motorcycle As Art” Sturgis Exhibition Is ‘Ton Up! Speed, Style and Cafe Racer Culture”’
This year, the 22th edition of the Los Angeles Calendar Motorcycle Show is returning to the Queen Mary’s Seawalk Village, Long Beach, CA on Sunday July 14th. Some well known top custom builders will be displaying their new creations with some of them competing in the Calendar Bike Building Championship & Concours d’ Elegance. The event includes motorcycle industry manufacturers, after-market part vendors, and will feature live music performances.
