ReCycle

There is beauty in the lines of a steel frame road bike. There is beauty also in its elements. The modern master of the line, Pablo Picasso, created the sculpture Bull’s Head in 1943, from found objects. He transformed a bicycle saddle and handlebars into the skull and horns of a bull. The sculpture is magical and whimsical. It delights and surprises the imagination because the elements are not disguised or hidden, yet the metamorphosis to skull and horns is there.

You remember that bull’s head I exhibited recently? Out of the handle bars and bicycle seat I made a bull’s head which everybody recognized as a bull’s head. Thus a metamorphosis was completed; and now I would like to see another metamorphosis take place in the opposite direction. Suppose my bull’s head is thrown on the scrap heap. Perhaps some day a fellow will come along and say: “Why there’s something that would come in very handy for the handle bars of my bicycle….” And so a double metamorphosis would have been achieved.
(Picasso in an interview with Simone Tery, 1945)