Caroline Mesquita: Motorbike, Medusa Motorbike

 Caroline Mesquita's two sculptures Motorbike (2018) and Medusa Motorbike (2017), made from sheet steel and pipes, are reminiscent of futuristic vehicle designs that could have come from Syd Mead's film sets for “Tron” or “Blade Runner” (both 1982). However, the vehicle sculptures by the artist, who was born in 1989 and now lives in Brest and Marseille, are just as little intended for driving as the retro-futuristic visions of technology: Their function is to transport the imagination. Mesquita rolls, bends, welds, hammers, etches and paints sheet metal until “the personalities of the sculptures finally emerge”, as the artist herself describes her working process. Her sculptures playfully refuse any concrete formal definition and manifest a world of prototypical machine beings in the combination of technoid and humanoid set pieces. 

The location of Motorbike and Medusa Motorbike in Hohenstein-Ernstthal refers to at least two location-specific world events: Hohenstein-Ernstthal also became famous for the legendary “Sachsenring” race track, where motorcycle races have been held since 1927. It is not just motorsport fans who make the pilgrimage to the races, which were celebrated like folk festivals with interruptions in the 1930s and 1940s and established a specific Sachsenring culture here. On the other hand, Mesquita's fantastic vehicles of the imagination could be associated with the stories of Karl May, who is still the most widely read author in the German-speaking world today. Born in Hohenstein-Hohenstein in 1842, he used his imagination alone to create journeys to Arab countries, North America and Mexico. May's adventure novels depict heroes such as the Mescalero Apache Winnetou and his German blood brother Old Shatterhand or the storyteller Kara Ben Nemsi, fleshed out down to the smallest detail and with every conceivable character trait. Fantastic figures that have become identity-forming for many generations. Mesquita's works will be shown temporarily in the Textile and Racing Museum and from 2025 in a specially developed garage.