Having been obsessed with both design and motorcycles all my life, one exhibit I was not going to miss was "Chicara Liquid Chrome," a show by Japanese graphic designer-turned-motorcycle master Chicara Nagata of four of the most beautifully crafted pieces of design on two wheels ever created. Upon entering Chelsea's Ippodo Gallery for the opening last week, my friends and I were immediately greeted with Asahi beer and traditional Japanese snacks -- but my only interest was to see these moving metal sculptures that Chicara has created, which meld both the futuristic and traditional worlds of design.
Each (totally functioning) Chicara motorcycle is comprised of almost 500 individual parts
and took the artist approximately 7,500 painstaking hours to create. The end result is some of
the most exquisite and tasteful pieces of industrial design I have ever
seen. This is the first time Mr. Nagata's machines have seen in the U.S. and
they will be on view at
until the January 31.The price, you ask? $1.5 million each. Enjoy!
Top left: Hiromi Yoshida, President Dentsu USA (left), with Chicara Nagata. Top right: Spectators marvel at the craftsmanship.
Photographs by Rena Ohashi
