BIKE REALLY

Name: BIKE REALLY
Start: 2019-10-11 00:00:00
End: 2020-04-13 00:00:00
Location: FMAV - Palazzo Santa Margherita

FMAV - Palazzo Santa Margherita

Modena, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Curated by: Francesca Fontana e Marco Pastonesi

The show

A long journey of two centuries in the history of the bicycle, told through 350 pieces, including albums and stickers.

Among the curiosities, a section that celebrates Fausto Coppi, one hundred years after his birth, and a series of vintage bicycles, such as the penny-farthing of the late nineteenth century.

From 11 October 2019 to 13 April 2020, the Modena Figurine Museum , one of the institutional realities that is part of the Modena Visual Arts Foundation, presents the exhibition BICI REALLY! Velocipedes, stickers and other stories that traces two centuries of bicycle history, through 350 pieces including albums and stickers.

The review, curated by Francesca Fontana and Marco Pastonesi, with the patronage of the Italian Cycling Federation, is an act of love for this revolutionary means of transport, a symbol of freedom. “The freedom of pedaling - writes Marco Pastonesi -, running, traveling, trespassing, even overtaking and surpassing oneself, because in the saddle one is never alone, there is always someone with whom to confront and accompany, and it is oneself. And then also the freedom to dream, fantasize, invent ".

The exhibition itinerary opens with the most exquisitely historical section that analyzes the evolution of the bicycle and celebrates its pioneers: starting with the German baron Karl Drais von Sauerbronn who in 1817 invented the Draisina, a "racing machine" driven by force alone. of the legs, passing through Pierre and Ernest Michaux who in the 1860s applied the pedals to the front wheel, up to the revolutionary and very light carbon bicycles of our days.

At the beginning, the bicycle was defined as a "steel horse" and cyclists "horsemen". The figurines therefore document the evolution of clothing borrowed, for men, from that of jockeys, consisting of silk jackets, boots and horse hats, later replaced by more practical clothes that leave legs and arms uncovered. However, it is women's clothing that undergoes the greatest transformations: the new means of transport makes it necessary to abandon nineteenth-century skirts in favor of skirts-trousers, galoshes and ankle boots, to move easily without sacrificing elegance.

A section of the exhibition highlights how much more complicated for a woman to ride a bicycle than for a man: just think that the female version of the Ariel model had two pedals on one side of the large front wheel, so the ladies were forced to ride the rider.

The use of bicycles by women is constantly opposed both by moralists who considered it not very decent, and by doctors, according to whom it upset the nervous system, damaged the reproductive organs and exposed to the risk of falls. Furthermore, it was widely believed that a sprinter lost the grace and charm that befits a lady: physical exertion reddened the skin and eyes, ruffled the hair and dried up the body. It is only between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, also supported by women's magazines dedicated to the mechanical horse, that the bicycle fashion spread widely and even the fairer sex recognized the beneficial effects of pedaling.