Motocicletta, 2019

The work takes on the silhouette of a motorbike, but not merely as a functional creation; rather, it is a contradictory object, which incorporates the recognisable form of a vehicle whilst stripping it of its practical function.

In recent history, the motorbike has been an icon of speed, freedom, dynamism, technology and modern myth: a mechanical body that connects the ground and movement, a threshold of transformation between man and space. In this sculpture, Cavenago retains the vehicle’s recognisable silhouette, but dismantles its functional efficacy. The form is arranged according to a rigid order and is clearly legible from the front, as if it were a three-dimensional technical drawing, displayed for viewing without its operational content.

The use of pink Portuguese marble – a geological material that has been worked but is not synthetic – juxtaposes the repertoire of industrialisation with the ancient tradition of sculpture. Here, the motorbike is not a vehicle to be ridden, but a sign without an engine, a volume that looks ahead without moving. The marble, combined with aluminium, steel and Teflon, creates a clear tension between natural and technological materials, between weight and lightness, between permanence and potential dynamism.

The representation of the motorbike is conceived not as a celebration of the myth of speed, but as a device for critical suspension: the work seems to halt movement before it has even begun. The form is complete and self-sufficient, yet its function is negated. It is neither a functional ready-made nor a prototype: it is a sculptural body that scrutinises its own status as a vehicular object stripped of practical efficacy.

In this sense, Cavenago’s motorbike stands as an opening onto a dimension of formal thought, where the mechanical object becomes a structure for reflection. The sculpture is not speed, but the containment of speed; it is not mobility, but immobility that evokes dynamism. The tension between matter and form remains suspended, and thus the work takes the form of the inactive presence of an idea of movement, reflecting the distance between what a motorbike is and what it could be.

L.B., 2022