In August of 2012, the Brooklyn Academy of Music unveiled a new set of bike racks designed by none other than David Byrne, each of which is shaped like a letter of the alphabet. The letters can be rearranged to form various words, and Byrne, in typical Byrne-ian fashion, chose the surrealistic phrases “Pink Crown” and “Micro Lip” for their initial incarnation.
Tonight, Community Board 2 will vote on the designs, deciding whether to recommend them to the city’s Public Design Committee for permanent approval. And as DNAinfo points out, Byrne’s history with the committee hasn’t always been happy. In 2008, when they rejected a previous bike rack design in the shape of a liquor bottle, he took to his blog to retaliate. “wonder how many emerging artists would have the patience for the form-filling, waiting, and political stupidity that is involved in going via the gatekeeper,” he wrote. “Not many, I would think.”
(Photo: Brooklyn Academy of Music)
