This past Saturday Stacie London kickstarted the 68 Benelli one last time before it and “The Big Wheel” return to storage.

I spent the weekend with Tommy Mose Abbott, a long time friend/painter/artist/musician, tooling around LA checking out numerous art openings and helping him get prepared for his move to Austin, Tx. It was nice to see some good art after a long hiatus, and Saturday night was a great conclusion. Saturday was the opening reception for the Dennis Hopper Double Standard exhibition and marked the final showing of Chris Burden’s piece: The Big Wheel... Tommy and I happen to stumble in to Leif Lewis, chief builder of Falcon's Kestrel engine, in MOCA’s parking lot and was kindly allowed to tag along into the reception. The exhibition was showing the collection of Dennis Hopper’s very own art, a massive collection of photos, paintings and sculpture all of which will be on display till September 26, 2010.



The Big Wheel is a kinetic sculpture being set into motion by a 250cc 1968 Benelli motorcycle and the rider was the infamous, being rumored the best of them all, Stacie London. A new acquaintance/friend of mine and long time friend of Leif’s, Stacie is the exhibition production coordinator and oversaw the renovation of the sculpture.

The Wheel is an early 20th century industrial piece, massively weighing in around 3,000lbs (1,300kgs). If I did my math correct and estimate the speed is around 80mph, that makes a brisk pace of 28 revs/min for as long as 2hrs(decreasing in speed of course). This is an 8ft diameter wheel, think of the amount of energy stored!



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