… he designs some cool funky bike racks for New York!

The multi-talented lead singer of the Talking Heads, who recently released a great new album with Brian Eno, has designed 9 new bike racks for the New York City Department of Transportation in conjunction with New York art gallery PaceWildensteinwhich. The racks are installed at various locations around New York City, designed to reflect where they are located: a dollar sign for Wall Street, a high heeled shoe in front of Bergdorf’s, a mudflap stripper for Times Square. Check out David Byrne’s blog about how he managed to get his designs approved, and the challenges he faced in fabricating them:

The folks at New Project came up with an ingenious solution for the fabrication, as bending the squarish shaped pipe that the city uses into these convoluted shapes would have been close to impossible. It was important to me that these things be the same thickness and material as the existing U- and M-shaped racks — to help identify them as practical bike racks and not modern art — but actually making a mudflap Tammy by bending would have been impossible. The solution was to weld pieces together and then grind the edges so it perfectly simulated the city racks, though the fabrication process was completely different.

The bike racks will remain up until next summer, then sold as sculptures through the PaceWildstein Gallery. See the other finalists in the NY City bike rack design contest.

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