The Motorcycle Art of Linus Coraggio

A short film by Thomas W. Campbell

You can watch the entire film for free by clicking on the link further down the page.

I made The Motorcycle Art of Linus Coraggio with Linus in 2018. The film screened at a number of festivals both here and abroad, including the French Riviera Motorcycle Film Festival in Nice, France.

The Motorcycle Art of Linus Coraggio is a film about an artist with an obsessive need to create Motorcycle Art. Linus Coraggio has created close to 100 Motorcycle sculptures of metal and other materials since 1986. An outsider artist who works in many mediums and at many scales, he was a founder of the Rivington School of Art in the East Village in the early 1980s and the architect behind the Gas Station, a seminal art installation/community/concept that was ultimately demolished amid a wave of gentrification in 1996.

He pushes on, and this talent for survival and creation is revealed in the series of choppers he has spent over thirty years creating. The Motorcycle Art of Linus Coraggio includes a sequence from 2009 of Coraggio working in his Bushwick studio and chronicles years in the life of the artist as he explores the rich and classical tradition of how his Motorcycle Art fits into the dreamscape of American consciousness.

(Excerpt from the film) “The other thing about the inception of the idea to do a series of motorcycle sculptures came from Boccioni’s “Walking Man” sculpture, I think it’s from around 1913. The idea of a figure or machine moving through space.

Other influences I can cite would be the custom cars of George Barris and Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, in the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties.

It’s just a very dynamic perception perspective of modern movement. That was a big influence too. “

(excerpt from the film) “I did this about 48 years ago… The title is “Apache Motorcycles attacking the food trucks”.

I’d seen a couple of drive-in movies in Vermont, some biker films and kind of made up my own screenplay, I think.

I’ve got about 14 of these bikes, this guy’s got the biggest bike, so he’s obviously the leader. Orchestrating this attack on the happy food vendors, unsuspecting. Looks like they’ve trashed one already and are pushing it down the hill. And the sun’s out.”

You can watch the entire film for free by clicking on the link below:

Director’s Statement

Whether it is because I moved to New York City in the early 1980’s or for some other reason, I feel that decade, below 14th Street, represented the wildest, most creative and in many ways most dangerous times imaginable. I was at NYU, wandered the streets, saw a lot of things that went on and, like most, missed pretty much everything else. I first went back in time by making the film Birth of the Sun in 2008, about a Haitian street artist named Grady Alexis who lived, loved and died a tragic death in the East Village. Meeting Linus has given me the chance to dig deeper, and to look for the positive side of that scene. His Motorcycle art is just one aspect of his talent, and it is a fascinating and obsessive take on an American and International Icon. This film brings the viewer into Linus’s world and explores how and why he makes his art. It’s been a great journey, one I hope to continue for many years to come…

Film Credits:

The Motorcycle Art of Linus Coraggio

All Art created between 1969 and 2017 by Linus Coraggio

Cinematography, Directing, Editing and Sound Design

by Thomas W. Campbell

Linus’s Motorcycle Sculptures at the Dinosaur Restaurant

“Heaviest Metal” Chopper (1993)

“Combo” Chopper (1996)

“Woodtank” Chopper (1997)

“Burnt and Rusted” Chopper (2001)

“Cycle Seat Tank” Chopper (2001)

“Telephone” Chopper (2001)

“Ferrari-Towed” Chopper (2008)

“Shelby Airplane” Chopper (2009)

Other Motorcycles in the Film

“Linus’s First” Chopper (1986)

“Vietnam War” Chopper (2004)

“Globe” Chopper (2005)

“Stainless Squares” Chopper (2005)

“Starr” Chopper (2008)

“Double Wheel Puller” Chopper (2017)

Plastic Motorcycle Sculptures

“Bad-Ass Bass Fish” Quad (2007)

“McMansion Masher” ATV (2007)

“Japanese Tsunami” Chopper (2011)

“Double Barbie” Chopper (2017)

Music Composed and Performed by Thomas W. Campbell

Cathedral (1988)

Floating (2007)

This Thing (1991)

A Night in Vermont (2004)

Bloomingdale Parade (2004)

Buzz (1989)

Ghosts Walk Among Us (2005)

The Eclectic Stairway (2017)

May Song (2004)

The Artist would like to thank:

Kenkeleba House Sculpture Garden, Lower East Side

Art on A Gallery, Lower East Side

John Stage – Dinosaur Barbecue

Pat and Henry Brant for setting aside their highbrow cinematic film ascetics and taking me to the triple feature of biker films in 1969

PS 75 for the non-archival construction paper

My brother Joquin Ives Brant for getting me on a gas mini bike when I was 11 and then for getting me on the back of a Jap bike

The homeless who ply West 100th Street searching and choosing

And my childhood friend (and unicycle riding partner) Rob Hoover, who got me into acquiring and riding motorcycles at the ripe age of 29. We still ride to this day

The Filmmaker would like to thank:

Linus Coraggio

Bernardo Palombo and El Taller Latino Americano

James Szalapski

David K. Irving

Linda Freeman

Hell’s Angels on Wheels (1965) Public Domain

The Artists of the Lower East Side who’s stories remain untold

The film is dedicated to my

Biker Brother Richard J. Campbell

(1959-2014)