Czech artist David Cerny has managed to make an object that, when you look at it, immediately conveys the concepts of "London" and "athletics." Which is handy, since he made it for the London Olympics. The sculpture, a full-sized '57 Austin Roadmaster double-decker bus outfitted with huge red arms, is currently outside the Czech Olympic HQ in Islington, London.
The bus is fully mechanized, and the hydraulic arms, all glistening and muscular, lift the 6.5 ton bus in a tireless series of push ups.
Cerny actually has some previous bus-related experience, creating a delightful bus stop in the Czech Republic.
The artist says he's playing on the idea of push-ups as both a very common exercise and punishment, and the action is accompanied by an audio track of the bus grunting and straining. It's possible it may make you aroused as well. That's your business.
Even though he comes off as a bit of a dick when he says of the sculpture "It's actually meant for all fat Americans, they could sort of exercise to get skinnier," I suspect that's just the artist trying to get a rise out of folks, something he's had some experience with.
I think it's a brillant, fun piece and I'd love to be able to see it. Maybe with some slight modifications it could swim the Atlantic, then laboriously crawl across the US for a goodwill tour. He said he made it for us, after all.
(Thanks, Mikeado!)