An Exhibition About the Bicycle as a Utopia.

The Easy Rider Road Show shows the wild, subversive side of cycling and the strong bond that cycling can create between people. With photographic projects from the limits of the means of transport, the exhibition project wants to stimulate utopian thinking and raise the question of where the bike can take us.

The Easy Rider Road Show started in the first part (Vol. 1) as an exhibition on bicycles about bicycles. The mobile exhibition toured Berlin on five converted cargo bikes every weekend in August and September, stopping at previously announced locations. Unfolded like the solar sails of a spaceship, it unfolded into a photo exhibition in the middle of an urban space. Now the cargo bikes are exhibited in the Märkisches Museum. They are at the center of the second part (Vol. 2) of the Easy Rider Road Show, which has a place in the museum as an extended special exhibition.

The pictures shown by international photographers tell stories of subcultures and communities that explore the world by bike. The photographs lead around the world: to an annual festival of self-made bicycles in New York and to a youthful bicycle movement in London, which crosses the British capital by “wheelie” – the front wheel in the air. In Mexico City, former gang members discovered their love for extraordinary bicycles, and in Berlin, punks fight against each other on high bikes in a kind of knight tournament.

Cycling is not just a form of transportation. Cycling culture is in constant interaction with fashion, music, design, politics, urban planning and traffic concepts. Cycling is a way of life and a protest. When many people ride bicycles, changes are initiated. The bicycle has the potential to change life in the city and, in the end, even the city itself. The Easy Rider Road Show presents the bicycle as a vehicle for collective action, as a promise of freedom and as a good luck charm.

The exhibition at Märkisches Museum will be accompanied by film screenings and discussion events, please visit stadtmuseum.de for details.

The Photo Projects

The photographer Tod Seelie already took photographs of the first New York Bike Kill in 2002. Since then, he has never missed a single annual meet-up celebrating the »mutant bicycle«. In this regular event punks present their self-made bicycle constructions and compete against each other. Seelie, a bicycle enthusiast himself, also takes part in the Easy Rider Road Show with another series about riding bicycles as a community and also the Cuban bike enthusiast Félix Ramón Guirola Cepero. The latter builds record-breaking penny-farthing bicycles.

Julie Glassberg accompanied the members of the Black Label Bike Clubs for years which organise the Bike Kills. This was the only way that she was able to portray this media-weary group behind the scenes and to show the anarchist community known for the wild performance of the Bike Kill.

The Bike Wars that take place in Berlin Kreuzberg are similar to the competitions of the Bike Kill. Here, too, only one person will be left in the saddle by the end of the contest. The Bike Wars are the equivalent of dancing pogo on a bicycle. Christophe Gateau documented punks doing just that.

The London BikeStormz have long outgrown their subcultural nature. Thousands of young mostly male participants join this ride. This movement has the objective to keep adolescents from drugs and violence and motivate them with acrobatic biking. »Knives down, bikes up« is their slogan, an allusion to the many youths who fall victim to stabbings in London. Adam Corbett documented the wild style of the London Bike Life.

The Chilangos Low Bike Club presents its own bicycle aesthetic. Mexican immigrants in the USA modified their rides and transformed them into chrome-plated »lowriders«. Coming from the poorest boroughs of Mexcio City the Chilangos are against crime and drugs. They ride through the city every Sunday to take a stand against the stereotype that all inhabitants of the slums are criminals. The French photographer Jeoffrey Guillemard also accompanied the members of the club in their everyday lives

The Easy Rider Road Show is a project of the musuku (Museum of Subcultures) in cooperation with the Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation. A newspaper was published for the exhibition. It will be distributed free of charge during the Easy Rider Road Show tours, is displayed in the Märkisches Museum and can be requested as a PDF from ed.uk1657181157usum@1657181157esser1657181157p1657181157.

Nov 13, 2021 — Mar 27, 2022
+ Framework program, see museum website:

Märkisches Museum | Stadtmuseum Berlin

Am Köllnischen Park 5, 10179 Berlin
[District: Mitte | Borough: Mitte]

Opening hours: Tue – Fri 12 – 6 pm, Sat & Sun 10 am – 6 pm

Admission: 7 € / reduced 5 € (incl. audio guide in English), free admission under 18 years & every first Wednesday of a month