A motorcycle salvaged from the beach at Branscombe after the MSC Napoli was shipwrecked in 2007 has been turned into a piece of public art.
The BMW is mounted on a concrete model of the Napoli inside a glass case at the side of the river Danube in Austria. The installation is the creation of artist Christian Kosmas Mayer and is named Cycles Galore!
Christian had been fascinated by the 2007 Napoli disaster and the scenes that followed, when people descended on the East Devon beach to salvage some of the ship’s cargo, including unused BMW motorcycles.
To create the artwork, Christian managed to track down three men who had retrieved one of the motorcycles. After establishing that BMW had relinquished any claim on the machine he bought the bike, which had never been driven, and had it shipped to Austria.
The site of the artwork is an emergency mooring area where ships on the Danube can stop if they are in danger. The story of the shipwreck and the motorcycle’s salvage from the beach is told in a panel on the BMW’s numberplate.
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