Motorcycle Or Masterpiece?

When does a motorcycle become a work of art? At what point is a bike builder elevated to master sculptor status? Is it a matter of aesthetics? Intention? Or is it simply a question of context? When four custom bikes from Japanese builder Chicara Nagata appear in Chelsea's gleaming Ippodo Gallery-each with a $1 million price tag hanging from its hand-turned drag bar-has the lowly chopper officially become Pop Art?

Nagata's art-world creds are rock-solid. He first found fame as a graphic artist in the early '80s, before dedicating his talents to custom motorcycles a decade later. His strikingly elegant creations-combining steel, aluminum, lead, brass and leather-are stunning. Fusing vintage components with modern design and hand-crafted construction techniques, Nagata's retro-future bikes have been awarded, among other accolades, the top prize in the AMD World Championship of Custom Bike Building.

Stratospheric price tags seem less shocking when you consider that each of Nagata's creations represent a claimed 7500 hours of effort. With the exception of the obscure vintage motors (pictured examples feature a '42 Harley-Davidson WLA flathead, a Japanese-made '50 Meguro single and a '66 Honda moped), everything on Nagata's bikes is hand-wrought. The unique suspension systems are endemic as well. Whether or not the engineering is sound is questionable (and largely irrelevant, given the likelihood that any of these bikes will ever see the road), though Nagata insists that his machines remain fully operational. Aesthetically speaking, however, the bottomless chrome, artfully distressed leather and lustrous Japanese lacquer is indisputable.

So, is it a commodity or curiosity? We still can't say, though in this economy investing your last million in moto-art might make more sense that spending it on stocks or mortgages. At least you'd have something nice looking to ride to the apocalypse, when the last Ponzi pyramid finally crashes down.