Il Centenario - Una Storia
(The 100th Giro - A Story)
Photos:
Dan Sharp
Story:
Joe Staples
Max Erdenberger
Jeremy Dunn
Take a look at it one more time. It is a little sped, up, but that is just because I know you want to actually get one for yourself. Spend a little time with it. Because this is what this art deserves. But think about the bicycle races that you have been to while you watch it. Think about what it feels like to attend them.
You wake up in the morning and head out to the spot where you know you can watch the race unfold. If you live somewhere like France, or in this case Italy, others may be doing the same thing. Getting in their cars and driving out to similar spots. You will know some of them by their Faema supporters jackets, scarfs, or maybe a cycle cap. On the other hand if you are living somewhere in the Midwestern United States and you are heading out to watch bike racing you might be doing it alone.
Either way, find a spot where you know the race will pass and wait.
Then the race will come. Sometimes it will be followed by the sound of a helicopter, but it will always have a car or motorcycle out front leading the way. Hopefully you are on a mountaintop and get more than a passing glimpse of this spectacular parade.
At the finish line everyone is waiting. Everyone that has come from miles around are all gathered to welcome their hero, whomever it may be, into their arms. The others slink away to try and come back and do it again the next day.
And then as you return to your home via your car, a train or three cafes you are left with those images. Those brief and hopefully vivid memories of the day.
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The real reason why I was psyched to go to Dan Sharp's Show the other night was a little more selfish than I made it out to be. And maybe that is wrong. You see, I was involved in the creation of this printed piece that you see in the video. Mr. Joe Staples told me of his idea to help Dan Sharp create a piece with his photos from his trip to Italy (I might be wrong here, but there was something like 5,000 photos that they started with.) And this little beauty (the above publication) is the result.
So, Joe together with Max Erdenberger went through the process of selecting photos that told this story of the daily attending of a race. This is the pared down version of what really went into it, but I would only confuse you with their ruckus tale of mathmatics combined with really, really good taste.* Aside: One of the cool things is that they did this with the entire collection of Giro photos from this year, making all kinds of small stories come out along the way.
Then they went back through (and this is where I got to come in and help) and started to flesh out the story that was to be told through this piece. I didn't really help all that much aside from pointing to photos and saying "Yes! I love that photo" (which was a lot) and "Hrm, I don't know if that works here?"
The result is Il Centenario - Una Storia and it is pretty damn awesome.
Get one: ampersandvintage@mac.com ask for Myles.
And stay tuned while we try to find another venue to show these photos as Vanilla had to get back to work...ha!
Max's Twitter photo alone would shame both Lemond and Millar into giving back their entire Oakley collections.
(also, this is the first Vanilla Sacha White built)