This is a rather famous art piece called Bicycle Wheel by Marcel Duchamp. I had the pleasure of seeing it in person at the MOMA on my trip to New York. I thought he could have used a chromed fork and a nicer wheel for added drama, but of course that wasn't the aim at all.
This is the gallery label:
Although Duchamp had collected manufactured objects in his studio in Paris, it was not until he came to New York that he identified them as a category of art, giving the English name "Readymade" to any object purchased "as a sculpture already made." When he modified these objects, for example by mounting a bicycle wheel on a kitchen stool, he called them "Assisted Readymades." Duchamp later recalled that the original Bicycle Wheel was created as a "distraction": "I enjoyed looking at it, just as I enjoy looking at the flames dancing in a fireplace."