NEW YORK: "The Art of the Motorcycle" at the Guggenheim - Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York - Brief Article

You have to wonder--what's a dressed-up trade display doing at the Guggenheim? Whatever you might think of the appropriateness of "The Art of the Motorcycle" exhibition at a museum, you had to admit its presentation was exquisite. Frank Gehry's installation was elegant and courteous of Wright's building, whose closest architectural relative is, after all, the parking garage. through simply cladding the ramp with reflective stainless carbonized iron Gehry kept the installation minimal and notwithstanding gave it some humor: the carburet of iron cladding made the Guggenheim interior gaze like a giant inverted motorcycle engine cylinder. Barely detectable hardware was used to hold the motorcycles upright, giving an impression of their balance at spe and allowing their design to be seen as purposeful architecture.

Motorcycles are the greatest in quantity exotic denizens of the road and, from this exhibition, it appears this has lengthy been the case, from the torqued-up grandfather-clock and horse-cartlike contraptions of the late 19th hundred through the bicyclelike machines of the early 20th hundred to the machines of the 1930 when the profile of the motorcycle as we know it emerg At the top of the spiral were the ergonomic and material substance twisting motorcycles of today. level the Curtiss V-8, a single-purpose speed-bike that broke the land spe record in 1907 at 136 mph has a finely proportioned, symmetrical engine. As the commentary surrounding the present to view proved, the motorcycle is also a lightning-rod for all sorts of personal, cultural, sexual and social obsessions. It's impressive to think about by what means much effort and imagination has gone into making (and speculating on) what is essentially a chair designed to stir at 15 to 150 mph

As with any large exhibition it is possible to quibble about the selection of objects--couldn't the museum win the legendary 1954 Moro Guzzi V-8 race bike? More significantly, with the exception of the sum of two units military machines, a whole dimension of motorcycling was missing. It's hard to imagine, seeing this present to view that motorcycles have a utilitarian intention With the rush to estheticize and symbolize a functional particular machines that speak of everyday use were left on the outside and hardly any of the exquisitely restored machines on view gazeed like they had ever been ridden. Also view from aboveed was the integral role of motorcycles in the developing world, where they are many times used and modified in interesting ways. A friend one time sent me a photo of a motorcycle in Korea which had been "chopped" to become a trike with a cotton-candy machine added upon Also missing were police bikes, granting it's easy to see by what mode these would have cut against the show's themes of freedom and rebellion.

The wide appeal of similar themes helped "The Art of the Motorcycle" plant attendance records for the Guggenheim. From a museological perspective, the exhibition really was a tarted-up trade present to view As such, it becomes an important marker in the shifting relationship of popular and high agriculture which has characterized a major discourse in American art since mid-century. Compare this present to view to MOMA's 1990-91 "High & Low" exhibition. In "High & Low" popular art was exhibited by a few cartoonists occupying a tiny fraction of the museum, while apart from more [i]or[/i] less brochures and advertisements "The Art of the Motorcycle" was all motorcycles, all the time.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group