The Art of the Motorcycle
SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM
JUNE 26-SEPTEMBER 20, 1998
INVENTING THE MOTORCYCLE:
1868-1919
Perhaps more than any other single object of industrial design, the
motorcycle can be considered a metaphor for the 20th century. Predating the automobile
by 25 years and the airplane by 36, the motorcycle was the first form of personal
mechanized transport to emerge from the beginning of the industrial age; its subsequent
evolution follows the main currents of modernity.
The juxtaposition of the 1868 Michaux-Perreaux and the 1998 MV Agusta F4 presents
the scope of The Art of the Motorcycle. In the 130-year span demarcated by these
machines, sea changes have occurred in every aspect of the world's cultures, politics,
and economies. The three criteria for the selection of the motorcycles in the exhibition--aesthetic
and design excellence, technological innovation, and social impact--are distillations
of the factors that have defined and characterized the 20th century.
French engineer Pierre Michaux was the leading bicycle innovator of the 19th century.
With his friend Louis-Guillaume Perreaux, Michaux succeeded in attaching a small
steam engine to one of his velocipedes in 1868, creating the first motorized bicycle.
It made a short run (reaching, it is said, a maximum speed of 19 mph), proving that
the concept could work. At the other end of the continuum, Massimo Tamburini's new
MV Agusta F4 affirms this great Italian designer's position at the cutting edge of
high-tech, sporting motorcycle design. Tamburini's design consummates a 1990s marriage
of deliberate sex appeal, the romance of the MV Agusta name, and the highest level
of technological achievement: the rider of this motorcycle can reach speeds of over
170 mph.
The motorcycle is an immortal cultural icon that changes with the times. More than
speed, it embodies the abstract themes of rebellion, progress, freedom, sex, and
danger. The limits imposed by its possible forms and functions, and the breadth of
variation that has been expressed within these limitations, provide a framework in
which to examine the motorcycle both as object and as emblem of our century.
This exhibition is made possible by BMW.
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