The Artwork of the Bike – The Again Story

Curator Ultan Guilfoyle offers the actual story behind the preferred exhibit within the Guggenheim Museum’s historical past, and an important bike exhibition, ever. 

[ Editor’s Note: I met Ultan Guilfoyle in 1998 during the original run of The Art of the Motorcycle run at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC.  Several members of the Brough Superior Club lived in or near New York, and one had loaned his spectacular SS100 for the exhibit, so arranged an after-hours private tour guided by the Ultan, the co-curator of AotM and the Film Curator at the Guggenheim.  A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: I flew across the country.  Descending through Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic spiral at night with its halls full of gorgeous motorcycles was dream-like.  Ultan brought it down to earth with funny and ribald stories behind the exhibit, the bikes, their owners, and the intense process of putting it all together.  We’ve since become good friends, so I interviewed him in 2018 – the 20th anniversary of the exhibit – and while I published his hilarious story of Christo and the Wrapped Vespa, this is the first time – on the 25th anniversary of AotM – that I’ve published the interview in its entirety.  Enjoy! ]

So, how did The Artwork of the Bike come about?

It was Thomas Krens’ thought. I used to be making a movie about Frank Lloyd Wright for the Guggenheim for British TV, with Richard Rogers the architect.  Richard and I have been in NYC making the movie, and Tom Krens had us as much as his workplace for lunch.  He’s an enormous talkative man and has large concepts, and we obtained to speaking about motorbikes. I mentioned I rode a Norton in NYC, and he rode a BMW.  A bit later we had a gathering in his workplace, and he pushed a chunk of paper to me, a one-page ‘historical past of the bike.’  It began, ‘Ever for the reason that bike was invented in 1901…’ and I mentioned “That is nice however Harley-Davidson didn’t invent the bike!”  I went again to London and began wanting into books – and again then you may purchase books that truly mentioned H-D invented the bike!  Pre-Web.  I went to a bookstore in Tottenham Court docket Highway [Motor Books – now sadly closed] that specialised in motoring books. I didn’t spend greater than an hour rewriting his remedy; this was 1991 or 2.  I despatched Tom again a be aware thanking him for entertaining Richard and me, and despatched him a rewrite of his remedy with corrections.

Quick ahead to 1996; I’d moved to NYC to arrange a movie division on the Guggenheim. I’d carried out a movie on Claus Oldenburg/Richard Rauschenberg for them, it was imagined to be a component time job however after all grew to become full time.  Tom referred to as me to his workplace and mentioned ‘Keep in mind that bike remedy? I’m going to do it.’  BMW was an enormous sponsor of the Guggenheim, and wished to do an enormous German Expressionist exhibit, however Tom didn’t need to do it, as everybody was doing ‘finish of millennium’ reveals, so an enormous survey at the moment was a non-starter.  Tom responded with ‘What I can do for BMW is a survey of the 20^th Century Bike, it could be one of the crucial necessary surveys for a century of the bike, as now we have room for 100 bikes.’ He turned to me and mentioned “You’re going to curate it!”  I mentioned ‘No method!’ I used to be busy filming in China and the Gulf and likewise working on the Guggenheim, however he mentioned ‘You recognize bikes, you do movies,’ and we argued forwards and backwards for six or 9 weeks, and I heard myself saying ‘Sure.’  And thought, what the fuck have I carried out?

I knew Charlie Falco by way of a Brit Iron chat group – folks in search of components for his or her Brit bikes.  Charles emailed me noting my Guggenheim electronic mail deal with, requested if we might meet, as his spouse is an artwork historian, he’s involved in artwork, and will we see the Ellsworth Kelly exhibit on the Guggenheim?  “I can do higher, I’ll provide you with a guided tour and introduce you to Ellsworth.” I mentioned to Tom Krens, we want historic underpinnings to each choice we make for a motorbike exhibit, and this man Charles has each guide ever printed within the English language about bikes.  Tom and I within the meantime made standards for any bike within the exhibit:

1. Needed to have historic significance – being first or no matter
2. Real engineering innovation
3. Have made a cultural mark
4. Design qualities – look good, a designed object

I referred to as Charlie Falco and requested if he’d co-curate, he fell round laughing, saying there’s no method you are able to do this!  However he despatched a guidelines of an important bikes of the 20^th century,  going again to the 19^th century.  That guidelines was over 400 bikes lengthy!  We pared it down, and obtained the Michaux from Paris, the bicycle historians have been yelling at us, saying it’s a bicycle, however we felt it was the primary bike.  Mike Fitzsimons yelled at me for together with the bike.

We constructed up the guidelines, and located [French motorcycle historian] Bernard Salvat.  We referred to as George Barber, went to his museum, landed in Birmingham, and thought, ‘our prayers are answered, he has all the things.’  However after all, he doesn’t!  However he grew to become the primary necessary loaner, with Brian Slark, who helped develop the Commando, so our British assets have been good.  We had our listing right down to 150 bikes at that time.  We contacted Otis Chandler about his museum, he supplied to fly me out, and he was a serious determine in twentieth Century American bikes, and actually knew his bikes, and all the blokes with board trackers and so on.  Otis grew to become our second large determine within the exhibition – he introduced severe heft to the exhibit, and referred to as necessary folks.  I referred to as David Edwards at Cycle World, which was an enormous deal then, I knew he had a 12 months one Honda 750-4, and requested if he’d be on the advisory group, and he mentioned ‘What museum is that this?’, I mentioned the Solomon R Guggenheim museum; ‘Is {that a} new bike museum?’  No it’s the Guggenheim, ‘Your’re pulling my leg! You’re fucking kidding.’ “I’d such as you to be on our advisory committee.”  ‘Wow, I by no means thought I’d see the day.’  He was our third necessary collector, they have been the three ‘will get’ for America.

Within the meantime Charlie advised we should discuss to Bernard Salvat.  I communicate French, so we flew to Paris, had lunch on the Brasserie du Nord, took the TGV to Dijon, and the subsequent morning Bernard picked us up and took us to the Burgundy hinterlands.  We went to his farm and he has a bunch of books and bikes, however mentioned “We don’t have time to take a look at bikes, I’ve booked us lunch at a 3-star restaurant.”  We had a four-bottle lunch, and there have been 2 gendarmes leaning on the automotive – his nephew and a cousin!  We took off burning rubber, and I assumed ‘I’m positively going to die.’ We knocked off 10 necessary bikes from our listing, and Bernard had his personal listing of who had the necessary bikes.  The #1 Velosolex, and so on.  Then we went to Bologna to talk with Ducati, who loaned us nice stuff.  Then to Munich, they have been extremely gracious; the director of the BMW Museum, Christian Eich, was implausible, a former design engineer at BMW, who was requested to run the museum, and fortunately took the job.  On account of that, he was bringing his complete household together with in-laws over [to NYC] on the Concorde, and it was the one which crashed; they have been all killed. Eich was in a position to take all of the BMWs we wanted, together with the primary Paris-Dakar bike – sitting in his workplace – he mentioned ‘It’s a must to take this.’  We went to Neckarsulm Museum [Deutsches Zweirad Museum], and Rome, and Spain, and one after the other we picked off our bikes.  We had our 150 bikes and wrangled with Tom Krens and Frank Gehry, who had by no means designed an exhibition earlier than.  The Bilbao had simply opened to huge worldwide fanfare, and I used to be filming the method.  Lufthansa was our world sponsor, and we all the time flew via Munich to satisfy with BMW.

Frank [Gehry] approaching was wonderful, he cherished the rotunda, and the spiral, which had implications for all types of design.  And he created the inside as a cylinder, as in for a motor, and clad the inside with polished stainless-steel, if you stood inside it was this wonderful reflective floor. It was trendy to say Krens sullied the Guggenheim with trend and bikes, and naturally it was an enormous hit.  Customization was a very excessive curiosity for us, the board trackers and customized Indians and so on.  We sat in NYC with Miguel Galluzzi to debate the Monster, the bare customized road rockets in LA and the Pasadena artwork faculty.  The customized factor was an undercurrent of the exhibit, however we caught to the design, industrial design, with a small subsection about customized. Since this was mainstream it was a subplot, aside from ‘The Wild One’ (with clips screened on the Las Vegas Guggenheim exhibit); we referred to the iconography.

Herbert Muschamp, design editor of the NYTimes, gave us a spectacular assessment, Roberta Smith referred to as us a literal blockbuster, it was usually nicely obtained.  There was some snootiness although.  The Met will get away with the Met Gala as a result of they’ve the style institute, however why ought to they get a free experience on design?  However different folks stick up their nostril.  If the Whitney did the present Vatican present on the Met, they might be excoriated!  The Guggenheim’s second largest exhibit was the Frank Gehry exhibit – The Artwork of the Bike was the most important.  We felt very safe, we did it in an intensive method, it was a very well researched present, and the favored response was off the charts. Then we took it to Bilbao – a Million guests in 11 months, they normally get 200k/12 months, and Las Vegas, and the Subject Museum in Chicago – they’d an exhibit fall off the bed [that made space for AotM].  We had mortgage agreements with the lenders, and requested in the event that they minded if we stored them in Chicago earlier than we transfer them to Bilbao?  We stored all of Otis’ bikes in NYC solely although, and a few of Barber Museum’s.  That meant I put my very own Norton commando within the Chicago exhibit.

What was the influence of The Artwork of the Bike?

It was extraordinary.  Once we have been placing collectively the present, we determined so as to add ephemera – advertisements, popular culture – in circumstances so folks might see what was occurring in and across the tradition of bikes.  We additionally did  a decade by decade timeline, for every bay of the Guggenheim.  So I researched what was occurring in every decade, the necessary cultural factors, and would all the time put a motorbike into that timeline to cement within the viewer’s thoughts that bike had an necessary place in that timeline.  If you need a signature shift of the 20^th century, it was motion.  As much as that time, folks hadn’t moved, and one of the crucial necessary causes was the bike, it was reasonably priced transport.  Within the Czech republic I noticed a household of 4 folks on a sidecar with all the things they owned on the bike, and that was typical of the bike’s function of the world within the early 20^th Century.  We wished to mirror that.

After the exhibit, producers of all the things from excessive finish design, particularly clothes, jumped on the bike as one thing they might use of their advertising and marketing.  Cycle World did a chunk on that with Dave, and Honda requested me to present a chat to Honda sellers.  Gary Christopher was head of Honda Sports activities, and the push behind the Bike Trade Council being created to counter H-D’s maintain on Congress.  Honda understood the significance of the exhibit by way of their advertising and marketing, so now we’re speaking to hedge fund varieties who’ll splash out tens of 1000’s on a cool bike: Honda obtained it.  In lockstep with that was the most effective promoting coming from Italy – Ducati, the Castiglioni brothers actually understood it, and so they had a younger American Madison Ave sort who went loopy and did great advertising and marketing, all primarily based across the change of notion round bikes after the exhibition.  BMW did the identical, in their very own method, with their garments and so on.

Inform me the story about Christo!

I get a name from Jeanne-Claude [the artist Christo’s lifelong partner]; ‘Is that the Walton Gulfooly fellow?’ “Sure.” ‘That is Jean-Claude, I hear you’re having an exhibit of bikes.  We’ve got a Vespa.’  “What 12 months?” ‘1958.’ “The place is it, what coloration?” ‘It’s in my lounge, come have a look at it.’ I got here by, their assistant let me in; it was lined in fabric.  I requested if I might peek in – I used to be attempting to type what coloration. I advised we unwrap it for the exhibit – ‘How dare you!  You insult the historical past of our work!  This can be a essential piece!’  She referred to as Thomas Krens, who referred to as again, ‘I’d like to have your Vespa, however we’ll must unwrap it.” ‘You’re an outrage! ‘ and slammed down the cellphone.  I noticed them throughout their Central Park exhibit, she mentioned, ‘You’re not that bike man are you?  You’re a shame!’  However Christo mentioned ‘I cherished that exhibit!’ They’re each gone now, however I feel you’ll be able to nonetheless borrow the scooter…wrapped. [Note: Ultan and Charles Falco teamed up once again for a follow-up exhibit in Australia, ‘The Motorcycle: Design> Art> Desire’: read our article here]