While some resistance to such an exhibit might have been expected, the idea of motorcycles in the Guggenheim hardly should have seemed surprising by 1998. The museum’s exhibit actually had been in the works since about 1990—when the motorcycle resurgence, at least for the revived Harley-Davidson Motor Company, was just gaining momentum. In an earlier time, more observers might have agreed with the critics, that motorcycles should not tread on such hallowed ground or that they are not worthy of such celebration. Such reservations would have been due in part to outlaw and other deviant associations often connected with motorcycles in years past.
By the 1990’s, however, these associations increasingly were offset by the changing image of bikers. The defenders of high culture still might reject motorcycles as noisy, dirty, and perhaps trendy playthings for the commoners. But on balance, the images of motorcycling and bikers had shifted far enough toward the socially acceptable and even desirable that the idea of motorcycles in the Guggenheim became feasible.
Exhibits on motorcycles presuppose their objects as cultural phenomena. Certainly, a motorcycle is a cultural phenomenon, even if it is considered simply as a basic mode of transportation. But the added meanings that often are attached to the machines, and which will be explored below, infuse motorcycles with additional cultural significance.
While the motorcycle has always been a functional means of transportation, it also developed as a symbol for freedom and individuality, among other things, and as such has been at times viewed with apprehension and at other times celebrated with enthusiasm. Motorcycles traditionally have been associated more with the young, the working class, and the deviant. These associations have recently been replaced, or at least overshadowed, by images of the middle-aged, the middle class, and respectable conformity. Thus, motorcycles—and Harley-Davidsons in particular—have traveled a road from disrepute to Main Street.
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