Good News And Bad
Good news and bad
UP FRONT
David Edwards
LORDY, THE VIN-ET-FROMAGE SET MUST be reeling. Right there in New York City's acclaimed Guggenheim Museum, a sanctified space usually reserved for Picassos, Calders and Oldenburgs, are all these, these...motorcycles, everything from an 1868 Michaux-Perreaux steamer to the sultry new MV Agusta F4.
Not such a surprise, really, this "The Art of the Motorcycle" exhibit. From its opening in 1959, the Gug genheim has courted controversy, not the least of which was the brouhaha over the building itself. Penned by Frank Lloyd Wright, it's a masterwork of organic architecture built around a huge, spiral-ramp display area. Stuffed shirts thought it looked like a vacation condo for Ming the Merci less; overly egocentric artists were fearful the surroundings would over shadow their work.
In that spirit of shaking things up, then, Thomas Krens, director of the Guggenheim Foundation, cleared the way for this exhibit, which runs through September 20. "As an institu tion, (the Guggenheim) has broad ened its mission to encompass a fuller exploration of 20th-century culture in all its manifestations," he says. "The motorcycle embodies so many of the themes of this century-technology, speed, rebellion, transformation-that it serves as an ideal vehicle, if you will, for just such an exploration."
The New York Times sent art critic Michael Kimmelman to the opening, which could have been a disaster. A life-long Manhattanite, Kimmelman probably doesn't own a car, and freely admits the closest he's come to a mo torcycle was riding a rental scooter at a Mexican resort. Not to worry.
"With 113 motorcycles, it is much too big," writes Kimmelman in his review of the show, "but many of the bikes in it are really great to look at, and you don't have to have a tattoo or know what a single-overhead-cam valvegear with enclosed rockers is to admire them. I suspect that men who have been dragged to Monet exhibi tions over the years will seek re venue here."
Highlights?
"The bright orange-and-white 1911 Flying Merkel summons to mind tinted-postcard images of barber-shop quartets, brass bands and summer fairs. I picture a snake-oil salesman, in boater hat and high col lar, riding one...The huge 1948 Indi an Chief, the apex of mid-century kitsch, in the same way encapsulates America's extravagant post-war spir it. It's the motorcycle equivalent of the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami.. .1 must mention the show-stopper, a 1925 Bohmerland, a Czech novelty resembling a circus prop. Red and yellow, it has a wooden sidecar in the shape of a rocket and is bigger than many automobiles. The museum label says the bike carries six people. That seems a small exaggeration. Six clowns maybe."
Entertainment value notwithstand ing, Kimmelman validates the mo torcycle as worthy of inclusion in one of the world's great art muse ums. You and I, of course, knew this all along.
"Yes, it is weird to find motorcy cles in the Guggenheim, which has never done anything quite like this before, but American museums have always shown objects of design," he states. "And anyway, much of the art in the Metropolitan, never mind the Modern or the Cooper-Hewitt (muse ums), originally had a practical pur pose, whether it was a bowl or a chariot. Motorcycles, better than many things, illustrate technology and taste as they have evolved to gether in the 20th century, which is an issue basic to modern art." I WISH YOU COULD HAVE KNOWN DIRK Vandenberg. You'd have liked him. Almost everybody did.
Vandenberg, 48, was manager of American Honda's product-evaluation department, supervising development of all ATV, scooter, streetbike and offroad models. He died this past May 27 in a testing accident at California's Willow Springs Raceway. Also killed in the incident was Joe Boyd, 49, a se nior engineer for Honda R&D. The tragedy is still under investigation so details are wanting, but it seems that Joe had ventured onto the track to take photos when Dirk collided with him. Both were pronounced dead within the hour.
Dirk was a mechanical whiz from his high-school days, when he and a classmate took third place in Plym outh's national Trouble-Shooting Contest. He was also a crack off-road rider, competing in e~duros in and around his native Michigan. Follow ing college, he spent three years as a working mechanic and an instructor, then in 1976 joined Honda as a ser vice representative. Dirk's technical prowess and his riding abilities even tually earned him the title of Chief Evaluator, the only person at Ameri can Honda ever to hold that position.
Résumé entries aside, there may not have been a better practical joker in the business. Dirk was master of the impromptu drop-trou moon, king of the intentional backfire, lord of the centerstand-drag/road-kill punt (a sight to behold as long as you weren't directly behind) and an absolute ace with a compressed-air potato cannon. Once, on a Cycle World off-road ride I'm proud to say, he fired up the Kawasaki PR guy's KX250 and wheelied it off a diving board right into the gankiest, frog-in fested swimming pool in all of the Baja peninsula. (Dirk, who'd taken some pre-plunge precautions, had the bike dried out and running good as new minutes later.)
More important, Dirk was one of an increasingly rare bunch: a motorcycle industry professional who never, ever forgot-focus groups, marketing stud ies, sales charts and in-house egos be damned-that motorcycles are all about having fun.
He will be missed. And how.
