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A show of motorcycles is the biggest hit ever at the Guggenheim Museum. Does this mean art is dead? BY PETER PLAGENS
LL SUMMER LONG, RECORD CROWDS HAVE STREAMED into the Guggenheim Museum's famous spiral-ramp building by Frank Lloyd Wright in New York. They've been coming to look at motorcycles-more than 100 of them, from the alpha of a rickety, steam-powered 1868 French velocipede to the omega of a hot new Italian street rocket that looks as if only a Power Ranger could ride it. And lots in between: a 1925 Czech Bohmerland with a wooden sidecar, a bigengined British Black Shadow and a rapaciously red 1950s Harley-Davidson Sportster-the kind of bike that just screams the word "motorcycle." The sleek installation by world-class architect Frank Gehry fits right in with the fact that the Guggenheim isn't exhibiting high art but some pretty mean machines. "The Art of the Motorcycle" is the single most popular exhibition in the museum's 61-year history; by the time it ends a three-month run on Sept. 20, it's expected to have drawn 280,000 people.
But some people are talking as if the Guggenheim is running motocross races up its ramps to the cheers of gangs of Hells Angels. Cultural harumpher Hilton Kramer wrote in The New York Observer, "As between the noisy, nasty nuisance of...