Looking for a little mid-winter culture? How about a way to kill three birds with one stone? You can absorb some contemporary art, visit a lavish presidential library and check out some pretty cool custom choppers at the same time.
Tom Zimberoff – an accomplished photojournalist and creator of one of the best-selling motorcycle-related art books of all time, Art of the Chopper – has made that possible with his exhibit at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. It’s an exhibition of 29 custom-built choppers built by Arlen Ness, Shinya Kimura, Indian Larry and other big names in the chopper-building scene accompanied by Zimberoff’s fine photography and writing.
Why do a show about choppers? And why at the Clinton center? Zimberoff sees the chopper as “an art form as indigenous to America as Jazz or Rock ‘n’ Roll,” an example of individual expression. In contrast, the famous Art of the Motorcycle exhibit shown at the Guggenheim and other venues around the world beginning in the late 1990s was more of an exploration of “the evolution of 20th-century design using motorcycles as a metaphor,” according to Zimberoff, so “it would be as inaccurate to say that their exhibition and ours have motorcycles in common as it would be to say that two separate shows of Renoir and Warhol have paintings in common.” As for having the show at the Clinton library, it’s more about serendipity: “Someone on staff likes motorcycles and they called us.”
The motorcycles aren’t in galleries like a traditional art show. Instead, they are scattered through the museum on three floors. There are two main display areas, with one of the bikes proudly parked outside the Oval Office replica. The bikes are set on custom-made pedestals using invisible wires to hold them upright for maximum effect, with huge portraits of the artists nearby.
If you’re burnt out on choppers – like I was about 15 minutes after the “chopper craze” started – you should still be excited by these chopper builders. Each could accurately be described as visionary or pioneering. Shinya Kimura’s rides, for instance, are tough, industrial and almost post-apocalyptic in their construction and materials, rather than being the over-painted, over-chromed bling-buckets one sees so often on TV. Zimberoff conveys his appreciation and enthusiasm for this unique art form and it’s worth a look. The show continues until February 8th, 2009.
More about the Clinton Presidential Center.
More about Art of the Chopper.
