The unusual move to place motorcycles in the Guggenheim came from director Thomas Krens, himself a motorcycling enthusiast, supported by a novel corporate tie-in with BMW. The motorcycles were chosen by experts including Krens, physicist and motorcycling historian Charles Falco, Guggenheim advisers Ultan Guilfoyle and Manon Slone, and others. The exhibition was described by historian Jeremy Packer as representing the end of a cycle of demonization and social rejection of motorcyclists, followed by acceptance and reintegration that had begun with the mythologized Hollister riot of 1947 and ended with the high-end marketing of motorcycles and the newly fashionable biker image of the 1980s and 1990s.Packer (2008) pp 154-159 Or at least the show served as "a long-overdue celebration of the sport, the machines and the pioneers they love."McCraw (1998)
