Hadrian's Tomb was built because the Tomb of Augustus was full. Record numbers of recently dead attend the opening--Leaving Obscurity Behind indeed.
Otto's speech? Impeccable! "It appears we should add some Cret paper to the roster."
The induction ceremony of new members of the Horace Trumbauer Fan Club thrilled all.
Dr. Albert C. Barnes and Susan Sontag
It was great seeing Le Corbusier slap Barnes around during the initiation.
[Le Corbusier, too, while on a lecture tour in America, was a victim of the doctor's bad manners, though he almost had a chance to see the collection. His application for admission, he was informed at first, was approved--for a date and time specified by Barnes. When the architect replied that the time was not suitable because of a previously scheduled lecture, however, Barnes was offended. He wanted a fight. In a letter accusing Corbusier of being drunk during his stay in Philadelphia, he informed him that he was no longer welcome at the foundation. The architect's reply was conciliatory. He was not interested in quarreling with Barnes, he wrote; he preferred to fight with those that disagreed with him on artistic matters, and he knew that the doctor, instead, shared his own enthusiasms. He was certain that he would never meet Barnes, but he wanted the senseless state of war that existed between them to come to an end. Barnes never answered the letter; he returned it, with the word "merde," written in large letters on the envelope.
--Howard Greenfield, The Devil and Dr. Barnes: Portrait of an American Collector, p. 252-3.]
It was also fun seeing Barnes circumnavigate Logan Circle in an envelope with "Shit" all over it. A spectacle suggest by Debord.
The fan club is always in need of more woman members, so Sontag's initiation was a most happy event. Tableau reenactments ensued:
"Against Interpretation"
"Notes on Camp"
"On Style"
"The Aesthetics of Silence"
"The Pornographic Imagination"
Susan is now in charge of the "Unguided Tour" department, and she joins Duchamp and Jennewein in the presentation of "[Learning from] Nudist Camp at the Philadelphia Museum of Art."
Barnes is so impressed with African Art, African Voices: Long Steps Never Broke A Back that he's even further rethinking the display of his collection after it moves to Philadelphia.
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