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Indepth Arts News:
"Utopia: The Search for the Ideal Society in the
Western World"
2000-10-14 until 2001-01-27
New York Public Library
New York, NY,
USA United States of America
Is a perfect society attainable in an
imperfect world- While the question may never be answered definitively, it
won't be for lack of trying. Utopia: The Search for the Ideal Society in the
Western World, the multi-dimensional exhibition examines the various manifestations - from the
biblical Garden of Eden to metaworlds in cyberspace - of that search
throughout Western history. Jointly organized by The New York Public Library
(NYPL) and the Bibliotheque nationale de France (BnF), Utopia boasts some
550 objects, including a copy of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas
Jefferson's hand; The Green Globe (circa 1506), on which the Americas are
shown as a separate continent for the first time; and a first edition of Thomas
More's Utopia (1516).
The BnF's version of the show was met with critical acclaim in Paris this spring.
NYPL's Utopia will run in New York from October 14 to January 27, 2001. It is
one of the largest exhibitions ever presented by the Library, occupying two
entire galleries at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library at Fifth Avenue
and 42nd Street: the D. Samuel and Jeane H. Gottesman Exhibition Hall on
the first floor, and the Edna Barnes Salomon Room on the third floor.
Admission is free.
A citywide consortium of 17 cultural institutions is presenting a broad range of
related events, and two books will be published, including an illustrated
companion volume. I first proposed a joint exhibition to the BnF about five
years ago. The BnF's leadership readily accepted the concept, said Paul
LeClerc, President of The New York Public Library. The challenge was to come up with a theme that was
suitable to both libraries. It was the ‘El Dorado' episode of Voltaire's Candide that inspired me to propose
utopia as a topic. By happy coincidence, our French colleagues were also contemplating an exhibition on
this theme. So an agreement to do it together was easily reached. And I'm delighted that, among the
treasures coming to us from Paris, is Voltaire's manuscript of Candide, never before seen outside of
France.
Utopia comprises books, manuscripts, drawings, prints, maps, photographs, and other objects from the rich
collections of both the BnF and NYPL, supplemented by loans from other sources. These compelling
materials chronicle utopias, both imagined and attempted, across all forms of literary, artistic, and political
expression throughout Western history. Among the treasures on view from NYPL's collections are numerous
medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, including Saint Augustine's City of God and a 13th-century
illuminated Apocalypse, and the extremely important illustrated letter from Christopher Columbus to King
Ferdinand announcing his discoveries in the New World, printed in 1493. Highlights of the materials coming
from Paris include The Book of the City of Ladies, a 1405 illuminated manuscript written by Christine
de Pisan, acknowledged as the first Western woman to live by her pen; and two drawings by the
18th-century French architect Etienne-Louis Boullée, proposing a grand spherical design for Isaac Newton's
cenotaph.
IMAGE:
[The Garden of Eden]
Horae Beatae Mariae Virginis ad usum Ecclesiae Gallicanae, cum
Calendario
Franco-Flemish, late 15th century
NYPL, Spencer Collection
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