from an email to a friend 28 December 2004:
"Today is Horace Trumbauer's and Guy Debord's birthday, the beginning of
LEAVING OBSCURITY BEHIND, the 2005 Horace Trumbauer Architecture Fan Club
Convention. Lots of activity at Logan Circle/Hadrian's Tomb."
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.
"Today is Horace Trumbauer's and Guy Debord's birthday, the beginning of
LEAVING OBSCURITY BEHIND, the 2005 Horace Trumbauer Architecture Fan Club
Convention. Lots of activity at Logan Circle/Hadrian's Tomb."
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.