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Annals of the Smithsonian Institution 2000 



panel with exhibition co-cutators Neal Benezra, the Hirsh- 

 hom's Assistant Director for Art and Public Programs, and 

 Olga M. Viso, Associate Curator; a joint teacher workshop 

 with the African Art Museum educators; a panel with Asian 

 and African art scholars from other Smithsonian museums 

 exploring non-Western beauty; and a four-part lecture series 

 featuring the prominent art scholars Dave Hickey, Arthur C. 

 Danto, Camille Paglia, and Robert Farris Thompson. Major 

 support for the exhibition was provided by the Holenia Ex- 

 hibition Fund in memory of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, Robert 

 Lehrman and The Hill Family Foundation, Inc., with addi- 

 tional funding from Aaron and Barbara Levine and the 

 Phoebe W. Haas Charitable Foundation. Several other spon- 

 sors also participated. The exhibition was presented February 

 1 1 through April 30, 2000, at the Haus der Kunst in Mu- 

 nich, Germany. 



October 7-9 



■ Professional education course "Preservation of Plastics 

 Collections," a course organized and hosted by the Smithson- 

 ian Center for Materials Research and Education, was offered 

 for the first time. Consisting of a combination of lectures 

 and practical laboratory exercises, the course attracted an au- 

 dience of 30 museum professionals. 



October 8 



■ Donation Ceremonies at the National Air and Space Mu- 

 seum announced Steven F. Udvar-Hazy's gift of $60 million 

 to help build the new aviation and space center at Dulles. It 

 is the single largest gift in the Smithsonian's 153-year his- 

 tory. At the same time, the Capital Campaign for the Dulles 

 Center was announced. 



October 9 



■ Exhibition The SITES exhibition "On Miniature Wings: 

 Model Aircraft of the National Air and Space Museum" kicked 

 off a national tour at the Morris Museum in Morristown, New 

 Jersey. From the National Air and Space Museum's collection 

 of nearly 3,000 model aircraft, 25 superlative examples were 

 selected to celebrate the exciting role aircraft modeling has 

 played in aviation history over the past 100 years. 



October 1 3 



■ Special event "A Celebration of Art," the 2 5th-anniversary 

 gala, was held at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gar- 

 den, raising significant funds to enhance the museum's Web 

 site development and other forms of public outreach. In an 

 environment akin to a "shimmering abstract painting," as 

 the Washington Post put it, nearly 500 guests, including such 

 nationally known artists as Mark di Suvero, Robert 

 Rauschenberg, Betye Saar, and William T Wiley, congre- 

 gated and danced under a tent between viewings of 

 "Regarding Beauty." The festivities, cocktails, and dinner, 

 were highlighted by remarks from Olga Hirshhorn, the 

 founding donor's widow; Smithsonian Secretary I. Michael 

 Heyman; Smithsonian Regent and U.S. Senator Daniel 

 Patrick Moynihan, also founding Chairman of the Hirsh- 

 horn's Board of Trustees; current Board Chairman Robert 

 Lehrman; and Director James T Demetrion. At a White 

 House tea the previous day, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clin- 

 ton, the event's Honorary Chair with Lady Bird Johnson 

 (First Lady at the Hirshhorn's ground breaking in 1969), 

 praised the Hirshhorn Museum as a gift to the Nation that 

 has "stood the test of time." 



October 14 



■ Board of Trustees The Board of Trustees of the Hirshhorn 

 Museum and Sculpture Garden held the first of two annual 

 meetings. Further broadening its diversity, geographical rep- 

 resentation, and the ambition and creativity of its activities, 

 the Board expanded in number from 11 to 16 members. 

 New members included community leaders Jacqueline Le- 

 land and Barbara Levine, both of Washington, D.C., and 

 business executives Steven Oliver of the San Francisco Bay 

 Area and Steven Mnuchin of New York City. 



October 14 



■ Workshop "Showtime! Exhibition of Document Collec- 

 tions," a workshop organized and hosted by the Smithsonian 

 Center for Materials Research and Education as part of the 

 Research Libraries and Archives Conservation Training 

 (RELACT) series, was attended by 22 professionals from 

 Smithsonian and other museums, libraries, and archives. 



October 9-December 4 



■ Public program The National Portrait Gallery presented 

 48 performances of "Augusrus Washington: An Image of 

 Liberty," a 20-minute interactive one-man play written by 

 Christopher Janson that portrayed Washington as a free 

 black man in the antebellum North. The program was sup- 

 ported by The Gwendolyn and Morris Cafritz Foundation. 



October 1 2 



■ Exhibition "The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A 

 Legacy of Invention," Cooper-Hewitt, National Design 

 Museum. 



October 15 



■ Public program Tim Berners-Lee, named by TIME maga- 

 zine as one of the 100 greatest minds of the twentieth 

 century, came to the Smithsonian to tell the story of his rev- 

 olutionary creation, the World Wide Web, in a lecture for 

 The Smithsonian Associates. 



October 1 6 



■ Program Princess Mononoke, the acclaimed Japanese anima- 

 tion film about a girl raised by a wolf-goddess in ancient 

 Japan, was screened for the first time in Washington, D.C., 

 at the Freer Gallery of Art. 



