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Annals of the Smithsonian Institution 2000 



American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) at an all-day 

 seminar presented by The Smithsonian Associates. 



April 1 7 



■ Donation The National Postal Museum receive an 1893 

 souvenir set of 12 Columbian Exposition postal cards from 

 Myron and Judith Kaller. 



April 1 7 



■ Exhibition, special event Secretary Small visited Florida and 

 presented artifacts for inclusion in exhibitions at two sepa- 

 rate affiliate institutions. To the Miami Museum of Science, 

 the Secretary presented an Olmec artifact to be added to the 

 "Expeditions" exhibition. To the Florida International Mu- 

 seum in St. Petersburg, the Secretary presented artifacts from 

 the National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Ameri- 

 can History, and National Air and Space Museum for 

 inclusion in the museum's exhibition on John F. Kennedy. 



April 19 



■ Blockbuster exhibition "Dali's Optical Illusions," the first 

 full-fledged American exhibition in several decades to fea- 

 ture the dreamscapes of Spanish Surrealist Salvador Dali 

 (1904-1989), opened at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculp- 

 ture Garden, on tour from the Wadsworth Atheneum in 

 Hartford, Connecticut. The 8V2-week show, which closed 

 June 18, resulted in one of the most exceptional exhibition- 

 attendance levels in the museum's 25-year history — an 

 exhibition door count of 153,298 visitors, or an average of 

 2,500 per day, the most intense since an exhibition of Russ- 

 ian and Soviet paintings came to the Hirshhorn in the 

 summer of 1988. To handle the crowds, the museum devel- 

 oped a first-come, first-served system of free immediate-use 

 passes coordinated by a corps of 73 volunteer monitors. Dalf 

 exhibition visitors brought a booming business to the mu- 

 seum store, lines on weekends, and new challenges to 

 security staff stationed in the galleries. The Hirshhorn's at- 

 tendance totals for May 2000 were almost double what they 

 were for May 1999; Easter week and Memorial Dav holidays 

 were equally remarkable. 



April 20 



■ Public program The Smithsonian Associates offered a 

 course on Complexity Theory cosponsored with the Bios 

 Group and with keynote speaker Stuart Kauffman, external 

 fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. 



April 24 



■ Zoo shooting Seven people are wounded in a shooting on 

 Connecticut Ave. at the NZP gate as crowds leave after 

 Easter Monday festivities. 



April 25-27 



■ Public program "Duke Ellington Youth Festival 2000 — 

 Duke Ellington: The Spirit of Music" at the National 



Museum of American History. The museum's annual festival 

 celebrating the life and legacy of Edward Kennedy (Duke) 

 Ellington as interpreted by students in the Washington, 

 D.C., public schools, begins with poetry and music, followed 

 by the opening of an exhibition of artworks. Students in 

 grades 6 through 12 perform works by Ellington in concerr 

 on Thursday. 



April 27 



■ Acquisition The Hirshhorn Board of Trustees approved 

 the acquisition of Untitled (Library), 1999, by British sculp- 

 tor Rachel Whiteread (b. 1963), further strengthening the 

 museum's world-renowned collection of modern and con- 

 temporary sculpture. This piece is one of a series of works 

 that grew out of Whiteread 's commission for the Holocaust 

 Memorial in Vienna, Austria, and, like its genesis, was pro- 

 duced through the process of directly casting the space 

 around objects rather than the objects themselves. The result 

 is a haunting, evocative true-to-scale "library" in pale plaster 

 where the absence, father than the presence, of books creates 

 a sense of dislocation and loss. Important works by Jannis 

 Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto, John Currin, Cathy de 

 Monchaux, and Arshile Gorky were also among the year's 

 acquisitions. 



April 27 



■ Gala The Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler 

 Gallery initiated the first annual gala event to raise funds for 

 programs and exhibitions as well as to strengthen the gal- 

 leries' ties to the community. This year's gala, which 

 inaugurated the exhibition "Music in the Age of Confucius," 

 raised more than $205,000 from supporters, including The 

 Washington Post Company, Mr. and Mrs. Michael R. Son- 

 nenreich, and Toyota. The gala was organized by 

 co-chairmen Cynthia Helms and Eden Rafshoon, while cel- 

 list Yo-Yo Ma served as honorary chairman. 



April 27-29 



■ International student conference The 26th Annual Student 

 Conference, an event for students at the seven member insti- 

 tutions of the Association of North American Graduate 

 Programs In Conservation (ANAGPIC), was organized and 

 hosted by the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and 

 Education. Among the 84 students (and 26 faculty mem- 

 bers) from American and Canadian training programs who 

 attended the conference were the six students of the class of 

 2000 of SCMRE's Furniture Conservation Training Program 

 (FCTP). 



April 28-July 9 



■ Traveling exhibition "Teddy Roosevelt: Icon of the Ameri- 

 can Century," an exhibition co-organized by the National 

 Portrait Gallery and the National Park Service, U.S. Depart- 

 ment of the Interior, was on view at the New York State 

 Museum in Albany. 



