Imagining the Ideal

Views of Utopia at The New York Public Library

Exhibition on Perfect Worlds Opens October 14

[The Garden of Eden] Horae Beatae Mariae Virginis ad usum Ecclesiae Gallicanae, cum Calendario Franco-Flemish, late 15th century NYPL, Spencer Collection

New York, September 14, 2000 -- 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 opening at The New York Public Library on October 14, 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 Bibliothèque 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.

Section One
Section One of the exhibition, Sources: Ancient, Biblical, and Medieval Traditions, provides an overview of the origins of utopian thought and the general themes that recur in descriptions of ideal places. While the term "utopia" cannot, strictly speaking, be applied to ideal societies prior to Thomas More's coining of the word in 1516, the concept is as old as civilization itself. Through an array of sources including the Bible, classical verse, political treatises, and secular travel narratives that hover between fact and fiction, the visitor encounters the Golden Age, the Garden of Eden, the Land of Cockaigne, and the New Jerusalem. Among the objects on view are a 15th-century printed Latin text of Ovid's Metamorphoses describing the Golden Age, and several dazzling medieval illuminated manuscripts with colorful images of the Garden of Eden. A 15th-century Book of Hours shows the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden, poignantly conveying the drama of Paradise lost.

Section Two
Section Two, Other Worlds: Utopian Imagination from More to the Enlightenment, introduces Utopia proper with Thomas More's 1516 publication of Utopia and thus the birth of the entirely new genre of utopian literature. The show features the first edition of More's work, open to an illustration of the island of Utopia with a sample of its alphabet, lending a sense of exotic reality to the fictional country. Unlike the ideal worlds examined in the previous section, More's Utopia was an entirely human construction inhabited by ordinary, flawed individuals. Through a clever pun on its Greek roots, utopia means both "good place" and "no place."

Theodore de Bry after Jacques Le Moyne They Reach Port Royal [detail] From America, Part 2 Colored engraving, Frankfurt, 1591 NYPL, Rare Books Division

The Americas -- where More located his imaginary island -- were hailed by Europeans as the site of the Earthly Paradise and the place to create an ideal community, while the indigenous populations were depicted as, alternately, innocent naifs or vicious cannibals. Perhaps the most balanced and realistic depictions of the New World created at the time are contained in the late 16th-century engravings of Theodore de Bry, on view in the exhibition. While many looked across the Atlantic to start anew, Renaissance architects turned to classical theories of proportion and urban planning to design ideal cities in the Old World. A selection of their designs and drawings is on view.

Visitors are encouraged to acquaint themselves with utopian literature in Plexiglas "book cabinets," located throughout the exhibition. Contemporary editions of utopian literature will be available for visitors to read -- important editions of some of these titles will be displayed in the exhibition. Among the texts included are Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Samuel Butler's Erewhon, Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward,Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, as well as copies of the companion volume to the exhibition.

Section Three
In Section Three, Utopia in History: From the Revolutionary Age Through the Nineteenth Century, the revolutionary ideals of equality and reform are explored through the American and French Revolutions of the 18th century and the proliferation of religious and secular utopian communities established in the 19th century. Among the materials on view are engravings showing the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the widespread changes in weights, measures, and the calendar proposed by the French revolutionaries. Many revolutionary ideals found expression in communities such as Robert Owen's New Harmony in Indiana and Etienne Cabet's Icaria in Illinois, here represented by drawings, prints, and ephemera. A number of religious groups also gained prominence in the 19th century, among them the Shakers and the Mormons. A Shaker box and several Shaker spirit drawings are on display.

Section Four

I. N. [Ignacy Nivinsky?] Zhenshchiny idite v kooperatsiiu [Women, Go to the Cooperatives] Poster, color lithograph?, 1918 NYPL, Manuscripts and Archives Division, Harold M. Fleming Papers

Dreams and Nightmares: Utopias and Dystopias in the Twentieth Century, the fourth section of the exhibition, brings the visitor from the beginning of the 20th century to the present and reveals the dialogue between utopia and dystopia. The idealization of technology and machines is demonstrated by books produced by the Futurists, a series of rayographs by Man Ray extolling the virtues of electricity, and designs by Raymond Loewy for streamlined trains and airplanes. A full-size replica of the robot used in Fritz Lang's film Metropolis reminds visitors of the dangers of technology run amok. Dramatic propaganda posters, books, and journals give a sense of the early hopefulness behind one of the most turbulent political endeavors of the century: the communist experiment in the Soviet Union. An examination of the Nazi regime in Germany looks at the embrace of eugenics as the way to an ideal society, and its horrifying consequences. Propaganda materials from both regimes are juxtaposed with harsher images of their reality. A consideration of idealistic architecture and city planning draws visitors from the magically vertical skyscrapers of New York to the mesmerizing horizontal plan of Levittown and from the forward-looking city of Brasilia to the nostalgia-inducing town of Disney's Celebration, Florida. The last subsection considers two postwar movements: the idealist social upheavals of the 1960s and 70s and the communal movement.

Metaworlds: Utopian Visions of the Internet and the Metaphysics of Virtual Life,a complement to the exhibition, is, fittingly, located in cyberspace, on the Library's website, www.nypl.org/utopia. Projecting the concept of utopia into the 21st century, Metaworlds examines the Internet as the next "New World" for society's utopian yearnings.

Utopia is curated by Roland Schaer, until recently the Director of Cultural Development at the BnF, in collaboration with an international advisory team including, among others, Lyman Tower Sargent, one of the foremost experts on the literature of utopias and Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri--St. Louis; Gregory Claeys, Professor of History at Royal Holloway College, University of London, a leading expert on British utopian thought; and Paul LeClerc, President, The New York Public Library, a scholar of French language and culture, with a specialization in Voltaire. The research curator for the exhibition at NYPL is Holland Goss. Installation and casework design is by Tim Culbert and Celia Imrey of Inline Studio.

The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated 400-page companion volume published by Oxford University Press, available in soft ($27.95) and hard cover ($49.95). A consortium of cultural institutions is organizing programming, including lectures, film series, and academic symposia, related to Utopia to take place throughout the New York metropolitan area in the fall and winter of 2000. In late 2001, Oxford University Press will also publish a series of essays on utopia, based on talks to be given at The New York Public Library in January 2001.

Utopia: The Search for the Ideal Society in the Western World will be on view from October 14, 2000 through January 27, 2001 at The New York Public Library's Humanities and Social Sciences Library, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, in the D. Samuel and Jeane H. Gottesman Exhibition Hall and Edna Barnes Salomon Room. The exhibition hours are Monday, Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Tuesday and Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; closed Sundays and national holidays. Admission is free. For a recorded message about exhibitions at The New York Public Library, the public may call 212.869.8089.

Exhibition Tours:  Monday--Saturday, 12:30 and 2:30 p.m. Humanities and Social Sciences Library, first floor, free admission. Group tours by appointment; call 212.930.0501 for reservations and fees.

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Major support for this exhibition has been provided by The Florence Gould Foundation. Support for The New York Public Library's Exhibitions Program has been provided by Pinewood Foundation and by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III. Additional support for this exhibition has been provided by Delta Air Lines. Support has also been provided by Andreas C. Dracopoulos, Grand Marnier Foundation, The Cultural Services of the French Embassy, and The Nash Family Foundation, Inc. Support for this exhibition has been provided by a grant from the New York Council for the Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, as part of State Humanities Month. Official Partner of the Millennium Council.
 

A related exhibition of cartoons by New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams, Dystopias and Alternate Realities, looks at different, but not necessarily better, worlds.

The complementary website for Utopia may be found at www.nypl.org/utopia.

 

 

 

 

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