Aug. 10, 2006 

BOB DYLAN AT THE MORGAN
Ah, now we know why the Morgan Library needed that $106-million renovation and expansion! "Bob Dylan's American Journey, 1956-1966," an exhibition of manuscripts and other material organized by the Experience Museum Project in Seattle, opens at the Morgan, Sept. 29, 2006, running through early January 2007. The show features handwritten lyrics, letters, instruments and photographs along with "listening stations" and films of performances and interviews, all "charting Dylan's transformation from folk troubadour to rock innovator." The material comes from holdings assembled by collector George Hecksher and given to the Morgan in the 1990s.

NOW THERE ARE TEN -- ART FAIRS IN MIAMI
Everyone loves December in Miami Beach, but this is getting ridiculous. We now count ten art fairs in Miami, with the newest addition of INK Miami 2006, Dec. 7-10, 2006. Sponsored by the International Fine Print Dealers Association, the fair features 15 leading print publishers and dealers at the Suites of Dorcester hotel -- two rooms for every exhibitor -- at 1850 Collins Avenue in Miami Beach. Participants range from Arion Press and Crown Point Press (both San Francisco) to Diane Villani Editions (New York) and Charles M. Young Fine Prints & Drawings (Portland, Conn.). For a list of the other fairs, see "Artnet News," June 14, 2006. For more info on INK Miami, see www.ipfda.org.

KAPROW RETRO IN EUROPE
A retrospective of the work of Allan Kaprow (1927-2006) -- the inventor of "Happenings," among other things -- opens at the Haus der Kunst, Munich, Oct. 18, 2006-Jan. 21, 2007, before traveling to the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, Feb. 10-Apr. 22, 2007. The show is organized by Eva Meyer-Hermann and Stephanie Rosenthal, and features paintings, drawings, sculptures, collages and assemblages as well as scores, photography and video made over a 50-year career.

"STREETS OF NEW YORK" IN D.C.
The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., knows how to attract visitors -- with a show of photos of New York City. "The Streets of New York: American Photographs from the Collection, 1938-1958," Sept. 17, 2006-Jan. 15, 2007. Framed by Walker Evans' American Photographs in 1938 and Robert Frank's The Americans in 1958, the show features approximately 75 photographs by 20 photographers, including Bruce Davidson, Roy DeCarava, Louis Faurer, Sid Grossman, William Klein, Saul Leiter, Helen Levitt, Lisette Model and Weegee. The homage to our hometown is organized by NGA curators Sarah Greenough and Diane Waggoner.

GO WEST, YOUNG MODERNS?
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, explores the role of the American West in the development of modernism in this country with "The Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890-1950," Oct. 29, 2006-Jan. 28, 2007. Organized by Houston MFA curator Emily Ballew Neff and nature writer Barry Lopez, the show challenges the notion that modernism was a largely Eastern and urban endeavor via approximately 100 paintings, watercolors and photographs by Thomas Hart Benton, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Georgia O'Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Frederic Remington, Edward Weston and others. The show travels to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Mar. 4-June 3, 2007.

CURATORIAL HELP WANTED IN U.K.
Curators! Does London high life have any appeal to you? At least two curatorial jobs have opened up in the U.K. The Barbican Art Gallery, the city-run space in the sprawling  Barbican cultural center that is currently offering "Future City: Experiment and Utopia in Architecture, 1956-2006," June 15-Sept. 17, 2006, is seeking a curator, responsible for making the Barbican "a leading international venue" for art and photography. The approximate salary: £34,000. To apply, see www.barbican.org.uk.

Also seeking a curator is the Frieze Art Fair, which needs an experienced hand to program Frieze Projects, the annual curatorial program accompanying the fair (which takes place in Regent's Park in London, Oct. 12-15, 2006). Though the notice does not specify a salary for the position, which is full-time, it does note that the budget for the projects is £300,000. Apply to cv@frieze.com

MARY MISS ON TEAM FOR IRVINE'S "GREAT PARK"
Artist Mary Miss has joined the team charged with converting the former El Toro marine base in Irvine, Ca., into the Orange County Great Park, a 1,350-acre expanse featuring a two-mile-long manmade canyon as well as a hot-air balloon ride, an amphitheater, a sports park, lake, meadow, conference center, cultural center, military museum and more. According to the official announcement, Miss is in charge of developing a "Living Laboratory" at the park -- a place where hydrologists, sociologists, artists and others devise "new concepts for environmental and social sustainability" -- whatever that means. Landscape architect Ken Smith, who designed the rooftop garden for the Museum of Modern Art (don't try to visit it -- the park is solely for the visual delectation of surrounding high-rise residents), is master designer for the park; other members of the team include environmental ecologist Steve Handel, architect Enrique Norton and landscape architect Mia Lehrer. The Great Park is the centerpiece of the huge residential and commercial development of the 4,700-acre site by the Miami-based Lennar Corp., which purchased the base from the city for $650 million. 

MISS SCULPTURE FOR INDIANAPOLIS
Mary Miss has also been tapped to design the gateway sculpture -- a suspended bridge through a canopy of trees -- for the new nature park at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, a 100-acre plot of untamed woodlands, wetlands, lake and meadow adjacent to the museum. The Miss commission is the first for the new Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park -- a former gravel pit, now reclaimed and transformed -- so named presumably because it has just received an $11-million challenge grant from the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation, which also committed another $4 million to the project in 2004. The park is scheduled to open in 2009. 

NED SMYTH AT SALOMON CONTEMPORARY
Sculptor Ned Smyth, who not too long ago recounted the beginnings of his career as an artist in these pages as part of a tribute to his colleague Gordon Matta-Clark [see "Gordon Matta-Clark," June 4, 2004], is having an exhibition of new sculpture and drawings at the Salomon Contemporary Warehouse in East Hampton, L.I., July 29-Aug. 19, 2006. The new sculptures, done in black-patinaed bronze, feature stone-like forms, often presented on Brancusi-inspired bases of square wood beams. Salomon Contemporary was opened last summer by James Salomon, associate director of the Mary Boone Gallery in Manhattan, and is also showing Sally Egbert, Michael Halsband, Rima Mardoyan and others. For more info, see www.salomoncontemporary.com.

SINGAPORE GALLERY OPENS NEW YORK BRANCH
Bodhi Art, which opened its first gallery in Singapore in 2004 and has since expanded to New Delhi and Mumbai, launches a New York City branch this fall. Located at 535 West 24th Street (in the same building as Danese), the 5,000-square-foot space debuts with an exhibition of work on paper by Atul Dodiya, Sept. 20-Oct. 28, 2006. Bodhi Art represents some 30 artists from India, including Akbar Padamsee, F.N. Souza, Jogen Chodhury and Ram Kumar. Gallery director is Karen Stone Talwar. For further details, see www.bodhiart.in.

WHITE FLAG IN ST. LOUIS
St. Louis has a new alternative art space. White Flag Projects opens in a renovated industrial building in the city's Grove neighborhood with an exhibition of sculpture by Illinois artist Bill Smith, Sept. 16-Oct. 21, 2006. According to founder and director Matthew Strauss, the gallery's inaugural season features six exhibitions, including a group show of emerging art from Los Angeles and a solo exhibition by Washington, D.C., photographer Dean Kessmann. For further info, see www.whiteflagprojects.org.

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