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February 16, 2007
Remedial education on Tut
Last night MAN broke the story that the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco has picked up the for-profit AEG King Tut show. It'll be at the de Young in 2009. (The other scandal of the day is in the post below this one.)
Because it's been almost two years since we discussed the folly of this show, a quick recap: This version of Tut was not organized by a museum, but by two private, for-profit corporations: AEG Live (which owns London's Millennium Dome and produces Celine Dion's Las Vegas stage show) and Arts and Exhibitions International. National Geographic is the exhibit's educational partner.
I love this quote: "I'm not sure there's so much difference between Tutankhamun and Celine Dion," AEG head Tim Leiweke told USA Today in 2005.
The AEG Tut show has no scholarly merit. It doesn't belong in a respectable art museum. Instead, it should be in a venue such as, oh, I don't know... London's Millenium Dome. As coincidence would have it, that's the London venue for the show.
Yes, the august de Young Museum is now sharing a spectacle with a venue that has hosted the Nintendo Pokemon Championships, the Miss World beauty pageant, and which was recently used as a homeless shelter. Justin Timberlake will re-open the Dome with a concert before King Tut arrives. Apparently the de Young considers the Millenium Dome more of a peer institution than, say, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Next at FAMSF: Celine Dion's dresses?
Posted February 16, 2007 10:53 AM
