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THE ATLANTA JOURNAL - CONSTITUTION - June, 2000
Elton unveils photo show slated for High.
By Steve Dollar
For the Journal - Constitution.
New York - Let's give credit where credit is due. Sir Elton John knows how to work a room, with or without his piano.
The part-time Atlantan, pop star, philanthropist and Broadway composer wasn't in any of his usual guises Tuesday afternoon, when he met with Manhattan's power-suited media elite for "high tea" amid the Old World swank of midtown's St. Regis Hotel. While his inquisitors scarfed finger food and sipped Earl grey, John held forth on his midlife's great passion: his 2,500 plus print collection of photography. Looking somewhat humbled before the majesty of his possessions, he stood at a podium before a projected image of Man Ray's 1926 portrait "Noir et Blanche" and gave a preview of "Chorus of Light," the 400 - image exhibit of 20th - century masterworks that opens at the High Museum of Art November 4, 2000.
A collaboration between John - who is loaning the images - and the museum, the show is an expression of the singer's decade long love affair with the medium, and a gesture of affection toward Atlanta, his adopted home. "I thought it would be nice to do in a town that's shown me so much love," he said, attended by the museum's curator of photography, Tom Southall, former museum's chief Ned Riflin (now of the Menil Collection and Foundation in Houston) and Atlanta gallery owner Jane Jackson, who has helped nurture John's enthusiasms over the past nine years.
The performer, who has often tussled with the press and whose new musical, "Aida," opened to strongly negative reviews in New York, was utterly chipper, dispensing one-liners as he showed off his affable, bloke-ish side. Albeit a bloke who could afford to pay $100,000 in 1995 for Man Ray's "the Glass Tear," and amass a richly varied collection that runs the gamut from Bernice Abbott to Joe Ziolkowski, with heaps of Irving Penn, Robert Mapplethorpe, Harry Callahan and Horst P. Horst in between. But no Ansel Adams. "I don't collect Ansel Adams because I don't like him," John Said.
Among other things he revealed:
That although he has 900 photographs on display at his Atlanta home, he actually does look at them all every day, thanks to a daily routine that includes lighting scented candles all around the apartment. "It takes 45 minutes. I feel like the Archbishop of Canterbury. 'Bless you my child!'"
That while classic and contemporary celebrity images and jazz photography are favorites, he's not much interested in shots of his musical peers. "Rock artists are not that pleasant to look at."
That he hasn't thought to hard about where posterity will find his collection. "I'm only 53."
That he'll feel naked without the works hanging around. "Unfortunately, my apartment's going to look somewhat bare. I'm going to have to rent some furniture.... I'll be sleeping at the museum a lot."
That New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who initiated a censorship fracas over controversial work in the recent "Sensations" show at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, doesn't need to worry about anyone's sensibilities being offended. "Not in this exhibit. But if you come to my apartment, there's a lot!
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