A quiet exhibition on the first floor of Deering Library highlights some of the rarest items from the University’s McCormick Library of Special Collections. The library debuted its exhibition of rare materials Monday.
The exhibit includes famous U.S. composer John Cage’s manuscript materials, an instrument belonging to guitarist Glenn Branca, as well as hand-drawn books from novelist Richard Wright and French-Cuban writer Anaïs Nin.
Scott Krafft and Greg MacAyeal, NU Libraries curators, selected the items, which also included pieces like a first printing of the novel, “Ulysses,” by James Joyce and a chunk of The Rock with many layers of paint.
“We establish these special collections for researchers and also to give the students access to historical records,” said James Abbott, facilities manager for NU Libraries.
The Cage collection is the highlight of the exhibit, featuring his most famous composition, which includes four minutes and 33 seconds of silence, said NU Libraries Communication Specialist Drew Scott.
“The Cage collection is one of our most heavily used for research purposes,” Scott said. “Everybody in the music field knows John Cage, and a lot of people want to study what he was doing to basically blow up the idea of music in the 1950s and ’60s.”
The exhibition also includes a hand-sized piece of marble rock dislodged from The Rock in the summer of 1989 when it was moved 30 feet east from its original location. Presented in a case, the stone was surrounded by photographs of students’ past paintings.
Fifth-year computer science and communication studies Ph.D. candidate Taewook Kim said he first accidentally stumbled upon the exhibition Tuesday.
“I never really noticed this collection,” he said. “I’m not a big fan of museums, but while I was waiting for someone, I saw this piece of The Rock and noticed how much it talks about student life.”
Scott also highlighted the handmade book “The Works of Geoffrey” by Geoffrey Chaucer and said NU holds one of the few copies that still exist. He said these books would have been lost if the library had not acquired and preserved them in its archives.
Pieces from the archive of Charlotte Moorman, an avant-garde cellist, are showcased in the first-floor display. One of the featured works is “One for Violin Solo,” a performance piece in which she smashes violins.
Scott explained that Moorman’s work was a response to the period in the 1960s when many artists felt that the art world was “elitist and catered only to collectors and wealthy audiences.”
“There was an entire avant-garde movement of people who just wanted to blow violins up,” he said.
Wright, who wrote novels, including “Native Son” and “Uncle Tom’s Children,” is also featured in the exhibition through his book “Black Power: A Record of Reactions in a Land of Pathos.”
The first page of his book is displayed alongside his handwritten notes, which allow viewers to glimpse into his editing process and learn about the civil rights movement.
Also in the exhibition is the first draft hand-edited manuscript of “House of Incest,” a novel by Anaïs Nin dedicated to her husband, Henry Miller.
Another case featured NU students’ lives over the years, which makes up the other half of the McCormick Library of Special Collections.
“If there’s an era or a topic or a field that you’re interested in, we probably have something that touches on that,” Scott said. “This is just scratching the surface of what’s possible.”
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