JAKARTA - A new art center Bob Dylan Center presents more than 100 thousand collections related to the musician which will be opened to the public in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States, on May 10.
The collection was previously only accessible to credentialed researchers. The collection includes handwritten manuscripts, notebooks, films, recordings including unreleased ones, rare photographs, musical instruments, and so on.
Among the many collections, highlights of the Bob Dylan Center include a newly discovered film soundtrack from 1961 and four drafts of the prose poetry book "Tarantula" that Dylan typed in the mid-60s.
In addition to an exhibition focused on Dylan's work, the 29,000-square-foot two-story space will also feature work by Jerry Schatzberg, the filmmaker and photographer who created the cover for Dylan's album "Blonde on Blonde" (1966).
"We're really looking forward to igniting visitors' creative instincts as they tour the venue, an encouragement on their own to express art in any medium," said Bob Dylan Center director Steven Jenkins, quoted by The New York Times on Saturday.
The Bob Dylan Center operates under the auspices of the American Song Archives, a project of the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF). The collection presented at the Bob Dylan Center comes from the Bob Dylan Archive, which was acquired by GKFF and the University of Tulsa in 2016 for approximately $20 million.
Architect Alan Maskin of the firm Olson Kundig said he was reluctant to call the new place a "Museum" but rather a "Center" that would encourage discussion and embrace multiple perspectives.
"I'm more interested in calling it a living archive than as a museum. Museums imply a voice that everyone accepts as truth," said Maskin, who designed the Bob Dylan Center.
The collection is also displayed interactively, such as a digital screen accompanied by a line of manuscripts for the Tangled Up in Blue song which is designed to appear as if it were floating in the room.
The Bob Dylan Center features a digital jukebox of 162 songs and a mock recording studio that allows listeners to remix some of Dylan's songs.
In addition, a number of other collections include a backpack containing letters from fans in 1966 that Dylan never read. According to Bob Dylan Archive curator Mark A. Davidson, the bag appeared to have been untouched for years and when the archivists received it, not a single letter had been opened.
Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum believes that the Bob Dylan Center will attract tourists to visit Tulsa. He hopes that other valuable archives will be brought to Tusla and make Tulsa a center for the study of modern American music.
"He was one of the greatest musicians in human history and people who want to study the career and evolution of that musician's talent will be interested in the Bob Dylan Center," Bynum told the Associated Press.
Jenkins said his party will continue to update the Bob Dylan Center collection considering the musician is still working until now. According to Jenkins and Maskin, organizers didn't particularly expect Dylan to come to visit.
"To be honest, I don't think that's going to happen. I think he's more interested in the work he's currently working on, and not the work he's already working on," said Maskin.
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