Vast Center Dedicated to Bob Dylan Opens Its Doors
09 May 2022
A center displaying $10 million worth of Bob Dylan archives opens tomorrow (10th May) in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The Bob Dylan Center, which aims to honour and spotlight Bob Dylan's vast back catalogue of work, began its pre-opening celebrations last week with a series of shows from Mavis Staples, Patti Smith and Her Band and Elvis Costello and the Imposters.
Announced in May 2021, the Center has opted for a rotating display of curated items - instruments, lyrics, music, articles of clothing, notes, sound and video recordings among much else, such as specialised items like the long-rumoured notebooks which see Dylan map out his 1975 album, Blood on the Tracks, and unopened fan-mail that followed his 1966 motorcycle crash. It kicks off with an exploration of five songs from across his career including 'Not Dark Yet', 'Tangled Up in Blue' and 'Jokerman'. The latter is reported to feature 10 handwritten drafts of the song, highlighting which lyrics changed throughout and providing a full view of a songwriter that has retained his elusiveness throughout the years.
In total, the Center's contents - which stands at around 100,000 items - is worth over $10 million. Much of this is open to researchers only, although the rotating display means that many more items will later be displayed for public viewing, in a bid to win over both fans and the public.
Though Dylan has not been involved in the project, there will be a 16-foot ironwork gate created and donated by the musician at the entrance. Also created is an art gallery which dedicates itself to exhibitions of specific photographers, which begins with
Jerry Schatzberg, who famously shot Dylan over a period in the mid-Sixties - most notably for the cover of the seminal 1966 album,
Blonde on Blonde.
Genesis Publications previously worked alongside Schatzberg to create the award-winning book,
Thin Wild Mercury, which celebrates Schatzberg's photographs of Bob Dylan, as well as lending itself as a love letter to the prolific artists that lived and passed through New York during the mid-sixties - many of which Schatzberg shot including Andy Warhol, Nico and The Rolling Stones.
A limited edition of just 1,500 copies, each book is signed by Jerry Schatzberg and contains nearly 500 photographs. Combining the never-before-seen with the iconic, Thin Wild Mercury presents the story behind Jerry Schatzberg's photographs in a stunning book.
