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MODERATOR: Okay. All right. Well, welcome, everybody, to the Washington Foreign Press
Center. My name is Olga Bashbush. I’m a program officer and I cover the East Asia
and Pacific region.
Today, it’s truly an honor and a great pleasure to welcome our friends from the Smithsonian
Institution Freer|Sackler Gallery. They have a lot of exciting things going on. And it’s
also going – it’s going to coincide with the folklife festival that is so popular and
worldwide famous. And today, I just want to welcome Mr. Julian Raby, the Dame Jillian
Sackler director of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art, as well
as Thomas Wide, assistant director for special projects, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur
M. Sackler Gallery.
And I encourage all of you to follow us on Twitter – not only the Foreign Press Center,
which is @ForeignPressCtr, but I encourage everybody to follow the Twitter handle also
of the Freer|Sackler, which is easy: @FreerSackler.
And with that, I welcome Dr. Julian Raby. Thank you very much. (Applause.)
MR RABY: Thank you very much. Thank you, Olga. The one thing I’m looking for is how to
advance the slides.
MODERATOR: Okay.
MR RABY: Oh, you’ll do that for me?
MODERATOR: Yes, I will.
MR RABY: Thank you very much indeed. So I think I’m showing you a building that’s
familiar to all of you. It’s a building sited right next to the castle and is the
Freer Gallery of Art, which is actually the oldest art gallery on the Mall. Now, there’s
something really significant about that because when Mr. Freer, private individual, offered
to give his collection of Asian and American art to the nation, there were no other art
museums on the Mall. So it’s highly symbolic that the very first museum was one devoted
to American art of the late 19th century and to Asian art, everything from Turkey to Tokyo.
That symbolism seems highly relevant today as a site where Asia meets America, really
right in the center of the Mall.
The second building is the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, which is also devoted to Asian art.
So these are two very different buildings. They’re linked underground. But together,
they have a combined mission. So they’re essentially like the two sides of a coin;
it’s a single currency but with different images on either side.
We’re reopening the Freer after a couple of years of refurbishment and I’ll tell
you a little bit more about that in a moment. What does the Freer hold? It holds one of
the great collections of late 19th century American art, including perhaps the most famous
single room from the late 19th century, the Peacock Room by James McNeill Whistler. The
Sackler and the Freer together have one of the greatest collections of Asian art outside
Asia.
And so here is an exhibition that we’re just about to open when the Freer|Sackler
opens on ancient Chinese bells and music.
Just a glimpse of a series of Islamic ceramics from our galleries.
And this collection of late 19th century, early 20th century American art.
What was Freer’s intention here? His intention was not just to show what he called the points
of contact between the arts of the West and the arts of the East, but essentially to look
at a universalist sense of beauty, one that not just cuts across time and place, cultures
and peoples, but actually unites us. Art, in other words, as a vehicle for empathy.
So we’ve been undergoing a refurbishment – next slide, please – and we hope to
show you something a little bit more decorous and complete than this next week. This is
our auditorium. Don’t worry; we now have the seats back. (Laughter.)
But essentially there was more than the private contemplation of art. There was more in Freer’s
vision than art as a personal redemption. This was incredibly important to him, but
there’s no – if you just hold for a second. The important point was that in 1906, when
he offered his collection, the Smithsonians rejected it. They said, we are a science institution;
we don’t do art. And it was the intervention of the President Theodore Roosevelt that gave
the Smithsonian and the nation its first art museum on the Mall.
Now, why did Roosevelt see that as important? Because he had just helped resolve the conflict
between Russia and Japan from the Russia – the Japanese wall. So he understood the growing
importance, the potential of Asia, and therefore he had understood the symbolism of having
a museum where Asia meets America *** in the center of the Mall.
So with that part of our, if you like, the DNA, the historical DNA, the private contemplation,
the public discussion is the one that we really want to emphasize. We are a place where we
can invite others to have conversations about some of the difficult issues of our time.
So we’re looking at both what fractures the world and ways in which art unites, recomposes
the world. We’re also going to have communal celebration. And on that note, if I could
ask Tommy Wide to tell us a little bit about our first big community celebrations, which
are about to happen in a few days’ time. Thank you.
MR WIDE: Thanks so much, Julian. I can assure you we’re not all British who work at the
Freer|Sackler. It’s unfortunate that the two of us speaking today are both British,
but we are – I think we’re the only ones.
So I’m going to talk a bit about the final communal celebration. Olga, is it possible
just to take the mouse, or is it on a –
MODERATOR: It’s --
MR WIDE: No, it’s stuck. Okay.
QUESTION: It’s stuck.
MR WIDE: So if we just go to the next slide. Thank you. So this is hopefully what the Freer|Sackler’s
going to look like next – not this Saturday, but the following Saturday, Saturday the 14th
and 15th. We are doing a grand reopening festival called IlluminAsia, a celebration of Asian
art, food, and cultures.
So if you go to the next slide – thank you. So one of the key things we’re going to
be doing is focusing on food. I spent the last – pretty much the last decade living
in Asia, and one of the delights of living abroad is obviously the extraordinary food
you get to try. And when I moved to D.C., one of the fascinating things I found was
that there is an extraordinary – I think a food renaissance, it’s known as, going
on in D.C. at the moment, largely led by incredible young Asian American chefs. So we’re actually
going to be really highlighting that story. I’m told that there’s never been a night
market in D.C. I’m told; I’m sure you can prove me wrong, but we haven’t found
one. This is certainly a new thing for us and I think for the National Mall. We’re
going to have nine Asian American food vendors. Some of the best young chefs in D.C. will
be setting up stalls. We are going to make the whole area of the plaza a sea of lanterns
and lights, and we’re going to be basically lighting up the night all through the Saturday
until midnight with food stores, lanterns, and then performance and art.
Next slide. Thank you.
So we’re going to be highlighting a lot of the Asian American young chefs and family
businesses working in D.C. For example, this is Shamim Popal who is the chef at Lapis,
an Afghan restaurant. The Popals have a fascinating story having fled Afghanistan in the late
’70s, at the time of the Soviet intervention, and then going on to set up a number of restaurants
in Afghanistan – I mean, in Washington, including Lapis. And they’ll be making Afghan
dumplings known as mantu ashak. Afghanistan is not known for its dumplings, but they actually
– or not that famous around the world, but they actually just won – I think it was
dumpling maker of the year last year for their Afghan dumplings.
Next slide. Thank you.
We’re going to have a whole set of performances through the evening. A lot of community partners
will be doing painting displays, we have illumination – Islamic illumination workshops, calligraphy
displays, and activities for visitors to be able to get involved with, whether it’s
painting or watching or even throwing pots. We’ve got the great Afghan potter, Abdul
Matin Malekzadah, who’s going to be throwing pots on the National Mall. We’ve got a group
who are going to be firing, doing raku firings on the Mall as well. So all sorts of art activities
to watch and take part in.
Next slide.
We’ve also got performances by the Silkroad Ensemble, so – who just won a Grammy this
year. They’re going to be doing pop-up performances in the museum and through the gardens, and
I think for us the Silk Road Ensemble are a great partner and counterpart in that they
also combine these great artists from across Asia and they bring them together for fruitful
collaborations in exchange. So they’re going to be playing all through the weekend.
Next slide.
And we’ve also got as the centerpiece a specially-commissioned projection mapping
video or installation. This is a 12-minute film that tells the story of Charles Lang
Freer, his collection of – extraordinary collection of Asian arts, but then takes us
on to a psychedelic, slightly trippy experience; an exploration of the Asian and American art
in our collection. The whole building has been 3D laser-scanned in order to do this.
There’s a team of 12 animators who are animating every last brick of the building to create
this extraordinary – well, using the building as this extraordinary canvas. It’s going
to turn into the Peacock Room at certain times, we’re even going to be using different architectural
forms across Asia where it looks like the Freer suddenly becomes a temple from China,
like the Longmen Caves or a building from Japan. And I am happy to share some little
elements of that with any of you afterwards who are interested.
Next slide.
So the idea is that the museum is really going to come to life with thousands of visitors
expected over the two days both inside and outside. Outside I’ve talked about the food,
the artistic performances, the specially-commissioned video art. And inside, if we go to the next
slide, we’re going to have four new exhibitions all launching at the same moment. So, Resound:
Ancient Bells of China, which Julian has mentioned; Encountering the Buddha, an innovative presentation
of Buddhism and practice across Asia, including a new installation of the Kandell Shrine.
So this is – this is resonant of a Tibetan shrine that we’ll actually be installing
with 400 art works in the Sackler Gallery. Divine Felines, a leftfield look at the role
of cats in Ancient Egypt, and Subodh Gupta, an installation by one of India’s best-known
contemporary artists.
So I think this just gives you a feel of the different ways we’re approaching exhibitions
and presenting the art in our collection, whether it’s through audio presentations
in Ancient Bells of China, looking at art in practice rather than just an object in
a case, but actually the way humans make sense of art objects and use of those objects.
Next slide, please.
And also very exciting, we’re launching a new audio app on – next weekend. So it’s
called Freer Thinking, and the basic idea of it is that there are two ways that you
can experience audio: there’s a highlight tour that takes you basically through the
collection looking at the 50 great objects, which it – this is narrated by Robert Siegel
of NPR. And then we have a podcast tour. This is thematic tours of the museum that will
tell quirky stories, behind-the-scene takes on the collection. And that’s about a 20-minute
tour.
Now, the idea of the podcast is that it’s as good outside the museum as inside, so you
could listen to it at home while you’re chopping the onions, just as you could listen
to it in the museum while you’re actually looking at the object. And just to give you
an example, we’ve got one of the world authorities on Buddhism, Professor Don Lopez from the
University of Michigan, who’s doing a tour on – called Buddhism and the Beat, and this
looks at the impact of Buddhist thought and culture on psychedelic rock of the late ’60s
and ’70s. And it will actually take you through the museums, where you’ll be able
to hear the music as well as hearing from Don Lopez about what the objects in front
of you mean. Really importantly, this app is also available in eight languages, so the
idea – this is ultra-accessible for a wide range of visitors from across the world who
come to the Freer|Sackler every day.
Next slide and last one. Thank you. And then I mentioned Silkroad Ensemble earlier. The
reopening weekend really sets off a whole season of programming that will run through
to the summer of 2018. And we’ve got Silkraod Ensemble in residency with us. And essentially
what they’re doing – this is certainly a first for us, and I’m not sure it’s
been done in many other places – is that they’re spending a year writing the soundtrack
to the museum. So they’re essentially composing a specially commissioned piece of music, which
will be premiered in late 2018 at the end of our reopening season. But it is essentially
a soundtrack that can guide visitors through the museum. That will be available on the
audio app, so that for every section of the museum you can hear the specially commissioned
and composed music.
So I think, again, that’s a really nice example of how the Freer|Sackler is rethinking
itself after our reopening. It’s not just a site for objects in boxes, but for exploration
of the world around us and of ourselves.
Thanks very much.
MODERATOR: Questions?
MR WIDE: I might just add very quickly – sorry – before questions that this is really kicking
off a whole season at the whole Smithsonian to celebrate where Asia meets America. So
we have these brochures that are essentially tours of Asian art objects – actually Asian
objects more widely in the Smithsonian collections. It’s a year of celebrating Asia at the Smithsonian,
so it’s part of this larger program that will be going on.
Yes. Questions?
QUESTION: Yeah. Hello. I’m Christoph Marschall. I’m working for Der Tagesspiegel, the main
daily in Berlin, Germany. And in the invitation it said also that somehow this connects to
how international politics changes at the moment, geopolitics. Could you talk a little
bit about that? In Europe, of course, we are – well, we are looking or we are observing
whether America is more reconnecting towards Asia and a little bit less Europe. What is
the context from your point of view, how you would assess it?
MR RABY: So one of the things that we’ll be starting is a series called Asia Now, which
is a discussion and debate series in conjunction with friends from some of the think tanks
around the Washington area, essentially moving the Freer|Sackler outside our comfort zone
of art history, but becoming a forum for discussion of exactly the difficult questions you’re
asking.
I don’t know if any of you have had a chance to see an exhibition that’s been up for
a couple of years now called Turquoise Mountain. And let me just ask Tommy to talk a little
bit about that, because that’s an exhibition that looks at an area of Kabul that was going
to be demolished, has been rehabilitated, not just in terms of the architectural fabric,
but the life within it. And what we found, without being preachy or – is that Americans
who visited it have all been struck by how their image of Afghanistan – let’s say
my image of Afghanistan has been, if you like, prejudiced by years, decades of media that
just emphasizes, if you like, the almost inhuman side, the IEDs, the war. And suddenly you’re
confronted by a group of artists – some of them have actually come; some of them will
be coming for October the 14th and 15th – a group of artists who’ve found their own
sort of personal salvation and, in some cases, a good living through artistic practice.
So this is, to me, an extraordinary opportunity to change perceptions. And so we’ve never
had an exhibition in which, quite frankly, so many people have cried. We have some extraordinary
comments from audiences. And this wasn’t the type of exhibition that we would normally
do. It wasn’t the high art of the Middle Ages, but it’s a really important way of
people beginning to see through the art a different side, a different aspect of a region
that has really been blighted for three decades. But Tommy was responsible for that exhibition,
so I should ask him to tell you something.
MR WIDE: Well, no, I think Julian’s really said it all. All I’d add is that the – I
think one of the keys of the exhibition is that it was in the first person. It was Afghan
voices articulating their own vision for their country – its past, its present, and its
future. And I think allowing those alternate voices inside the museum was the key really
to creating connection.
To go to your question about American reorienting itself in some way, I think it’s not really
for us, as the – as a museum of Asian American art, it’s not about us turning away from
Europe or anything like that. It’s really just about us foregrounding the connections
between Asia and America. So that’s the point we’re really trying to make here.
That sound right?
MR RABY: And just go back to perhaps what I said at the very beginning, which was that
Freer’s vision was really about a universalist, almost kind of transcendental beauty that
could be shared by everybody. And I think that that’s an idealism that goes extremely
well alongside what was Roosevelt’s rather more pragmatic approach. So the idealism and
the pragmatism, the political pragmatism of Roosevelt, aligned with Freer’s idealism.
It was actually a wonderful blueprint for the museum’s future.
MODERATOR: Are there any other questions?
QUESTION: This is Thomas Gorguissian from Al Ahram, Egypt. And the – going back to
your answer to this question, how the Divine Feline feel in this category?
MR RABY: Yeah. So --
QUESTION: I mean, because I know that it’s part of your opening.
MR RABY: Right. So the – the Divine Felines is an exhibition on cats in Ancient Egypt.
So what we’re opening with is – I should just perhaps explain first that the Freer
is one of the most exquisite museum buildings in the world, however, Mr. Freer, in all his
generosity, actually prohibited any objects from the Freer to be lent out and no objects
to be lent – to be brought in. So it is a – if you like, a hermetically closed institution.
It’s one that embraces you, but it doesn’t have that kind of porosity that you might
expect in other museums. I’ll come to your issue in a moment.
And then if you look at the Sackler – that was set up in the late 1980s, opened in 1987
at a time when the big international exhibitions were becoming common. So the Sackler allows
us to do temporary exhibitions with loans. So, for example, we did that great Sotatsu
exhibition last year; we did an enormous Hokusai exhibition a few years ago. And so the Divine
Felines is one of several exhibitions that we’re opening, as Tommy explained, and is
an opportunity for us to show to a Washington public Egyptian art, which is otherwise strangely
absent from this area. There are no collections of Ancient Egyptian art in Washington.
So part of what we want to do is to give people an opportunity to see material they couldn’t
see otherwise, and some of it, quite frankly, is fun. I know that there is a kind of international
cat day that’s occurring at about the same time, and I think people will go absolutely
wild. (Laughter.) So it’s quite interesting. I actually insisted that we have a section
on dogs in the exhibition as well. (Laughter.)
So yes, there is a seriousness about what we do, but there’s also a levity as well.
QUESTION: So you are loaning it from?
MR RABY: We are borrowing this from the Brooklyn Museum, which has one of the world’s great
collections of ancient Egyptian art, because they were amongst one of the first museums
to conduct excavations on a systematic basis in Egypt. So for us, we have a very small
ancient Egyptian collection. So this is a wonderful opportunity to expand it through
a temporary loan.
MODERATOR: Are there any questions from this side of the table? No?
QUESTION: I have two questions. Question number one: Will we have a media preview to the Chinese
dog series, and also the Buddhist shrine? Because these are very interesting exhibitions;
I believe the audience will be very interested.
MR RABY: Right. So maybe I could ask Erick, who’s right behind you, to tell us a little
bit about the media preview.
MR HOFFMAN: Okay. Good morning; I’m Erick Hoffman. I’m the head of marketing and communications
for the Freer|Sackler. There is a media preview, and I have shared that information with Olga
Bashbush, who will be forwarding it out to you. It is on Wednesday, October 11th. You’re
invited to join us at 9:00 a.m. for breakfast; remarks will begin at 9:30. And then from
10:00 until 2:00, the galleries will be open to you, the media, to spend your time exploring
the new museums, and also talking with Julian and our curators as well, so that you can
direct questions to them and gain more information. Thank you.
MR RABY: So yes, there will be an opportunity to see the Tibetan shrine and to see all of
the other exhibitions. So I hope we have enough time in those three hours.
QUESTION: Okay. So hi, my name is Chen Liu, and good morning. I’m from China Xinhua
News Agency. I have two questions, and actually they’re kind of connected. One is that in
the – just the past few years, have you ever noticed kind of a change of the composition
of your visitors? Like, did you just notice the increasing number or growth of the visitors
from Asian countries or China specifically? I’m just wondering. And –
MR RABY: Yeah.
QUESTION: Yeah. Okay.
MR RABY: So the answer to that question is yes. Though actually, the growth, the exponential
growth in the number of Chinese visitors to D.C. has been in the last couple of years,
when we’ve been closed. So certainly, the Smithsonian has noticed it, D.C. has noticed
it, and therefore we hope that when we reopen, we will be able to welcome many visitors from
China. And that’s one of the reasons for having the highlight tour as an audio app.
It will be in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Spanish, and English. So --
QUESTION: Yeah. And my second question is that just the – in your exhibitions, there
are some things just about China and collections. So I’m just wondering that when those Chinese
visitors just are seeing these collections, have you ever thought about providing a different
perspective for them to see these collections which they might be kind of familiar with,
or just the part of their own history? I mean, have you ever thought about providing a perspective
from the Western view or things like that?
MR RABY: Right. So actually, what I didn’t say is that the entire arrangement of the
Freer, while it – the – many of the objects are in the same galleries as they were in
the past, these are not treated like permanent galleries. They’re essentially treated as
mini exhibitions. So every gallery – so for example, we have a group of Xiu bronzes
that actually looks at the foundry at Houma, which was the largest single manufacturing
site in the ancient world. So there’s an opportunity not just for our Chinese visitors,
but for every visitor to realize the way in which China was an industrial superpower and
the way in which they changed production methods precisely to be able to produce more. So there’s
an extraordinary transformation in technique that we’ve tried to explain that was to
accommodate a completely new market.
I mean, I could go on. I could go on about how we’re looking, for example, at the – in
the Ming to Qing galleries at the way in which China both looks at its past and looks outwards,
and it’s that duality that is often not emphasized sufficiently. So there’s a thematic
aspect to all of the exhibitions, all of the galleries in the Freer.
If you take the galleries, the two rooms of Indian art, which covers a dazzling array
of Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and Muslim art, there’s a common theme, and that’s actually
about body image. So each of these themes are things that will resonate with the public,
and even for the experts. I think in many instances they’ve provided a very different
way of looking at objects that are, in many cases, amongst the great icons of their time.
So I hope that’s an answer for you.
MODERATOR: Are there any other questions?
RECORDING: Americans call George Washington the father of –
MR RABY: (Laughter.) Tell us.
QUESTION: Yes, please. I have a question – general question. First of all, I have been to the
museum at least dozens of times. I mean, it’s like my – one of my favorite places. What
is really now I can say – you can say that is renovated or it’s going to be different
from what was before? I mean, what is the addition that you took like a year or two
to – this is my first question.
Second question is: When you say the collection of the family, how much of the collection
is on exhibition and how much still not being exhibited?
And the third question, related to the number, you have an estimate how many people before
this renovation the last time were visiting yearly to the museum? Thank you.
MR RABY: Right. So on the last question, some 5- to 600,000 a year. And on the previous
question, which is what have we done in terms of the renovation – so this is a bit like
an iceberg. So there’s a tiny tip that’s visible and there’s a huge amount that’s
not visible. So the renovation was actually prompted by the fact that the Smithsonian
needed to completely – not renew, but replace something that’s incredibly boring for all
of us, which is the heating and air conditioning. So that’s – that was a $14 million project,
and everything had to be excavated from the basement, which meant we had to close.
That gave us, on the content and display side, the opportunity to refresh. And when I say
“refresh,” I mean both physically and in terms of the way that we address the audiences.
So let me tell you a little bit about the physical refresh. The walls haven’t changed.
They can’t change. This is a listed building. It’s one of the great museum buildings in
the world. What we’ve done is essentially taken away many of the additions that had
been made over the last 75, 80 years, and done two things.
One is that Freer believed very strongly that objects of beauty required space. He believed
– and the exact phrase was beauty requires space to expand and radiate. And what I’m
hoping is that that sense of radiation, of – the – if you like, the aura of beautiful
objects will strike people.
The second aspect in terms of physical display that he was very keen on – he said he learned
it in Japan – was the importance of having light not just come from above – so we have
these wonderful skylights – but actually to come from below. So how did he achieve
that? He achieved that by having highly polished terrazzo floors, so a kind of stone floor
that would reflect up the light.
So what we did was we took away the carpets, we’ve restored the original terrazzo floor,
and it’s really subtle. What it does is basically the whole room is suffused with
the light and you can understand what he was trying to do. This is actually – I mean,
it sounds minimal. It is a series of minimal changes. But each one of them together has
meant that we’ve achieved a reductive aesthetic where the aura of the room is important, where
the museum itself is a work of art, and where we hope we’re encouraging slow looking.
And then because we have an absolutely brilliant group of people doing the lighting, I think
after a few rooms your eyes will be dancing.
QUESTION: How much is the collection is on exhibition?
MR RABY: So then the other refresh is not just a physical refresh. It’s actually a
refreshing how we’ve changed the way in which we write about the objects. I’m going
to leave you to see that on the 11th. The number of objects – so when Mr. Freer gave
his collection, he was very generous. It was 7,000 objects. He stipulated that we couldn’t
purchase any American objects, which left about 1,500, but we could purchase objects
of Asian art. And today the current holdings of the Freer are about 32,000. Because of
the principles of showing the – allowing objects to breathe, so there are a tiny percentage
unshown.
However, in preparation for all of this, we ensured that every single object in the Freer
is available online in high-res images downloadable for free. So you can see absolutely everything,
and anybody can around the world. And then we’ll change things out because we’re
adopting this principle of, if you like, mini-exhibitions, not permanent galleries. So every six months,
year, two years, whatever, we will be changing objects in the galleries.
But if your question was how much of it we have on show, it’s a tiny, tiny fraction,
because that aesthetic principle of allowing things to breathe seems to me the most important.
QUESTION: You mean a tiny percentage of the 32,000?
MR RABY: Exactly.
QUESTION: And the 32,000 images and information --
MR RABY: Is totally available.
QUESTION: On the --
MR RABY: And we do encourage people to come, and if they want to see things in storage
and so forth.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MR RABY: Pleasure.
QUESTION: Just one more question. I keep hearing this is an experience “where Asia meets
America,” but everything we’re hearing about is about Asia. So where’s the America
elementing?
MR RABY: So there are two forms of meeting. We actually have three permanent galleries,
though I shouldn’t call them permanent galleries, but they’re galleries devoted to American
art. We have, of course, the Peacock Room, which itself is interesting because the way
it’s been reinstalled is not the way the Peacock Room looked when it was originally
made in London, which was full of Chinese blue and white. It’s actually the way it
was displayed in Detroit when Freer took the room from London to his house in Detroit.
So it’s the arrangement of ceramics from China, Korea, Japan, and the Muslim world
is exactly how Freer painted the room with the ceramics. So that room itself is a kind
of expression of his interest in juxtaposing Western and Eastern.
But the other aspect of where Asia meets America is both – it’s not just about the objects,
it’s actually much more about intentionality and expression of dialogue, and as I say,
reasserting that symbolism that Roosevelt clearly recognized in having the very first
museum on the Mall, art museum on the Mall dedicated to both American and Asian art.
MODERATOR: Any additional questions?
MR RABY: Well, thank you all very, very much indeed.
MR WIDE: Thank you.
MR RABY: Thank you.
MODERATOR: I just want to encourage you all – what we are going to do, as we do always,
we will have the video and the transcript uploaded within the next couple of hours.
I will make sure to re-post both on our Facebook page and on Twitter the basic information
that was announced today, when the reopening is, when the press preview is, when the application
– the mobile audio app – will be available. And we will also send it out through our Friday
Press Pass. So we encourage you to attend the press preview and invite all of your fellow
journalist colleagues.
Again, thank you very much to our guests from the Smithsonian for your Sackler Galleries.
Have a good afternoon, thank you.
MR RABY: Thank you. Olga, thank you very much indeed. Thank you.