A letter from our director and CEO: The Question of Celebrity: how does it define us?

A publication sometimes fits so seamlessly into the mores of a time that we can say the publication defines its subjects rather than the other way around. The New Yorker magazine has this feel--so very Manhattan in its sense of humour, preoccupations, and liberal view of the world.

Vanity Fair magazine has quite another sense about it. Its mission statement reads: "Vanity Fair is a cultural catalyst--a magazine that provokes and drives the popular dialogue." It is this role of "cultural catalyst" that makes the magazine such an appropriate partner for the ROM's Institute for Contemporary Culture. The exhibition Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008 opens on September 26 in the ICC's Roloff Beny Gallery. Vanity Fair, the ICC, cutting-edge architecture, and Canada's premiere High Street location at Bloor and Avenue Road: quite the match in 2009.

The ICC explores contemporary culture through varied artistic expressions. Vanity Fair's arresting photography has reflected and created popular culture in North America for almost 100 years. Many of these photos have iconic status in our minds, not least of them Conrad Black with Barbara Amiel at their Palm Beach home several years ago. Celebrity is the stock in trade, and a volatile stock it can be.

The "Question of Celebrity" provides the thematic umbrella for our Vanity Fair exhibition this fall. What defines celebrity, why do we have such an appetite for it, how is it borne, what are its risks and rewards, and how significant is celebrity as part of a civilization, rather than popular culture? And consequently--how much a part of civilization is popular culture?

In the ROM's historic collections, we find many works of art linked to celebrity and power. The treasures in tombs and the commissioning of sculptures or costumes were inextricably tied to status and fame. These beautiful products illustrate social relations quite eloquently in themselves.

What values and works do we associate with portraits of Claude Monet, Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, Arthur Miller, H. G. Wells, Ernest Hemingway, George Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Demi Moore, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Katharine Hepburn, Tom Cruise, and Cary Grant?

Celebrity in each of these cases was earned and still has consequences, unlike many celebrities of the current age whose fame is created by mass media alone, and whose sudden presence signifies nothing. The 15-minute celebrity defined by Andy Warhol is a counterfeit, not that found in these photographs from Vanity Fair.

Throughout the exhibition, the ICC will present special programming featuring celebrities and celebrity watchers. The annual Eva Holtby Lecture on Contemporary Culture will feature Lewis Lapham, editor emeritus of Harper's Magazine, speaking on celebrity culture in the United States. A series of programs called The Question of Celebrity will feature Meryl Streep on October 7.

But we return to the photographs themselves--this is the art of the 20th century and beyond at its memorable best.

WILLIAM THORSELL

DIRECTOR AND CEO