Exhibition Review Essay
7 May, 2018
Making Ancient Art Contemporary
A position piece based on these exhibitions of 2018:
Turin – Museo Egizio – Statues Also Die
(through September 9)
London – King’s College – The Classical Now
(ended April 28)
Frankfurt – Liebieghaus – O Sentimental Machine
(through August 26)
Turin – Museo Egizio – Statues Also Die
(through September 9)
London – King’s College – The Classical Now
(ended April 28)
Frankfurt – Liebieghaus – O Sentimental Machine
(through August 26)
What are ancient art museums for? Art museums worldwide, particularly those devoted to antiquities, are struggling for relevance in our changing cultural landscape. The result is a broad spectrum of new exhibition tactics aimed at engaging viewers in imaginative ways. Currently, an exhibition concept used at multiple venues in Europe deserves special note—as it offers one of the best justifications for exhibiting ancient art in the modern West.
The idea is to juxtapose ancient art with modern and contemporary art in order to highlight critique, self-awareness, and uncertainty, themes traditionally downplayed by museums. The viewer thus is made aware that the museum is not a neutral mediator but an active interpretive agent. She is invited to reflect on the ways that meaning is in fact created for objects, rather than being an inherent property that specialists discover and present. Each of the exhibitions below underscores this same point in slightly different ways.
Turin – Museo Egizio – Statues Also Die (through September 9)
The exhibition “Statues Also Die” spreads across three venues in Turin. That the show is a joint project among four institutions (the Museo Egizio, Royal Palace Museums, Center for Archaeological Research and Excavation in Turin, and Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation) already marks it as forward-thinking. So are its aims: by installing contemporary artworks that respond to ancient ones, the show seeks to expose “processes of knowledge” by which cultural heritage is either preserved, researched, ignored, or destroyed. Ali Cherri’s Fragments II, installed in the Museo Egizio, features a taxidermied hawk hovering over motley antiquities on a light table. The piece targets rapacious acquisition practices and construes antiquities as “dead objects” that cast no shadow, despite their high monetary and societal value. Only rarely have museums wanted to acknowledge such themes; yet this show puts them in the spotlight. And it does so right beside the permanent collections of antiquities, pointing its finger directly at them. The organizers of this show clearly feel that such self-criticism (or at least self-awareness) is less potentially harmful to the public perception of museums than it is necessary. Indeed, the directors argue that such reflection is more urgent than ever in a world beset by “conflicts, ideologies, [and] cultural revolutions incapable of reading and interpreting the historical past as a resource for the development of the future.”
London – King’s College – The Classical Now (ended April 28)
A smaller but no less impassioned call to reflection is found in the exhibition “The Classical Now,” part of the ongoing research project “Modern Classicisms” headed by Michael Squire (King’s College London). Much more than a simple exhibition of modern and contemporary art with classical subjects, this show stresses the fact that we have no direct channel for accessing the meaning of ancient art. Unavoidably, in interpreting antiquity we recreate its meaning for ourselves. Damian Hirst’s The Severed Head of Medusa illustrates this, writhing on its pedestal, its open mouth gaping sideways amidst a mass of snakes. The intense emotion and dynamism of Bernini’s Medusa is here ratcheted up even further, in part through the realistic snake scales and gruesome anatomy of the severed neck. It is clearly a modern artwork (signaled too by the outrageously shiny gold material) that looks back to antiquity through a Baroque lens. What we see of antiquity is filtered, Hirst reminds us; ancient myth and art are transformable tools for “finding new paths to make our way through the chaos,” now as much as then.
Frankfurt – O Sentimental Machine (through August 26)
“O Sentimental Machine,” at the Liebieghaus in Frankfurt, is the result of curator Vinzenz Brinkmann’s invitation to William Kentridge to install a huge range of pieces throughout the museum’s permanent collection. Sometimes the interventions swallow a whole room, as in the piece The Refusal of Time. Here the gallery of Roman art is illuminated by video works projected onto three walls, while an enormous loom-like machine works away in the center. Megaphones and chairs stand among the marble statues as if in conversation. Indeed, a dialogue between ancient and contemporary is precisely the point. Kentridge has said that he offers “an invitation to construct a connection. At least, an awareness of the pressure we feel to make a connection, to be part of constructing the meaning.” His methods of layering are varied—contemporary over antiquity, drawings over text, transparencies over photographs in the exhibition companion volume. The layers highlight “all the hesitations and provisionalities of truth. All the biographical idiosyncratic events that shape not just how the world is conceived, but the sense we construct of it.” If we find it hard to read the Roman statues because of the projections rolling over them, casting a distorted modern light onto ancient stone, Kentridge has done his job.
Pursuing this concept to its extreme, two more exhibitions blend ancient with modern and contemporary art into a singular entity. In Berlin, “Replica Knowledge: An Archaeology of the Multiple Past” displays only replicas, no originals, of various blockbuster Bronze-Age artifacts. The replicas—including the copy of a Vapheio cup used in Game of Thrones—stand in long rows, stretching into absurdity, challenging the fetishization of unique masterpieces. Similarly, Damian Hirst’s show “Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable” at the latest Venice Biennale also centers on ancient-looking pieces made by modern hands. Rather than replicas, however, Hirst fabricated an immense range of pieces to resemble ancient artifacts recovered from a shipwreck. The exhibition texts even recreate the story of the ship’s discovery by archaeologists. Hirst provocatively blurs the boundary between ancient and modern, fiction and “fact” in order to unsettle our confidence that we can know the distant past.
These exhibitions are groundbreaking because they raise the possibility that art museums are “for” something we have not yet sufficiently recognized: they teach fundamental critical thinking skills by questioning institutional authority. They ask visitors to look beyond the objects in the room, to evaluate not just visual material but arguments and assumptions—whether in their own minds, the museum, or western tradition at large. This sort of critical assessment is the bedrock of a successful modern society; people who are able to see beyond received wisdom are better equipped to deal with their complex present. In particular, recognizing that the use of objects and images is never impartial is an indispensable skill. It allows us to realize that the disproportionate number of happy photos on social media does not reflect reality, does not mean that we are the only ones leading an imperfect life. Reflecting on the motivations behind object display and the institutionalized norms spread through images is a healthy practice. Even, or especially, for institutions themselves.
The idea is to juxtapose ancient art with modern and contemporary art in order to highlight critique, self-awareness, and uncertainty, themes traditionally downplayed by museums. The viewer thus is made aware that the museum is not a neutral mediator but an active interpretive agent. She is invited to reflect on the ways that meaning is in fact created for objects, rather than being an inherent property that specialists discover and present. Each of the exhibitions below underscores this same point in slightly different ways.
Turin – Museo Egizio – Statues Also Die (through September 9)
The exhibition “Statues Also Die” spreads across three venues in Turin. That the show is a joint project among four institutions (the Museo Egizio, Royal Palace Museums, Center for Archaeological Research and Excavation in Turin, and Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation) already marks it as forward-thinking. So are its aims: by installing contemporary artworks that respond to ancient ones, the show seeks to expose “processes of knowledge” by which cultural heritage is either preserved, researched, ignored, or destroyed. Ali Cherri’s Fragments II, installed in the Museo Egizio, features a taxidermied hawk hovering over motley antiquities on a light table. The piece targets rapacious acquisition practices and construes antiquities as “dead objects” that cast no shadow, despite their high monetary and societal value. Only rarely have museums wanted to acknowledge such themes; yet this show puts them in the spotlight. And it does so right beside the permanent collections of antiquities, pointing its finger directly at them. The organizers of this show clearly feel that such self-criticism (or at least self-awareness) is less potentially harmful to the public perception of museums than it is necessary. Indeed, the directors argue that such reflection is more urgent than ever in a world beset by “conflicts, ideologies, [and] cultural revolutions incapable of reading and interpreting the historical past as a resource for the development of the future.”
London – King’s College – The Classical Now (ended April 28)
A smaller but no less impassioned call to reflection is found in the exhibition “The Classical Now,” part of the ongoing research project “Modern Classicisms” headed by Michael Squire (King’s College London). Much more than a simple exhibition of modern and contemporary art with classical subjects, this show stresses the fact that we have no direct channel for accessing the meaning of ancient art. Unavoidably, in interpreting antiquity we recreate its meaning for ourselves. Damian Hirst’s The Severed Head of Medusa illustrates this, writhing on its pedestal, its open mouth gaping sideways amidst a mass of snakes. The intense emotion and dynamism of Bernini’s Medusa is here ratcheted up even further, in part through the realistic snake scales and gruesome anatomy of the severed neck. It is clearly a modern artwork (signaled too by the outrageously shiny gold material) that looks back to antiquity through a Baroque lens. What we see of antiquity is filtered, Hirst reminds us; ancient myth and art are transformable tools for “finding new paths to make our way through the chaos,” now as much as then.
Frankfurt – O Sentimental Machine (through August 26)
“O Sentimental Machine,” at the Liebieghaus in Frankfurt, is the result of curator Vinzenz Brinkmann’s invitation to William Kentridge to install a huge range of pieces throughout the museum’s permanent collection. Sometimes the interventions swallow a whole room, as in the piece The Refusal of Time. Here the gallery of Roman art is illuminated by video works projected onto three walls, while an enormous loom-like machine works away in the center. Megaphones and chairs stand among the marble statues as if in conversation. Indeed, a dialogue between ancient and contemporary is precisely the point. Kentridge has said that he offers “an invitation to construct a connection. At least, an awareness of the pressure we feel to make a connection, to be part of constructing the meaning.” His methods of layering are varied—contemporary over antiquity, drawings over text, transparencies over photographs in the exhibition companion volume. The layers highlight “all the hesitations and provisionalities of truth. All the biographical idiosyncratic events that shape not just how the world is conceived, but the sense we construct of it.” If we find it hard to read the Roman statues because of the projections rolling over them, casting a distorted modern light onto ancient stone, Kentridge has done his job.
Pursuing this concept to its extreme, two more exhibitions blend ancient with modern and contemporary art into a singular entity. In Berlin, “Replica Knowledge: An Archaeology of the Multiple Past” displays only replicas, no originals, of various blockbuster Bronze-Age artifacts. The replicas—including the copy of a Vapheio cup used in Game of Thrones—stand in long rows, stretching into absurdity, challenging the fetishization of unique masterpieces. Similarly, Damian Hirst’s show “Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable” at the latest Venice Biennale also centers on ancient-looking pieces made by modern hands. Rather than replicas, however, Hirst fabricated an immense range of pieces to resemble ancient artifacts recovered from a shipwreck. The exhibition texts even recreate the story of the ship’s discovery by archaeologists. Hirst provocatively blurs the boundary between ancient and modern, fiction and “fact” in order to unsettle our confidence that we can know the distant past.
These exhibitions are groundbreaking because they raise the possibility that art museums are “for” something we have not yet sufficiently recognized: they teach fundamental critical thinking skills by questioning institutional authority. They ask visitors to look beyond the objects in the room, to evaluate not just visual material but arguments and assumptions—whether in their own minds, the museum, or western tradition at large. This sort of critical assessment is the bedrock of a successful modern society; people who are able to see beyond received wisdom are better equipped to deal with their complex present. In particular, recognizing that the use of objects and images is never impartial is an indispensable skill. It allows us to realize that the disproportionate number of happy photos on social media does not reflect reality, does not mean that we are the only ones leading an imperfect life. Reflecting on the motivations behind object display and the institutionalized norms spread through images is a healthy practice. Even, or especially, for institutions themselves.