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Amsterdam, Netherlands
De Nieuwe Kerk
Oman
Dates: 17 Oct 09 - 18 Apr 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: Dam Square, Amsterdam Amsterdam 1015 BC
Tel: +31 (0)20 638 6909 Website
Baltimore, USA
Walters Art Museum
Heroes! Mortals and Myths in Ancient Greece
Dates: 11 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: 600 North Charles Street Baltimore 21201
Tel: +1 410 547 9000 Website
Beijing, China
The Palace Museum
Selected Steles and Stone Rubbings Dating from Han to Wei (third century BC-third century CE) from the Permanent Collections
Dates: 31 Oct 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Far East
Address: 4 Jingshan Qianjie Beijing 100009
Tel: Website
Berlin, Germany
Bode-Museum
Childhood on the River Nile: Images of Children from Egypt in the National Museums in Berlin
Dates: 10 Jul 09 - 6 Jun 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: Bodestrasse 1-3, Museumsinsel Berlin D-10178
Tel: +49 (0)30 2035 5259 Website
Boston, USA
Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston
The Secrets of Tomb 10A: Egypt 2000 BC
Dates: 18 Oct 09 - 16 May 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: 465 Huntington Avenue Boston 02115-5519
Tel: +1 617 267 9300 Website
Brussels, Belgium
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique
Delvaux and the Ancient World
Dates: 23 Oct 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: 3, rue de la Régence Brussels B-1000
Tel: +32 (0)2 508 3290 Website
Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire
The Silk Road: a Journey through Life and Death
Dates: 23 Oct 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Curious
Far East
Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: Parc du Cinquantenaire 10 Brussels B-1000
Tel: +32 (0)2 741 7200 Website
Brocade from Nanjing
Dates: 23 Oct 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Far East
Archaeology & Ancient art
Decorative
Address: Parc du Cinquantenaire 10 Brussels B-1000
Tel: +32 (0)2 741 7200 Website
Frankfurt, Germany
Museum der Weltkulturen (Museum of World Cultures)
Being Object, Being Art: Masterpieces from the Collections of the Museum of World Cultures
Dates: 31 Oct 09 - 31 Oct 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
African
Address: Amt 45G, Schaumainkai 29-37 Frankfurt D-60594
Tel: (0)69 212 359 13 Website
Houston, USA
Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Houston
Arts of Ancient Viet Nam: from River Plain to Open Sea
Dates: 13 Sep 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Far East
Address: 1001 Bissonnet Houston 77005
Tel: +1 713 639 7300 Website
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, hosts a landmark exhibition of ancient Vietnamese art this month. This ambitious, large-scale show—the first of its kind to be staged in the US—is the culmination of 20 years of research, planning and negotiations with Vietnamese institutions and government officials. The wide variety of works on display, many of which have never before been exhibited outside Vietnam, are drawn from the country’s leading museums in Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Ha Noi, Hue and Dong Nai.
“We aim to introduce Vietnamese art and culture to an American audience,” says San Francisco-based independent curator Dr Nancy Tingley. She adds: “Most people in the US are unfamiliar with Vietnamese history prior to the 20th century and associate the country primarily with the Vietnam War.” The Houston museum’s in-house curator for the exhibition, Christine Starkman, adds: “People are familiar with Chinese, Indian and, to a certain degree, Korean art, but Vietnamese art is still a bit of mystery and we hope to change this.”
The exhibition will show that Vietnam was a central hub for exchange between Asia and the West from as early as the first millennium BC. The 110 sculptures, bronzes, terracottas and jewellery on display originated from countries including India and China and places as far west as Rome. “As the exhibition develops, visitors will see an increase in material goods and exchange of ideas between countries,” says Tingley.
The display is divided chronologically into sections. The first is entitled “Early Cultures” and covers the country’s first “Golden Age” from 1000 BC to the second century AD when the Sa Huynh and Dong Son civilisations dominated the landscape in the centre/south and north respectively. Most of what remains from this period are grave goods such as large funerary jars, ornamental bronze drums, axes and beads. The next section concentrates on the Fu Nan people who inhabited the Mekong River Delta in the southwestern part of the country from the first to eighth centuries AD. The seafaring Champa people are explored in the third section. From the fifth to the 15th century this kingdom flourished, controlling the highly profitable spice trade in Southeast Asia. Cham objects on display include sculpture and metalwork from Indonesia, Butuan and India. The final section covers the 12th to the 15th centuries and concentrates on the ceramic trade in the port of Hoi An.
Several of the works on display have been unearthed within the past two decades. “Vietnam is incredibly rich in cultural remains. There are at least 75 archaeological excavations every year, which is an extraordinary amount of digs for a country of its size,” notes Tingley. Some of the most interesting objects come from a shipwreck excavated in the 1990s off the coast of Cu Lao Cham Island in the central province of Quang Nam. Archaeologists discovered a cache of 150,000 to 200,000 ceramic pieces. This find illustrates not only the varied types of ceramics produced in Vietnam, but also the obvious demand for these wares. The exhibition will travel to the Asia Society in New York (2 February-2 May 2010). Emily Sharpe
Female, probably fifth century
Leon, Spain
Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Castilla y Leon (MU
Ugo Rondinone: the Night of Lead
Dates: 11 Jul 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Avenida de los Reyes Leoneses, 24 Leon 24008
Tel: +34 987 09 00 00 Website
Swiss-born, New York-based artist Ugo Rondinone’s only museum show of 2009 is also his solo debut in Spain. Curated by Augustín Pérez Rubio, Musac’s acting director, the show encompasses many aspects of Rondinone’s eclectic practice—with sculpture, painting, video, collage and installation—and consists of more than 50 objects arranged across five rooms. “He’s never shown anything in Spain, so that’s why it’s such a huge presentation,” Mr Rubio told The Art Newspaper.
The overriding theme is of fantasy, poetry and ritual, and the exhibition begins with an installation of six ancient olive trees, painted white. This is a new version of Get Up Girl a Sun is Running the World shown at the 2007 Venice Biennale when Rondinone represented Switzerland with Urs Fischer. Because of the generous scale of Musac’s exhibition spaces, the trees reach up to 4.5 metres in height, compared to the three-metre forms in Venice. In the centre a giant sculpture of a light bulb hangs from the ceiling, and strong white light fills the room to create the sensation of “white night”, says Mr Rubio. In another room Rondinone is showing his Star paintings, a brand new series of 13 works, all around 4x3 metres. “He wants to install them altogether as a tribute to Rothko’s chapel,” Mr Rubio told TAN. “Each painting is like a cosmos, showing the stars by night. He wanted to create the feeling of night and loneliness, and in the middle of the room is the sculpture of a clown lying on the floor. For Ugo, the idea of the clown is somebody who looks human but is also a creation. You never know if it’s a man or a woman—it’s like a human being in process.” In the final room is Still.Life (John’s Fireplace), a 2008 installation showing a replica of US poet John Giorno’s fireplace from his apartment in New York. Poetry is a strong influence: the show weaves together disparate elements that build up poetic layers of symbolism and personal narrative, at times menacing, at times more dreamlike.
On a different register, one of Rondinone’s bright rainbow sculptures, Hell, Yes!, 2001, adorns the façade of the New Museum, New York, until 19 July. Rosie Spencer
Get Up Girl a Sun is Running the World
London, United Kingdom
British Museum
Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler
Dates: 24 Sep 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Latin American
Address: Great Russell Street London WC1B 3DG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7323 8299 Website
A dejected ruler murdered by his own people after failing to prevent Spanish forces from conquering his once mighty empire that at its height stretched from the Pacific Ocean the Gulf of Mexico; this is the image of Moctezuma II that resonates five centuries after his demise. This show, the last in the museum’s series to explore power and empire through historical figures, investigates the less well-known period in the life of the Aztec emperor—the 18 years he reigned prior to the arrival of the conquistadors. The display tells the story of Moctezuma (reigned 1502-20) through monumental sculpture, gold and turquoise artefacts, codices, European portraits and enconchados (oil paintings with mother of pearl detail inlaid on wood panels) drawn from the museum’s collection as well as those in Mexico, the US and Europe.
“We want to reinsert Moctezuma into the Columbian world as a unique ruler in his own right—not merely as a post-colonial figure. It’s a wonderful challenge,” says Dr Colin McEwan, head of the museum’s Americas department and curator of the show, in cooperation with his Mexican colleagues Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, Leonardo López Luján and Felipe Solís Olguín, who died in April 2009.
Divided into thematic sections, the show examines various aspects of Moctezuma’s life including his role as a semi-divine figure or intermediary with Aztec gods, his military prowess and his varied achievements as a ruler. The exhibition also delves into the Spanish conquest and presents an alternative version of the ruler’s death. On display are two 16th-century codices—shown together here for the first time—one of which depicts Moctezuma in chains and the other with a rope around his neck, suggesting he might not have willingly welcomed the Spanish, but rather been a captive who was later dispatched by the Hispanic invaders. “We’re showing how history is constructed and represented and how events can be read in the 21st century. We want to bring less well-known aspects of his life into Western historicity,” says McEwan.
The show presents new scholarship on the emperor including the first in-depth reconstruction of a lost portrait of Moctezuma carved into Chapultepec Hill in Mexico City. E.S.
Turquoise mosaic mask, Aztec/Mixtec, 1400-1521 AD
Los Angeles, USA
Getty Villa
The Chimaera of Arezzo
Dates: 16 Jul 09 - 8 Feb 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: 17985 Pacific Coast Highway Los Angeles 90265-5708
Tel: +1 310 230 7075 Website
Inaugurating the long-term partnership between the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Florence is the display of the fourth-century BC Etruscan masterpiece The Chimaera of Arezzo. On loan from the Florence museum, which according to Getty museum director Dr Michael Brand “houses one of the most important collections of Etruscan art in the world”, this sculpture forms the centrepiece of an exhibition exploring six centuries of representations of the mythical beast described by Homer as “a thing of immortal make…lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle, and breathed forth flames of fire”. Accompanying the 80cm bronze are antiquities from the museum’s permanent collection as well as loans from such institutions as the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Villa Giulia, Rome, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The work was unearthed in the Tuscan town of Arezzo in the 16th-century and entered the collection of ruler and art patron Cosimo I de’Medici. This is the first time the sculpture has travelled to the US. E.S.
The Chimaera of Arezzo
Reconstructing Identity: a Statue of a God from Dresden
Dates: 19 Nov 09 - 8 Feb 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: 17985 Pacific Coast Highway Los Angeles 90265-5708
Tel: +1 310 230 7075 Website
Mannheim, Germany
Reiss-Engelhorn Museums
Alexander the Great
Dates: 3 Oct 09 - 21 Feb 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: C5 Zeughaus 68159 Mannheim
Tel: +49 621 293-3151 Website
New York, USA
American Museum of Natural History
Traveling the Silk Road: Ancient Pathway to the Modern World
Dates: 14 Nov 09 - 15 Aug 10
Categories: Far East
Address: Central Park West at 79th Street New York 10024
Tel: +1 212 769 5100 Website
Brooklyn Museum
Tipi of the Great Plains
Dates: 18 Sep 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: 200 Eastern Parkway New York 11238-6052
Tel: +1 718 638 5000 Website
Body Parts: Ancient Egyptian Fragments and Amulets
Dates: 19 Nov 09 - 2 Oct 11
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: 200 Eastern Parkway New York 11238-6052
Tel: +1 718 638 5000 Website
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW
The Lost World of Old Europe: the Danube Valley, 5000-3500 BC
Dates: 11 Nov 09 - 25 Apr 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: New York University, 15 East 84th Street New York 10028
Tel: +1 212 992 7843 Website
The Lost World of Old Europe brings to the US for the first time more than 160 objects recovered by archaeologists from the graves, towns, and villages of Old Europe, a cycle of related cultures that achieved a precocious peak of sophistication and creativity in what is now southeastern Europe between 5000 and 4000 BC, and then mysteriously collapsed by 3500 BC.
Morgan Library & Museum
Rembrandt and His Circle
Dates: 2 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: 225 Madison Avenue New York 10016-3405
Tel: +1 212 685 0008 Website
Oslo, Norway
Etnografisk Museum
Pilgrimage: Sacred Journeys Past and Present
Dates: 1 Jun 09 - 6 Apr 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: Frederiusgate 2 Oslo 0164
Tel: +47 22 85 99 64 Website
Paris, France
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais
From Byzantium to Istanbul: One Port for Two Continents
Dates: 10 Oct 09 - 25 Jan 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: 3, avenue Général Eisenhower Paris 75008
Tel: +33 (0)1 44 13 17 17 Website
Musée du Quai Branly
Teotihuacan: City of the Gods
Dates: 6 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Latin American
Address: 37, quai Branly, portail Debilly Paris 75007
Tel: Website
Princeton, USA
Princeton University Art Museum
Gifts from the Ancestors: Ancient Ivories of Bering Strait
Dates: 3 Oct 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: Princeton 08544-1018
Tel: +1 609 258 3788 Website
Rome, Italy
Quirinale—Scuderie Papali
Rome: the Painting of an Empire
Dates: 24 Sep 09 - 17 Jun 10
Categories: Curious
Address: via XXIV Maggio, 16 Rome 00187
Tel: +39 (0)6 696 271 Website
The Roman tradition of painting is explored is this comprehensive display which features about 100 works dating from the first century BC to the fifth century AD—from 49 BC when Caesar emerged as the absolute ruler of Rome to the period after the death of the last emperor of the Eastern and Western Empire, Theodosius I. The display includes unprecedented loans from major encyclopaedic and archaeological collections in Italy, Germany, Egypt, Switzerland and the UK.
Curated by Eugenio La Rocca, Serena Ensoli and Stefano Tortorella, the show aims to dispel the myth that Roman painting is merely a continuation of the Greek tradition by showing that it is innovative and wholly unique to its culture. It also illustrates the continuity of the Roman tradition from the Renaissance onwards, by showing how ancient Roman works influenced artists such as Raphael. As time has largely washed the paint from the remains of ancient Rome, we tend to forget that it was once a colourful metropolis. Frescos, mosaics and paintings on clay, wood and glass have been assembled to show the vibrancy of the Empire.
The show is organised into five sections: “Light and Shade”, “Deceptive Walls”, “Ancient Pinacothèques”, “The City Speaks” and “From the Rediscovery of the Domus Aurea to the Grotesque”. These sections show landscapes, portraits, mythological scenes, still-lifes, stage décor, erotic images and scenes of daily life originally found in shops as well as wealthy and more modest residences. The paintings are displayed in rooms designed by theatre and opera designer Luca Ronconi. E.S.
Mummy portrait of a young woman on wood, Egyptian, 100-130 AD
San Francisco, USA
Legion of Honor
Very Postmortem: Mummies and Medicine
Dates: 31 Oct 09 - 4 Jul 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Curious
Address: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Lincoln Park, 100 34th Avenue San Francisco 94121-1693
Tel: +1 415 750 3614 Website
M.H. de Young Museum
Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs
Dates: 27 Jun 09 - 28 Mar 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive San Francisco 94118
Tel: +1 415 863 3330 Website
Shanghai, China
Shanghai Museum
Ancient Chinese Export Porcelain Donated by H.B. Nieuwenhuys
Dates: 1 Oct 09 - 1 Jan 99
Categories: Decorative
Address: 201 Ren Min Da Dao Shanghai 200003
Tel: +86 21 63723500 Website
St Petersburg, Russia
State Hermitage Museum
Holy Faces: Greek Icons from the Velimezis Collection
Dates: 1 Sep 09 - 13 Dec 09
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Medieval
Address: 2, Dvortsovaya Ploshchad St Petersburg 190000
Tel: +7 812 710 90 79 Website
Following the conversion of medieval Russia to Christianity in 998, its links to Constantinople grew, with Greek architects and artists being invited to the region in its embrace of Byzantine Orthodox culture. The Velimezis Collection of Greek icons dating from the 15th to the 19th century was assembled by Emilios Velimezis (1902-46) between 1934 and 1946 and is now in the hands of the Benaki Museum, Athens, and members of the Velimezis family. This show of 42 icons and three anthivola (preliminary drawings), by painters including El Greco, Emmanuel Tzanes, Leos Moschos and Nikolas Kallergis, is in four rooms close to the Hermitage’s Byzantine galleries, highlighting the intertwined nature of Orthodox Russia and Greece. The show, curated by Yuri Pyatnitsky, senior curator of the Hermitage, is supported by the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation. J.H.
Strasbourg, France
Musée Archéologique de Strasbourg
10,000 Years of History: Ten Years of Archaeological Exhibitions in Alsace
Dates: 6 Nov 09 - 31 Aug 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: Palais Rohan, 2, place du Château Strasbourg 67000
Tel: 03 88 52 50 00 Website
Toronto, Canada
Royal Ontario Museum (ROM)
Dead Sea Scrolls: Words that Changed the World
Dates: 27 Jun 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: 100 Queen’s Park Toronto M5S 2C6
Tel: +1 416 586 5549 Website
Venice, Italy
Palazzo Grassi
Mapping the Studio: Artists from the François Pinault Collection
Dates: 7 Jun 09 - 31 Dec 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Campo San Samuele, 3231 Venice 30124
Tel: +39 (0)41 5231680 Website
After a year and a half of renovation works, French magnate François Pinault inaugurates the new exhibition space at Punta della Dogana with a permanent show that includes about 300 works selected from his vast collection of contemporary art, also displayed in Palazzo Grassi.
The title “Mapping the Studio” takes direct inspiration from the influential video installation by Bruce Nauman, 2001, and reflects on Pinault’s choices as a collector, as he stated: “Its aim is to explore the individual course followed by a collector for whom the acquisition of works of art has meant becoming closely associated with the creative process of the individual artists themselves. Obviously this means running certain risks and making certain choices, one of them being the very decision to share one’s passions and ideas with the public at large.”
Pinault and the exhibition curators (Alison Gingeras and Francesco Bonami) selected works by some of the best-known artists of the past 40 years, including Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, Cy Twombly and Takashi Murakami, but also featuring emerging artists such as Matthew Day Jackson, Adel Abdessemed, Richard Hughes, and Kai Althoff.
Created in partnership with the City of Venice, the project of Punta della Dogana was supervised by Japanese architect Tadao Ando and the total cost of the structural restoration was 20m euros. The contest for the creation of a centre for contemporary art was launched in July 2006 and saw the main contenders, Palazzo Grassi and the Guggenheim Foundation, engaged in a strenuous battle in order to expand their influence on Venice. The space of the ancient customs building has been re-designed in order to accommodate part of Pinault collection, and as a pendant to Palazzo Grassi, which re-opened in 2006 after extensive works. Giovanna Paterno
Zurich, Switzerland
Museum Rietberg
Buddha’s Paradise
Dates: 6 Sep 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: Gablerstrasse 15 Zurich Ch-8002
Tel: +41 (0)44 206 31 31 Website
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