British Museum forthcoming exhibitions 2009
Please note that exhibition titles and dates are subject to
change and should be checked before going to press.
Major new exhibitions in 2009
Shah Abbas: The Remaking of Iran
19 February – 14 June 2009
Admission charge, Reading room
Shah `Abbas was a key figure in the creation of modern Iran. Shah
of Iran from 1587–1629 AD, his legacy continues to this day and he
is remembered as one of the country’s most influential kings. He
was a great military leader, credited with keeping his external
enemies at bay and quelling a civil war at home. His trade
policies established Iran as a world power. The exhibition will
feature many extraordinary loans, never before seen outside of
Iran. The exhibition will examine four key sites: Isfahan,
the capital of Shah Abbas, and the three Shi’i shrine cities,
Mashhad, Ardabil and Qum, using loans of paintings, manuscripts,
ceramics, silks and carpets.
Supported by the Iran Heritage Foundation
Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur
28 May – 23 August 2009
Admission charge, Room 35
Garden and Cosmos provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see
rare paintings from the collection of His Highness The Maharaja Gaj
Singh II of Jodhpur. This exhibition will feature a rare loan of
fifty-five paintings from India none of which have ever been seen
before in Europe. The region of Jodhpur developed distinctive
styles of painting between the 17th and 19th centuries, producing
one of the most inventive styles in northern India in this
period. Paintings produced for the private enjoyment of the
Jodhpur brought together traditional Rajasthani styles and combined
them with styles developed in the court of the imperial Mughals.
Subjects depicted include the Jodhpur rulers in their gardens,
surrounded by their wives whilst a group of later works reflect the
devotion of the then Maharaja to an esoteric yogic tradition.
Jodhpur artists rose to the challenge of creating images for
metaphysical concepts and yoga narratives which had never before
been the focus of court art. The exhibition is part of the British
Museum’s ‘Indian Summer’. It will be accompanied by an Indian
Landscape in the Museum forecourt, in partnership with the Royal
Botanic Gardens, Kew, and an extensive public programme. ‘Indian
Summer’ is sponsored by
HSBC
Moctezuma
24 September 2009 – 24 January 2010
Admission charge, Reading room
Completing its series of exhibitions exploring power and empire,
the British Museum examines the rule of Moctezuma II, the last
elected Aztec Emperor. Moctezuma consolidated control of Aztec
hegemony from the shores of Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico in the
early 16th century. However, with the arrival of the Spanish in
1521 he witnessed the collapse of the native world order and the
imposition of a new civilization that gave birth to modern Mexico.
The legacy of these tumultuous events and the semi-mythical status
of Moctezuma will be re-assessed through the display of recent
archaeological discoveries and loans of iconic material from
Mexico, many of which will be seen for the first time in this
country.
Other exhibitions
Treasures from Shanghai: ancient Chinese bronzes and jades
29 January – 27 March 2009
Room 2, Admission free
A focused display of sixty spectacular Chinese jades and bronzes
lent by the Shanghai Museum which holds one of the finest
collections of this material in the world. Ancient jades and
bronzes are hugely important objects and have set the artistic
standard for China from the Neolithic period. Exquisite early jades
carved into strange human-like figures, birds and monsters will
feature alongside stunning examples of bronzes from the Zhou
dynasty, regarded as a golden age in bronze production. This
exhibition is co-organised by the Shanghai Museum and the British
Museum with the guidance of the Chinese Embassy in the United
Kingdom, and sponsorship of the Information Office of Shanghai
Municipal People's Government, Foreign Affairs Office of Shanghai
Municipal People's Government and Bureau of China World Expo
Coordination.
The Intimate Portrait: Drawings, Miniatures and Pastels from
Ramsay to Lawrence
5 March – 31 May 2009
Room 90, Admission free
A beautiful exhibition that will explore the fascination for
intimate portraiture in Georgian Britain between the 1730s and the
1830s, from the origins of polite society and the fashionable art
world until the onset of the Victorian era and the invention of
photography. This is the first major exhibition in Britain to focus
on this great period of portrait drawing, when artists such as
Thomas Gainsborough and his great Scottish rival Allan Ramsay, John
Downman, George Dance and Thomas Lawrence produced beautifully
worked portraits in pencil, chalks, watercolours and pastels, as
well as miniatures on ivory. Behind the scenes, in domestic spaces
such as sitting rooms, studies, bedrooms and closets, these smaller
portraits were at the heart of a more private conversation. But
they also had a role in the public sphere, as they were shown in
vast numbers at the Royal Academy, often contentiously in the same
rooms as large portraits in oils. This exhibition is organized
jointly by the British Museum and the National Galleries of
Scotland, featuring nearly 200 seldom-seen works from their rich
collections. The exhibition will be shown first at the Scottish
National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh from 25th October 2008 - 1st
February 2009
The splendour of Isfahan: coins from Iran
A coins and medals display
5 March – July 2009
Room 69a, Admission free.
Isfahan became the capital city of Iran under Shah Abbas I in 1598.
In Persian it was known to contemporaries as Isfahan nesf-e jahan
(Isfahan is half the world) because of its importance and
splendour. This is reflected in the brilliant mosques, palace,
bridges and cathedrals that survive to this day. At the same time
Isfahan has also been an important mint, both in the pre-Islamic
period as well as Islamic times. The exhibition will show the
history of this splendid city through its coinage, focusing
particularly on the Safavid period from the 16th –18th centuries.
In addition, objects, bank notes and stamps relating to Isfahan,
will draw attention to the importance of the city. The beauty
of Isfahan and the diversity of its crafts continue to attract art
lovers up to the present time.
Medals of Dishonour
25 June – 27 September 2009
Room 90, Admission free
Alongside the longstanding and well-known association of medals
with glory and achievement there lies another darker tradition of
the medal as an indicator of dishonour. Drawing on the Museum’s own
collection of satirical and political medals, this exhibition will
examine this trend using both historical and contemporary examples.
The Humiliation of Louis XIV, 1689 by a Dutch artist, attacks
France and its king through a mixture of allegory and ridicule. It
features humiliating image of Louis XIV ejecting the contents of
his stomach and bowels. A recent series of medals of dishonour has
been commissioned by The British Art Medal Trust from contemporary
artists including Jake and Dinos Chapman, Felicity Powell, Michael
Landy, Grayson Perry and Cornelia Parker among others. The
exhibition will feature key examples including William Kentridge’s
Greed Envy Rage, 2008 which depicts a megaphone striding through a
denuded landscape. Kentridge’s work is steeped in and
responds to the political and historical contingencies of his
upbringing as a white Jew in apartheid era South Africa. The
exhibition is supported by the Chora initiative of the Annenberg
Foundation.
Prints and Revolution: Mexican Prints 1910-1960 (working
title)
22 October - 28 February 2009 tbc
Room 90, Admission free
The exhibition will be the first ever in Europe focusing on the
great age of Mexican printmaking in the first half of the twentieth
century. Between 1910 and 1920 the country was convulsed by the
first socialist revolution, from which emerged a strong left-wing
government that laid great stress on art as a vehicle for promoting
the values of the revolution. This led to a pioneering programme to
cover the walls of public buildings with vast murals, and later to
setting up print workshops to produce works for mass distribution
and education. Some of the finest of these prints were produced by
the three great men of Mexican art of the period: Diego Rivera,
José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. The exhibition
will also include earlier works around the turn of the century by
the popular engraver, José Guadalupe Posada, who was adopted by the
revolutionaries as the archetypal printmaker who worked for the
people, and whose macabre dances of skeletons have always
fascinated Europeans.
Room 3: The Asahi Shimbun Displays
Room 3 sits just inside the main entrance to the British Museum
and hosts a series of free regularly changing exhibitions focused
on a single object or theme. For 2009 featured exhibitions
include:
The Sámi Magi Drum (27 November – 18 January 2009), an early
drum from the Sámi people (northern Scandinavia, sub-Arctic),
bequeathed to the Museum by Sir Hans Sloane. The design of
the drum is unique and covered in painted images that are accounts
of journeys, maps and guides to other realms; Takhti – Hero
and Iranian Icon (19 February – 19 April 2009), the display of a
recent acquisition of contemporary Iranian art. The piece is a
large shrine-like object made by the Iranian artist Khusrow
Hassanzade inspired by the image of Takhti (d.1968) a national hero
from Iran renowned for his physical prowess as a wrestler and also
his good social deeds; The Raffles Gamelan (21 May – 12 July
2009), the display of one of the most important instruments of its
kind, decorated with fantastic beasts such as dragons and
mythic birds.
New permanent galleries
Medieval Gallery
March 2009, Admission free
A new gallery dedicated to the Museum’s pre-eminent collection of
medieval material will open next year. The gallery provides a
wonderful opportunity to place some of the finest pieces in the
collection in their fullest historical context around a broad
chronology from 1050AD to 1550AD. The gallery will include unique
objects such as the famous, fourteenth century Royal Gold Cup and
the enigmatic Lewis Chessmen. The intricately carved citole, the
earliest surviving extant medieval musical instrument, will provide
a platform from which to understand the rituals and protocols
surrounding aristocratic amusement. The gallery will also
feature sacred art and objects which highlight the major devotional
developments of the age from the flourishing of the monasteries
from the mid-eleventh century to their dissolution in the
sixteenth. The Byzantine Empire will also feature, the gallery will
examine its role as a trading centre and as a centre of
intellectual and artistic ferment.
The Sir Percival David Collection in the Sir Joseph Hotung
Centre for Ceramic Studies
April 2009, Admission free
The outstanding Percival David Collection of Chinese Art will go on
permanent public display in a specially designed new gallery
developed thanks to the generosity of Sir Joseph Hotung. Containing
1,752 items of Chinese ceramics from the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing
dynasties (the 10th to the early 20th century), the Percival David
Foundation collection is unparalleled in quality outside China. The
display at the Museum of this extraordinarily rich material will
allow six million visitors a year access to the finest collection
of Chinese ceramics outside Beijing, Shanghai or Taipei, Taiwan.
The public gallery will be part of the Sir Joseph Hotung Centre for
Ceramic Studies, which will include facilities to use the
collection for teaching.
Exhibitions at other venues in the UK
Throughout 2009 the British Museum will be touring exhibitions
to venues across the country through the Partnership UK programme,
as well as contributing to numerous other exhibitions and displays
nationwide. Highlights include:
Ancient Greeks: Athletes, Warriors and Heroes
concludes its tour to six venues around the UK, moving from South
Shields Museum to the Burrell Collection in Glasgow where it opens
on the 7 February, 2009. At all venues the exhibition has drawn
record visitor figures, particularly from schools for whose needs
it was particularly designed. Funded through the DCMS/DCFS
National/Regional Museum Partnerships Education Programme 2008-09
and the generosity of the Dorset Foundation.
China: Journey to the East will be the largest
UK loan of Chinese material the Museum has ever made. Supplemented
by items from partner museum collections it offers visitors the
chance to experience real artefacts from 3,000 years of Chinese
history and culture. The exhibition will be launched at Bristol‘s
City Museum & Art Gallery on the 23 January 2009. The tour will
continue to five other UK venues: The Herbert, Coventry; Willis
Museum, Basingstoke; Sunderland Museum and Winter Garden; York Art
Gallery and the Manchester Museum. Supported by BP, a CHINA NOW
legacy project. Additional funding through the DCMS/DCFS
National/Regional Museum Partnerships Education Programme
2008-09
The American Scene: prints from Hopper to
Pollock was one of the most popular fine art exhibitions
ever held in London, with more than 355,000 visitors to the British
Museum. Visitors to the Djanogly Art Gallery, Nottingham: 28
February – 19 April 2009; Brighton Museum & Art Gallery: 2 May
– 31 August 2009; and the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester: 19
September – 13 December 2009 will now have the opportunity to see
this exciting collection of American prints from the first half of
the twentieth century. The tour has been funded by the Terra
Foundation for American Art.
Fabric of a Nation: textiles and identity in modern
Ghana focuses on the role of printed cloths and their
designs as an expression of cultural, social and political identity
in modern Ghana, cutting across ethnic and language differences.
The display began at the British Museum in 2007 to mark the
50th anniversary of Ghanaian independence then was shown to great
success at the Shipley Art Gallery in 2008, the tour continuing
onward to Cartwright Hall, Bradford; (13 December – 15 February
2009); Eastleigh Museum, Hampshire: 28 February - 25 April;
Westbury Manor Museum, Fareham: 2 May - 27 June; Wardown Park
Museum, Luton: 8 August – 8 November 2009; Horniman Museum, London:
28 November – 28 February 2010. Supported through the generosity of
the Dorset Foundation.
International exhibitions
The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece
MARQ, Alicante, Spain
3 April 2009 – 5 October 2009
The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece contains 125 objects from the
British Museum's rich Greek and Roman collection. This new
exhibition offers a visually engaging and thought-provoking
exploration of the human condition seen through ancient Greek eyes.
Over two thousand years the Greeks experimented with representing
the human body in works that range from abstract simplicity to
full-blown realism. Through this essential and long lasting theme
of human representation, the exhibition offers to the public a
unique opportunity to engage with artworks which have shaped our
Western aesthetics. The artefacts to be displayed include
"Discobolus" the iconic representation of a discus thrower which
had never been on loan from the Museum before this tour.
Treasures of the World’s Cultures
Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria
1 May 2009 – 30 September 2009
Treasures of the World’s Cultures brings together over 250 of the
Museum's most important objects. The exhibition surveys human
culture across civilisations, tracing the history of mankind from
prehistory to the modern age. The displayed material is both
materially and visually diverse, and whilst on tour these objects
have ranged from life-size classical sculptures to exquisite gold
jewellery excavated in ancient Mesopotamia, from drawings by
Renaissance masters to Native North American animal-skin coats. The
exhibition allows the visitor to experience, in a distilled form,
the breadth and diversity of the British Museum collections as it
is presented in London. The international tour of ‘Treasures of the
World’s Cultures’ has already been enjoyed by large audiences in
Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
For images or further information please contact the press
office or email communications@britishmuseum.org
Hannah Boulton, Head of Press and Public Relations: 020 7323
8522
hboulton@britishmuseum.org
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kwhenham@britishmuseum.org
Esme Wilson, Press Assistant: 020 7323 8394
ewilson@britishmuseum.org
For public information please look on our website www.britishmuseum.org or 020
7323 8299