calendario eventi  :: 

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15/9/2013

Four exhibitions

Metropolitan Museum of Art - MET, New York

Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800
September 16, 2013–January 5, 2014
The Tisch Galleries, second floor

Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800 is the first major exhibition to explore the international transmittal of design from the 16th to the early 19th century through the medium of textiles. It highlights an important design story that has never before been told from a truly global perspective. Beginning in the 16th century, the golden age of European maritime navigation in search of spice routes to the east brought about the flowering of an abundant textile trade, causing a breathtaking variety of textiles in a multiplicity of designs and techniques to travel across the globe. Textiles, which often acted as direct currency for spices and other goods, made their way from India and Asia to Europe, between India and Asia and Southeast Asia, from Europe to the east, and eventually to the west to North and South America. Trade textiles blended the traditional designs, skills, and tastes of all the cultures that produced them, resulting in objects that are both intrinsically beautiful and historically fascinating.

The exhibition is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund, The Coby Foundation, Ltd., The Favrot Fund, the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund, and the Quinque Foundation.

While previous studies have focused on this story from the viewpoint of trade, Interwoven Globe is the first exhibition to explore it as a history of design—and to approach it from a perspective that emphasizes the beauty and sophistication of these often overlooked objects. It explores the interrelationship of textiles, commerce, and taste from the Age of Discovery to the 19th century. From India and its renowned, ancient mastery of painted and dyed cotton to the sumptuous silks of China and Japan, Turkey and Iran, the paths of influence are traced westward to Europe and the Americas. Shaped by an emerging worldwide visual culture, the resulting fashion for the “exotic” in textiles, as well as in other goods and art forms, gave rise to what can be recognized as the first truly global style.

Interwoven Globe features 134 works, about two-thirds of which are drawn from the Metropolitan Museum’s own rich, encyclopedic collection. These objects are augmented by important domestic and international loans in order to make worldwide visual connections. Works from the Metropolitan are from the following departments: American Decorative Arts, Asian Art, Islamic Art, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Costume Institute, European Paintings, Drawings and Prints, and Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. They include numerous flat textiles (lengths of fabric, curtains, wall hangings, bedcovers), tapestries, costumes, church vestments, pieces of seating furniture, and paintings and drawings.

The exhibition is divided into ten galleries, some organized by geography and others by theme. It begins with the Portuguese maritime expansion and the new textile trade that Portugal developed with China and India. Portuguese merchants recognized the superior skills of the Chinese and Indian textile workers and introduced them to European imagery so that they could create products that could be sold to a European market.
In addition to Portugal, Spain was one of the first European nations to master the ability to navigate the Atlantic Ocean and colonize the New World. By the 16th century, Spain controlled vast areas of South America. Works in this section include tapestries made with traditional Andean materials and techniques, and demonstrate South America as a rich source of natural dyes that were also traded around the world.

The exhibition then moves to Chinese production for East and West and the Japanese taste for imported textiles and features the types of luxurious embroidered hangings and bedcovers that wealthy Europeans coveted. Indian textiles are represented by spectacular 17th– and 18th–century painted and dyed cotton bedcovers and hangings called palampores. Colorful and dyefast Indian cottons became so popular in Europe that in England and France, fearing that the imports would damage domestic production, Indian fabrics were barred from domestic importation during the early 18th century and printed imitations began to be produced instead.

Luxurious textiles were always prized by the elites of the Catholic Church and were used in other religious settings as well. A gallery devoted to trade textiles in religious contexts shows the various types—European, Ottoman, Indian, Chinese—used to create an impressive aura of ecclesiastical authority and enrich the material culture of religious practices.

By the end of the 17th century, European trade routes with Asia, Africa, and the Americas were well established, allowing information about other cultures—scant or inaccurate—to circulate, stimulating an intense interest in the “exotic.” To demonstrate these visions of the “exotic” in imagery and attire, a fine silk carpet with unusual features from the Metropolitan’s collection is on display.

By the mid-18th century, Europe’s powerful leaders had expanded and enriched their empires greatly through conquest and trade. European self-perception is captured elegantly in a set of French tapestries and tapestry-covered furniture made at Beauvais for Louis XVI depicting the Four Continents; the complete set is together for the first time in a room-like setting in Interwoven Globe.

Textiles and cultural conflict are examined in a section on the brutal effects of the expansion of European colonial empires from 1500 to 1800. Textiles played a key role in the slave trade, as cloth was one of the key commodities traded for slaves in Africa.

The exhibition concludes with a gallery devoted to colonial North America that examines textiles imported from India and China, as well as those made in the colonies that were inspired by Asian models. North Americans were prevented from trading directly with Asia until the 1780s, and before that, textiles had to be acquired through European middlemen. Despite this limitation, as early as the 17th century, Asian textiles were an important trade commodity and a significant source of inspiration for the design of North American domestic interiors and locally made textiles.

Many of the textiles on display in Interwoven Globe have rarely or never been on public view, usually due to their cross-cultural nature, which make them a challenge to fit comfortably in the permanent galleries of a single curatorial department. The exhibition provides a unique opportunity to examine the beauty and sophistication of these objects from around the world and engage visitors who are interested in a wide range of topics, such as fashion, textile production, technology, history, and design.

Exhibition Credits
The organizing curator for the exhibition is Amelia Peck, the Marica F. Vilcek Curator in the Department of American Decorative Arts, working with Melinda Watt, Associate Curator, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts; John Guy, the Florence and Herbert Irving Curator of the Arts of South and Southeast Asia, Department of Asian Art; Elena Phipps, Senior Research Conservator (retired), Department of Textile Conservation; Joyce Denney, Assistant Curator (retired), Department of Asian Art; Marika Sardar, Senior Research Associate, Department of Islamic Art; Kristen Stewart, Research Associate, The Costume Institute; and Amy Bogansky, Research Assistant, Department of American Decorative Arts.

Design Credits
Gallery design is by Michael Lapthorn, Exhibition Design Manager; lighting is by Clint Ross Coller and Richard Lichte, Lighting Design Managers; and graphics are by Sophia Geronimus, Graphic Design Manager, all of the Museum’s Design Department.

Publication
Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800 is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue written by Amelia Peck, John Guy, Maria João Ferreira, Joyce Denney, Marika Sardar, Elena Phipps, and Melinda Watt. It is published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press, and is available in the Museum’s book shops (hardcover, $65).

The publication is made possible by the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund.

Audio Guide
An audio tour, part of the Museum’s Audio Guide program, is available for rental ($7, $6 for Members, $5 for children under 12).

The Audio Guide is sponsored by Bloomberg.

Related Programs
A variety of education programs accompany the exhibition. These include a series of exhibition tours as well as thematic talks led by curators, guest specialists, and designers; programs for people with disabilities, including workshops for children and adults with learning and developmental disabilities and visual impairments; artist demonstrations on November 8; studio workshops on October 6, 13, and 20; and a symposium on Oct. 4.

Related Installation
An “Industrial Museum”: John Forbes Watson’s Indian Textile Collection, an installation of samples of Indian textiles, is on view in Gallery 599 through January 20, 2014, complementing Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500-1800. John Forbes Watson (1827-1892), a Scottish physician who traveled to India in the Bombay Army Medical Service in 1850, developed a keen interest in the welfare of the country that translated to his lifelong mission to promote and develop the native Indian industries, as well as trade between the Indian subcontinent, the British Isles, and other global markets. A selection of the textile samples he preserved in 17 volumes are on display in this installation. He called these sample books “Industrial Museums” or “Trade Museums,” because they were portable collections intended to inspire the textile manufacturers of both the British Isles and India. These collections preserve in compact form a dazzling array of textiles made on the Indian subcontinent during the second half of the 19th century. An “Industrial Museum” is organized by Melinda Watt.

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Feathered Walls – Hangings from Ancient Peru
September 16, 2013 – March 2, 2014
The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing corridor, first floor

Feathered Walls – Hangings from Ancient Peru, an installation comprising 12 impressive feather panels—probably hangings—made by the Wari peoples of southern Peru between about 700 and 1000 will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning September 16. Made of finely woven cotton cloth and measuring roughly seven by two feet on average, the panels are covered completely with the small iridescent body feathers of the blue and yellow macaw in a bold design of large rectangles. They rank among the most luxurious and unusual works created by textile artists in Peru prior to the Spanish conquest in 1532.

The exhibition is made possible by the Friends of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.

The panels were reportedly part of a group of 96 excavated in 1943 by local people near the village of La Victoria in the Ocoña Valley, where it joins with the Churunga Valley on the far south coast of Peru. The find is considered the largest discovery of feather arts in ancient Peru. Said to have been found rolled up in large ceramic jars decorated with mythological imagery, many of the panels are remarkably well preserved.

Drawn from the Metropolitan Museum’s own collection—the panels were acquired by Nelson A. Rockefeller in the 1950s and bequeathed to the Met in 1979—as well as two loans, these icons of ancient Peruvian textile art will be installed on the 88-foot-long wall between the Museum’s ancient South American art galleries and the galleries for modern and contemporary art. Their arrangement on the wall may be close to the way they were displayed in ancient times on special ceremonial occasions, covering the rough, gray stone walls of Wari structures, and imbuing them with elegance and luxuriousness. The minimalist design on the panels creates a striking visual connection between the art of the ancient Americas and modernism. Recently obtained information on the excavation of the panels, previously unreported in the English-language literature, sheds new light on their original burial context and will be part of the display. The panels and the many feather pieces illustrated in Peruvian Featherworks, a book published by the Metropolitan Museum in 2012, speak eloquently of the rich imagination and remarkable ingenuity of ancient Peruvian textile artists.

The installation is organized by Heidi King, Senior Research Associate in the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.

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Masterpieces of Tibetan and Nepalese Art: Recent Acquisitions
September 17, 2013–February 2, 2014
Florence and Herbert Irving Galleries for South and Southeast Asian Art 3rd floor

Thirteen recently acquired masterworks of Tibetan and Nepalese art will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning September 17. Dating from the 11th to the 17th century, Masterpieces of Tibetan and Nepalese Art: Recent Acquisitions will include five sculptures that are among the rarest and most important such objects to enter a Western collection, along with examples of the finest Tibetan and Nepalese paintings known. All come from the pioneering collection of Jack and Muriel Zimmerman.

“We are extremely fortunate to have been able to acquire these seminal works of Himalayan art from the Zimmerman Family Collection. They will have a transformative impact on Metropolitan’s ability to present Tibetan and Nepalese art of the highest caliber,” said John Guy, Florence and Herbert Irving Curator of the Arts of South and Southeast Asia in the Department of Asian Art. “Almost every major exhibition of Himalayan art mounted over the past four decades has featured works from this collection.”

Among the sculptures that will be on view are the sublime brass Sakyamuni Buddha, created in the late 12th century and the finest example of its kind; the imposing bronze portrait of Padmasambhava, the Indian saint who brought Buddhism to Tibet, the largest and finest such sculptural effigy outside Tibet; a Nepalese gilt copper repoussé Vishnu on Garuda dated 1004, a unique legacy of the Licchavi dynasty; and a monumental 16th-century mask of Bhairava that is unrivaled in its scale and quality. The paintings in the group will include the unsurpassed Nepalese Surya and Achala, as well as the Tibetan Mahakala, Protector of the Tent, imposing in scale, exquisite in execution, and datable to around 1500, making it an exceptional work of the period.

Jack and Muriel Zimmerman began acquiring Tibetan and Nepalese art in 1964, and became the foremost collectors of their generation. Buying with “a connoisseur’s eye” in the formative period of Himalayan art appreciation, they formed a collection of unrivaled depth and quality. All of the works have been exhibited and published since 1974 (including the seminal 1977 exhibition Gods and Demons of the Himalayas that was held at the Grand Palais in Paris). In 1991, a catalogue of the collection’s highlights was published by the American Federation of Arts to accompany an exhibition that toured the U.S. and Europe. Loans of the works continued over the next 20 years that followed, including many that were on view in the spectacular Wisdom and Compassion exhibition tour that began in 1999, initially organized by Tibet House in New York.

Masterpieces of Tibetan and Nepalese Art: Recent Acquisitions is organized by John Guy.

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Medieval Treasures from Hildesheim
September 17, 2013–January 5, 2014
Wrightsman Exhibition Gallery, Main Floor, Gallery 521

Germany’s Hildesheim Cathedral in Lower Saxony has one of the most complete surviving ensembles of ecclesiastical furnishings and treasures in Europe, including many medieval masterpieces made between about 1000 and 1250. The cathedral was designated a UNESCO world cultural heritage site in 1985. Major renovations that are currently underway provide the opportunity for Medieval Treasures from Hildesheim—an extraordinary selection of about 50 medieval church treasures, most of which have never been shown outside Europe—to travel to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they will be on view beginning September 17.

The exhibition is made possible by the Michel David-Weill Fund.

The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.


Exhibition Overview

The first section of the exhibition will focus primarily on the legacy of Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim (960–1022), one of the greatest patrons of the arts in the Middle Ages. During his time, Hildesheim was a center for bronze-making and other artistic activities. In addition to the famous monumental bronze doors and the column in Hildesheim Cathedral that cannot travel, Bernward commissioned many smaller precious works of art, mostly for his Benedictine monastic foundation. These include the Golden Madonna, a silver crucifix, a pair of richly decorated silver candlesticks, and sumptuously illuminated manuscripts, all of which will be included in the exhibition. The monumental lifesize wood carving known as the Ringelheim crucifix is one of the earliest surviving three-dimensional sculptures of the Middle Ages. It will provide a focal point for the gallery, which will contain one of the most impressive groups of 11th-century works of art ever seen in North America.

The exhibition will also examine the continuing artistic production of Hildesheim in the high Middle Ages. Opulent jeweled crosses, as well as reliquaries and portable altars decorated with enamel and ivory will be featured. The late-12th-century Saint Oswald reliquary surmounted by a silver-gilt bust of the saint and decorated with finely drawn niello plaques is a highlight as are the three gilt-bronze liturgical fans with openwork decoration and cabochon stones, each over 16 inches in diameter.

Hildesheim re-emerged as a major center for bronze casting in the early 13th century. The cathedral’s monumental bronze baptismal font dating to about 1226—which will be displayed nearby, in the Medieval Sculpture Hall— is one of the most important works to survive from the Middle Ages. The basin and its lid rest on free-standing kneeling figures of the four Rivers of Paradise and the complete ensemble measures six feet in height. Richly decorated in relief, the basin depicts the Baptism of Christ and the Virgin Enthroned flanked by scenes from the Hebrew Bible that were understood in the Middle Ages to prefigure the Baptism of Christ. The lid has four additional scenes in relief, and ancillary figures and lengthy inscriptions further enrich the font. Also on view in the exhibition will be other important examples of bronzework from that time: a cast bronze eagle lectern, a lion aquamanile, a candlestick, and a crozier (a religious staff of office, in the shape of a shepherd's crook).

Publication and Related Programs

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue written by scholars on the Museum’s staff in collaboration with scholars in France and Germany. The first comprehensive overview of the Hildesheim collection in English, the book has been edited by Peter Barnet, Senior Curator, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters; and Michael Brandt, Director, and Gerhard Lutz, Curator, Hildesheim Cathedral Museum. It is published by the Metropolitan Museum and distributed by Yale University Press, and will be available in the Museum’s book shops ($24.95, hardcover).

The catalogue is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Among the education programs organized in conjunction with the exhibition will be a series of gallery talks and a How Did They Do That? weekend program for all ages. On October 6, a Sunday at the Met program includes the showing of a film on the creation of a bronze aquamanile, followed by a discussion by Peter Dandridge, Conservator, Sherman Fairchild Center for Objects Conservation at the Metropolitan Museum, and Ubaldo Vitale, renowned metalsmith and 2011 MacArthur Foundation Fellow. The conversation will focus on the baptismal font, eagle lectern, and other major cast works from Hildesheim within the context of medieval metal casting.

One view within the exhibition will be a slide presentation on the monuments of Hildesheim. It will feature images of works that could not travel.

The exhibition is organized by Peter Barnet, Michael Brandt, and Gerhard Lutz. Exhibition design is by Michael Langley, Exhibition Design Manager; graphics are by Morton Lebigre, Associate Graphic Designer; and lighting is by Clint Ross Coller and Richard Lichte, Lighting Design Managers, all of the Museum’s Design Department.

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Press viewing: September 16, 10 a.m. - noon

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