calendario eventi  :: 

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10/2/2010

Two exhibitions

Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York

Kiki Smith. Sojourn
organized by Catherine J. Morris, Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum.

Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, 4th Floor

In this exhibition, acclaimed artist Kiki Smith presents a unique, site-specific installation exploring ideas of creative inspiration and the cycle of life in relation to women artists. Kiki Smith: Sojourn draws on a variety of universal experiences, from the milestones of birth and death to quotidian experiences such as the daily chores of domestic life. An important eighteenth-century silk needlework by a young woman named Prudence Punderson, The First, Second and Last Scene of Mortality (Collection of the Connecticut Historical Society), which provided original inspiration for Smith’s installation, is included in the exhibition.

Punderson’s stark depiction of a woman’s journey from childhood to death in the years leading up to and immediately after the United States gained its independence intrigued Smith because rather than following the stereotypical rites of passage in a woman’s life of the period—marriage, family, and domestic life—this young woman chose to depict a life of the mind for her subject, presenting a woman engaged in creative work.

In Sojourn, Smith, who is known for a psychologically acute, non-narrative approach to constructing installations, begins from the position of the adult female artist and cycles through a series of experiences and artistic genres that venture far beyond the autobiographical. Religion, mythology, and spirituality surface repeatedly throughout Smith’s work, and in this installation, the Annunciation is used as a metaphor for identifying the unknown and unexpected sources female artists draw upon for inspiration.

Sojourn presents a variety of work by the artist in a range of media, including unique sculpture, cast objects, collage, drawing, and photography. To extend the conceptual relationships she will develop in the Sackler Center galleries, Smith will also incorporate two eighteenth-century period rooms in the Museum’s nearby Decorative Arts galleries into her project.

The exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum is the fourth site-specific installation of a long-term project by the artist that originated at Museum Haus Esters, Krefeld, Germany (March 16–August 24, 2008), before traveling to Kunsthalle Nürnberg (September 18–November 16, 2008) and Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (February 19–May 24, 2009).

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To Live Forever: Art and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt
organized by Edward Bleiberg, Curator of Egyptian Art at the Brooklyn Museum

Robert E. Blum Gallery, 1st Floor

Encompassing more than one hundred objects drawn from the Brooklyn Museum’s world-renowned holdings of ancient Egyptian art, including some of the greatest masterworks of the Egyptian artistic heritage, To Live Forever explores the Egyptians’ beliefs about life, death, and the afterlife; the process of mummification; the conduct of a funeral; and the different types of tombs—answering questions at the core of the public’s fascination with ancient Egypt.

Two of the primary cultural tenets through thousands of years of ancient Egyptian civilization were a belief in the afterlife and the view that death was an enemy that could be vanquished. To Live Forever features objects that illustrate a range of strategies the ancient Egyptians developed to defeat death, including mummification and various rituals performed in the tomb. The exhibition reveals what the Egyptians believed they would find in the next world and contrasts how the rich and the poor prepared for the hereafter. The economics of the funeral are examined, including how the poor tried to imitate the costly appearance of the grave goods of the rich in order to ensure a better place in the afterlife.

Each section of the exhibition contains funeral equipment for the rich, the middle class, and the poor. The visitor will be able to compare finely painted wood and stone coffins made for the rich with the clay coffins the poor made for themselves, masterfully worked granite vessels with clay vessels painted in imitation, and gold jewelry created for the nobles with faience amulets fashioned from a man-made turquoise substitute. Objects on view include the Bird Lady—one of the oldest preserved statues from all Egyptian history and a signature Brooklyn Museum object; a painted limestone relief of Queen Neferu; a gilded, glass, and faience mummy cartonnage of a woman; the elaborately painted shroud of Neferhotep; a gilded mummy mask of a man; and a gold amulet representing the human soul.

The exhibition is supported by the Brooklyn Museum’s Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund. Additional support is provided by Fred and Diana Elghanayan and Magda Saleh and Jack Josephson.

The accompanying catalogue is supported by a Brooklyn Museum publications endowment established by the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Image: Kiki Smith (American, b. Germany 1954). Singer (detail), 2008. Cast aluminum, 65" x 27" x 24" (165.1 cm x 68.6 x 61 cm). © Kiki Smith. Courtesy the artist and PaceWildenstein. Photography by Volker Dohne/Courtesy PaceWildenstein, New York

For press information, please send an e-mail to press@brooklynmuseum.org

Brooklyn Museum of Art
200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York
Hours: Wednesday–Friday: 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Saturday–Sunday: 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
Admission: Suggested Contribution: $10; Students with Valid ID: $6; Adults 62 and over: $6;
Members: Free; Children under 12: Free

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