njkeron.blogg.se

The assorted experts do provide some relevant and thoughtprovoking context for the exhibits, said Lucy Davies in The Daily Telegraph. On large video screens, contemporary female thinkers including classicist Mary Beard and playwright Bonnie Greer tell us what to think they can be heard in “every corner of the show”, making it “genuinely difficult to concentrate on the art”. It is decidedly annoying. It feels “more like projection than scholarship”, and the effect is “shrill and preachy”. Instead, the curators attempt to rationalise their argument from a modern viewpoint, offering revisionist captions that “thrust feminist readings onto unruly ancient art”. Unfortunately, however, the wondrous artefacts here are not allowed to speak for themselves. In the section about female sexual power, a “tiny” Roman cameo from about 200BC carries possibly the oldest known image of Adam and Eve being tempted by the snake. A section devoted to the role of feminine deities in “the world’s many origin myths” gives us a “beautiful”, red-hued carving of the Hawaiian goddess Pele, said “to be responsible for the eruption of volcanoes” and a shiny brass plate showing Mami Wata, the African river goddess, “woman on top, fish below”. There’s certainly no shortage of “intriguing” exhibits here, said Waldemar Januszczak in The Sunday Times. The show is a “treasure store of fascinating artefacts, thoughtfully chosen and arranged”, which offers to “reconnect us to the volcanic energy of goddess cults the world over”.

Nearby, there’s a video following a Vodun-like ceremony in contemporary Nigeria “in honour of Oshun, the Yoruba goddess of fresh water and healing”. You can see Cycladic clay figurines from around 3000BC, probably representing a mother goddess, and an Egyptian amulet from 1400BC that symbolises the blood of Isis. It’s the latest in a “splendid” line of exhibitions that use the British Museum’s vast holdings to explore the role of the sacred in different societies – in this case, examining the ways in which women have been idolised, vilified, objectified and worshipped through the ages.