Penn Museum takes an up close and personal look at the scientific study of evolution with this challenging new traveling exhibition that puts you—and your fellow humans—at the center of the inquiry, on a journey of self-discovery.
Surviving, an interactive, multimedia exhibition supported in large part by a grant from the National Science Foundation, begins with the premise that you—and your fellow humans-—are survivors. Your body holds the evidence. The process of evolution and its outcomes have had a profound impact on every aspect of your daily lives. And the process continues.
From Fit for Life, a multimedia introduction to inherited human strengths and capabilities, to an examination of Our Place in the Natural World, the exhibition considers you, the human being, in a wider context. In Finding Your Human Ancestors, you’ll be able to touch and examine more than 100 casts of fossil bones from the primate and human evolutionary record—evidence that scientists use to better understand our ancient past. In Witnessing Evolution, some of the world’s most brilliant scientists and revolutionary thinkers put voice to their breakthrough theories in dramatic reenactments.
Then, find out more about the particulars--why your back may ache, your son’s wisdom teeth are impacted, or your sister had trouble giving birth. Take stock in the imperfect, but remarkable, human being that you are today, in We are not Perfect, but We are OK. Where do you, and your species, go from here? Geneticists, evolutionary biologists, nanotechnology engineers, even school children, share what they think in We Keep Evolving—and invite you to make a prediction about our shared evolutionary future.
In addition to support from the National Science Foundation, Surviving: The Body of Evidence is made possible by the generous contributions of many individual, corporate, and foundation donors, including A. T. Chadwick Co., Andrea M. Baldeck, M.D. and William M. Hollis, Jr., Ms. Carrie Cox and Mr. Kenneth Cox, duPont Company, Dr. Leslie Hudson, the Virginia and Harvey Kimmel Arts and Education Fund, Diane vS. Levy and Robert M. Levy, Mr. and Mrs. A. Bruce Mainwaring, Mrs. Annete Merle-Smith, P. Agnes, Inc., Park Avenue Charitable Fund, Schering-Plough Corporation, Eric and Alexandra Schoenberg Foundation, the family of Barbara Schoenberg, The Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, The Women’s Committee of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, and Wyeth. Planning for this project was supported by the Heritage Philadelphia Program at the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, and administered by The University of the Arts.
3rd floor.
Water monster gargoyle on temple roof, Tibet 2005. Photo by Andrea Baldeck.
Himalaya: Land of the Snow Lion
October 4, 2008 - April 12, 2009
In this new exhibition of 45 black and white images, photographer Andrea
Baldeck explores the territory, often called "between heaven and earth," encompassing ethnic, cultural and historical Tibet, which stretches from the western Himalaya mountains of Ladakh (northern India), to Bhutan, the Tibetan
Autonomous Region, and east into Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. Her
photographs offer a compelling look at an ancient, mostly Buddhist world
through portraiture, landscapes, architecture and still life. These
invite the viewer to share in her personal, often intimate, journey,
exploring the texture and rhythm of human life in these harsh and remote
mountains, once isolated, now increasingly exposed to the forces of societal
change in an ever more interconnected world. Merle-Smith Gallery.
Photographer Andrea Baldek has a second exhibition, "The Texture of Trees," on view at the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania from November 1, 2008 through September 14, 2009.
A high-ranking military chief dominates this 16th century plaque, one of nearly a thousand that decorated Benin palace courtyards. Accompanied by an entourage of lieutenants, musicians and pages prepared to fan him, the chief dances at the palace war festival. Photo: Penn Museum.
"Iyare!"—"May you go and return safely!"—is the phrase onlookers shout when Edo nobles head for Benin's palace. For centuries, Nigeria's Benin Kingdom was one of West Africa's most-renowned and powerful political states, with artists and artisans unsurpassed on both African and European continents. Despite British colonization in 1897 and Nigeria's independence in 1960, Benin's Edo people continue to profess loyalty to their monarch the Oba, even as they fully participate in modernity. Inside the Benin palace, the principal royal venue and a site of splendid artistic display, Edo noblemen and women meet, as they have for centuries, to play out rivalries, reenact historic conflicts, impress, inspire, and gossip with one another.
Nearly 100 objects from Penn Museum's extraordinary Benin collection of cast bronzes, carved ivories and wooden artifacts, dating from the 16th to the 21st centuries, forms the core of this new exhibition, an outgrowth of a University of Pennsylvania Halpern-Rogath History of Art curatorial seminar, and a curatorial collaboration between its students and African art historian and professor Dr. Kathy Curnow. Benin artifacts are used to illuminate the activities—cultural, religious, political, and intensely social—that make up the theatrical experience of palace life for "actors" and "audiences" alike: the Oba, chiefs, courtiers, commoners, and visitors. By focusing on the "theater" that is indeed at the heart of the palace experience, Iyare! tells the story of cultural continuity, change and influence—of an African people who bring all the arts to bear as they engage in the social activities of life. William B. Dietrich Gallery.
Penn Museum has built its reputation across the decades and throughout the world as a sponsor of groundbreaking fieldwork and a center for research and education. This exhibition, organized by an interdisciplinary Halpern-Rogath Curatorial Seminar of undergraduate and graduate students, brings together material from the Museum’s own archives and collections, the University archives, and the Architectural Archives to tell the still-evolving story of a grand building and the unique, international institution that it was designed to house. Using historic photographs, original documents, architectural drawings, and a selection of artifacts from some of the Museum’s most renowned historic expeditions, “Penn in the World” weaves together diverse narratives of the Museum’s long history. 2nd floor Dietrich Gallery.
Counterpoint:
Anthropology and Photography in New Guinea
February 23 through August 11, 2008
Anthropology is the study of cultures, and often, the study of cultures very different from our own. How much can we learn about ourselves from the way that we look at “the other”? Counterpoint pairs the vivid color photography of Austin Super, a retired American businessman, world traveler and talented amateur photographer, with commentary by Dr. Stuart Kirsch, a University of Pennsylvania-trained anthropologist who has carried out ethnographic research in Papua New Guinea since 1986. Mr. Super traveled around the island of Papua New Guinea for three weeks in 1988, attending the annual Highlands Show (known in Melanesian Pidgin as a singsing), a regional celebration of cultural identity through costume and dance. Most of the 34 large-scale, full-color photographs in this exhibition were taken at the Highlands Show. Dr. Kirsch’s commentary contextualizes what the viewer sees, explaining some of the complex and varied cultural practices seen in these photographs from Papua New Guinea, a place where more than 700 languages are spoken. Dr. Kirsch also describes some of what the viewer does not see, aspects of the event that were missing from the photographer’s images. 1st floor Merle-Smith Changing Exhibition Gallery.
Unknown, Bacchus as the God of Wine
1771,
Engraving
Anonymous, printed by Currier & Ives
(19th century, American), The Branch Cannot Bear Fruit Except It Abide in the Vine,
1872,
Hand–colored lithograph
Pressing Matters: 500 Years of Wine in Art from the Sterling Vineyards Print Portfolio
March 15 through April 20, 2008
Pressing Matters: 500 Years of Wine in Art from the Sterling Vineyards Print Portfolio, shows the many ways in which artists have used wine as subject matter. Selected from the extensive collection of the Sterling Vineyards Portfolio of Wine Art and History, the exhibition of 50 prints presents examples of the printmaker's craft as well as a cultural appreciation of wine through centuries of art. Pressing Matters is toured by ExhibitsUSA, the national touring division of Mid-America Arts Alliance, a non-profit regional arts organization based in Kansas City, Missouri.
In addition to the prints from the traveling exhibition, Penn Museum has incorporated several artifacts from its own international collection. An ancient Greek amphora, bearing an image of Dionysos, the Greek god of wine, and a wine cup, both circa 525-500 B.C.E., as well as five early 20th century bronze reproductions of objects from 1st century A.D. Roman houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum, offer a glimpse into the role of wine in ancient Greek and Roman times. A storage jar, circa 5400-5000 B.C.E., from Penn Museum excavations at Hajji Firuz Tepe, Iran, also on display, is among the oldest known grape wine storage containers in the world.
Since ancient times, wine has played an important role in people's lives. Particularly in Europe and the Americas, it has been a part of religious ceremonies, public celebrations, entertainment, and family meals and gatherings. It is therefore only natural that artists, reflecting the life and customs of the times in which they lived, would incorporate images of wine, winemaking, and grapes into their work. The 50 prints on view include work by 15th- and 16th-century European masters and are executed in a variety of printmaking techniques, including steel engraving, woodcut, etching, and lithography.
The prints are grouped into five categories: botanical prints, mythological and religious themes, harvest themes, social satires, and early advertising illustrations and diagrams. Pressing Matters is curated Joanna Reiling Lindell, an independent curator. Second floor Dietrich Gallery.
Bitterroot Mountains and Ravalli County Fair, Hamilton, Montana. Photograph by Greg MacGregor.
Lewis and Clark Revisited: A Trail in Modern Day
December 15, 2007 through February 10, 2008
In 1804, Merriweather Lewis and William Clark led an unprecedented overland expedition across North America and back, pioneering the western exploration and expansion of the United States. Two centuries later, photographer Greg MacGregor retraced their journey to see the present state of this historic route. This exhibition features 60 of MacGregor’s dramatic black and white images chronicling the transformation of the American landscape. Paired with the images are entries from the Lewis and Clark journals, which MacGregor used to follow in their footsteps, and maps of the expedition trail. Lewis and Clark Revisited speaks to the legacy of the early explorers who opened up the American west to a young nation’s imagination and settlement. At the same time, the exhibition provides a rich visual commentary on contemporary American life. 1st floor Merle-Smith Changing Exhibitions Gallery.
Erich Schmidt’s car en route to Damghan-Tehran at the end of the second seasons, 1933. Photo: Penn Museum (Museum Neg. #83993).
Exploring Iran: The Photography of Erich F. Schmidt, 1930-1940
October 2 through December 9, 2007
In 1931, Penn Museum launched its first archaeological expedition to Iran, a joint project undertaken with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, to excavate the Bronze Age site of Tepe Hissar. Erich F. Schmidt, a young German WWI veteran and archaeologist, led the expedition and documented it with nearly 2,600 photographs taken by himself and two professional photographers, Russian Boris Dubensky and Pole Stanislaw Niedzwiecki, over ten years. Their many images depict, not only the Tepe Hissar excavation itself, which yielded surprising new evidence of a flourishing ancient culture, but also the desert and mountain people Schmidt’s team encountered along the way and at the nearby town of Damghan. Schmidt and his team engaged in some of the earliest aerial reconnaissance of the region’s spectacular natural land forms in order to pinpoint their archaeological efforts, and some of those images and other dramatic, early landscapes of Iraq and Iran are included.
This collection of revealing and sometimes intimate photographs chronicles a time on the threshold of sweeping social and economic change. Exploring Iran features about fifty photographs selected from Schmidt’s epic collection, complemented by a representative sampling of ancient artifacts, including painted pottery and bronze jewelry, from the Tepe Hissar excavations. Penn Museum Research Associate Dr. Ayse Gürsan-Salzmann curated the exhibition, following research and writing of a Penn Museum publication (2007) by the same title. 1st floor Changing exhibitions Gallery.
Available through University Museum Publications:
Exploring Iran
The Photography of Erich F. Schmidt, 1930-1940
Ayse Gürsan-Salzmann
112 pages,
$29.95
Embossed Gold Plaque. H: 21.8cm, L: 21.7 cm. Photo credit: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. (Object number: 40-13-2.)
At the turn of the 19th century, the Rio Grande de Coclé, a river in central Panama, changed its course, and people began to find precious gold objects on its banks. RIVER OF GOLD: Precolumbian Treasures from Sitio Conte tells the remarkable story of the University of Pennsylvania Museum’s 1940 excavation at an ancient cemetery discovered when the river changed its course. The exhibition, which travels to six U.S. cities following its Philadelphia opening, features almost 150 artifacts, including 120 spectacular Precolumbian gold objects more than a thousand years old—hammered repoussé plaques, pendants cast by the lost wax method, ornaments, bells, bangles, and beads. Site photographs and drawings, original color film footage from the excavation, plus ornate ceramics and objects of precious and semi-precious stone, of ivory and of bone, found in the cemetery, help shed light upon the little-known culture of that ancient time and place. Dr. Pamela Jardine, Research Associate in Penn Museum’s American Section, is curator of the exhibition, and co-editor, with American Section Curator Dr. Robert Sharer, of the 1992 Penn Museum publication by the same name. 2nd floor Dietrich Gallery.
Tikal, Guatemala, 1962, Photograph by William R. Coe. An upside-down scultptured face comes to light in the North Acropolis. The Maya commonly built new structures over existing architecture. (Img. 148801)
ADVENTURES IN PHOTOGRAPHY: Expeditions of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
July 14 through September 23, 2007
Forty black-and-white photographs, selected from the tens of thousands of expedition images in Penn Museum's Archives, offer a kaleidoscopic view of some of the more than 400 field projects in the Museum's 120-year history. Included are images from famous expeditions to the Amazon (1913-1916), Memphis, Egypt (1915-1923), Ur in Iraq (1922-34), and Tikal, Guatemala (1956-1970). Highlights include the photography of Stanislaw Niedzwiecki who captured stunning views of the Tepe Hissar excavations in Persia in the 1930s, and the work of Carleton S. Coon, one of the last “generalist” anthropologists who documented the cultural and physical diversity of human populations in South Asia and the Near East in the 1950s and 1960s. The exhibition features a small collection of Penn Museum’s research cameras, dating from 1911 to the 1960s, offering insight into the rapidly changing process of expedition photography. Penn Museum Archivist Alessandro Pezzati curated the exhibition, which is accompanied by a Penn Museum publication (2002) of the same title. 1st floor Changing Exhibitions Gallery.
Prior to European contact beginning in the 1500s, between 3 and 5
million people thrived in South America's Amazon region, an ecologically diverse land mass of 2.5 million square
miles. Today, fewer than 100,000 Amazonian native people survive. This exhibition, organized by the Houston Museum of Natural Science, features more than 150 ritual objects from the Ka'apor, Karajá, Tapirapé, Ticuna, Shipibo-Conibo, and Shuar, several Kayapó peoples, and Xingu River region peoples. Colorful headdresses, masks, body ornaments, and full body costumes, as well as domestic and utilitarian pieces like basketry, weapons, pottery and textiles, are showcased. These carefully crafted objects were used by shamans and other community members in many ceremonies and stage of life rituals, including name giving rituals for the young, initiation rituals into adulthood, and rituals surrounding death and bereavement, harvest and healing. Second floor Dietrich Gallery.
Engraving Pyramid Tomb of Caius Cestius from the Le Vedute di Roma (The Views of Rome), 1748-78. Courtesy of Blair-Murrah.
Piranesi: The Grandeur of Ancient Rome March 17 through June 16, 2007
Sixty works by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, one of the major artists of 18th century Italian etching, are featured in this exhibition. Born in Venice and educated to be an architect, Piranesi spent most of his life in Rome, becoming an authority on Roman archaeology. Architectural remains of ancient Rome were a major source of inspiration to Piranesi, whose goal—to show the world the majesty of Roman architecture—was realized in numerous, often large-scale etchings of famous ancient sites. A superb technician, Piranesi combined a mastery of draftsmanship and perspective, a strong knowledge and love of Roman antiquities, a sense of drama and an epic imagination in his etchings, which frequently featured people dwarfed by their majestic environments. This traveling exhibition, coordinated by Blair-Murrah, includes engravings of Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli, the ancient Roman Forum and the Pyramid Tomb of Caius Cestius, as well as many tombs, ancient amphitheaters, bridges, fountains and temples, and architectural fragments of friezes, capitals, columns, and ancient ornaments. First floor Merle-Smith Gallery.
Under European Eyes: Conquistadors and Arts of the New World September 23, 2006 through Spring 2007
A dazzling array of objects from Penn Museum’s rich American collections represents the native Mexican, Central and South American art traditions that flourished and influenced European values and sensibilities in the years after European contact and conquest. Included are gold necklaces, earrings, breastplates, a gold and emerald jaguar pendant from Panama, a sculpture of an Aztec deity from Mexico, a quipu--an Andean record-keeping device of complex knotted strings, and brightly colored featherwork from Peru.
This selection of more than 40 spectacular artifacts is designed to reveal how Europeans perceived the arts of their newly conquered subjects. Texts and illustrations from works of the period convey how Spaniards acquired, interpreted, and valued indigenous works of art.
The display complements the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s major special exhibition “Treasures/Tesoros/Tresouros:
The Arts in Latin America, 1492-1820” that ran September 20 through December 31, 2006. Dr. Nancy Farriss, Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert in Latin American indigenous cultures, is curator of “Under European Eyes.” 2nd floor Main Foyer
Engraving Pyramid Tomb of Caius Cestius {From the Le Vedute di Roma (The Views of Rome), 1748-78
Butabu: Adobe Architecture of West Africa, photographs by James Morris December 9, 2006 - March 3, 2007
British photographer James Morris offers a stunning visual survey of complex adobe structures, from monumental mosques to family homes, in the Sahal region of western Africa—Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Ghana, and Burkina Faso. This traveling exhibition of 50 photographs, is on view at Penn Museum from December 9, 2006 through March 3, 2007.
In Mr. Morris’s sophisticated compositions the expressive nature of these dynamic structures under the African sunlight reminds viewers of the essential landscape where these structures have been built for centuries. The modern existence of these buildings is both a reflection of their sustainability and usefulness and an affirmation of a vital, resourceful, and creative culture.
James Morris’s photographic work centers on the built environment and the cultural landscape. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Council, Princeton University and many other private collections.
Beaked Battle Hammer (totokia), Ironwood (Casuarina equisetifolia), Fiji Islands.
A specialist craftsman began making a club of this type by training a young ironwood tree (nokonoko) to grow parallel to the ground, thus creating an elegant curve between the trunk, which became the handle, and the root, which was carved to form the heavy beaked head. It was probably a chief's club and an heirloom. Photo courtesy Halpern-Rogath Curatorial Seminar.
Trouble in Paradise:
The Art of Polynesian Warfare April 29 - December 31, 2006
Intricately carved and uniquely designed Polynesian war clubs made in
the 19th century are the focus of Trouble in Paradise: The Art of Polynesian
Warfare, a special exhibition researched by sixteen University of Pennsylvania
student co-curators — undergraduates in the Art History 301 Halpern-Rogath
Curatorial Seminar led by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, Associate Professor
of History of Art.
Sixteen hand-carved wooden clubs from the islands of Fiji, Tonga, Samoa,
New Zealand and the Marquesas, selected from the Museum’s extensive
Oceanian collection of more than 22,000 artifacts, are displayed. The
exhibition considers the functions of the war clubs in 19th century
Polynesia, and how the decorative elements of the clubs connect to other
visual traditions of the cultures that produced them.
In developing the exhibition, Penn students had the opportunity to meet
behind-the-scenes of the Museum with collections keepers, conservators,
exhibition designers and archival staff in an intensive semester combining
learning and doing. Travels to Honolulu, Hawaii and London, England
afforded teams of students additional opportunities to learn about Polynesian
culture and the changing fashions of museum display.
In addition to the clubs and written commentary, the exhibition features
area maps, a student-edited video detailing the development of Trouble
in Paradise, and a study section, with books and background materials. 2nd Fl. Dietrich Gallery
Charleen lives in the tropical north of Australia where Aboriginal people have inhabited the land for around 70,000 years. Photo by Joan S. Klatchko.
May
6 - November 26, 2006 Connecting Cultures:
Kids Across the World
Award-winning photojournalist Joan S. Klatchko has spent the last 15
years traveling from Cambodia to Australia, from the Galapagos Islands
to Uganda, in a photographic journey, not just to document cultural
differences, but to explore the similarities that connect kids, cultures
and countries across the world. This new exhibition of her photographs,
plus edited video from some of her travels, features images of children,
their families and friends organized by universal themes including play,
education, healthcare, protection and family. Connecting Cultures links
images of suburban American kids, Vietnamese refugees, Tibetan novice
monks, Cambodian land-mine victims, Ugandan AIDS orphans, children of
Borneo rainforest tribes, and Andean mountain dwellers in a way that
celebrates the fundamental commonalities that connect all kids, from
all cultures, across the world.
Exhibition includes this famous National Geographic magazine
cover portrait of a young Afghan war refugee (photo by Steve McCurry,
1985). National Geographic searched for and relocated the girl, Sharbat
Gula, now a woman in her 30s with three children, in the remote Pushtun
region of Afghanistan. Image courtesy of National Geographic.
In Focus: National Geographic Greatest Portraits January 21 - April 15, 2006
About 50 color and black and white photographs are featured in this
traveling exhibition, which spans over a century of photography sponsored
by the National Geographic Society. Showcasing photographs from the
book, published in October 2004, by the same name, "In Focus"
parallels National Geographic's interest in ethnographic studies,
while it shows off the wide-ranging talents of some of their finest
photographers. From fascinating archival images of tribal leaders,
fishermen and American workers, to riveting modern pictures of refugees,
city dwellers and urban laborers, "In Focus" takes visitors
around the globe— and through the heights and depths of human
emotion. The nationally touring exhibition was created by the Smithsonian's
National Museum of Natural History and National Geographic, and organized
for travel by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service
(SITES). 1st floor Merle Smith Changing Exhibitions Gallery.
"Pehriska-Ruhpa, M¦nnitarri Warrior, in the Costume of the Dog Danse." The leggings in Bodmer's image closely resemble a pair of Mandan leggings, also from North Dakota (ca. 1830), in Penn Museum's collections. These leggings, along with other period pieces from the Museum, are included in the exhibit.
Travels
in the Interior of North America:
The Maximilian-Bodmer Expedition October 15 through December 31, 2005 Rare
hand-colored engravings, struck from the original 1832-34 plates,
the work of artist Karl Bodmer, offer a rare historic look at interior
North America and native peoples of that time. The prints come from
the Maximilian-Bodmer collection of the Joslyn Museum of Art in Nebraska.
The exhibition will be supplemented with a small selection of related
Native American artifacts of the period from Penn Museum's collection.
"Pueblo Room Blocks in Snow," 2001. Taken at Puye Pueblo, Santa Clara Indian Reservation, New Mexico. Chromogenic Color Print. 48" x 35 1/2". Photo: Adriel Heisey.
From
Above: Images of a Storied Land July 16 through October 2, 2005 Twenty-eight
large-scale, full-color photographs by Adriel Heisey offer an aerial
perspective of ancient and modern landscapes of the American Southwest
desert, captured from a unique vantage point: Heisey's homebuilt,
one-man, ultra-light airplane. Chaco Canyon, Casas Grandes and the
Aztec Ruins National Monument are among the locations photographed
by Heisey during his solo flights. The exhibition, organized by The
Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, Albuquerque, New Mexico, in
collaboration with the Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona,
offers viewers an uncommon opportunity to explore the complicated,
curious, and often breathtaking patterns that people have imposed
on the land over the years.
Veiled Woman with Pearls, 1890-1900. Sevruguin was the first Iranian photographer to focus on the aesthetic, as well as the documentary, potential of photography. Images like this haunting portrait brought a new artistry to turn-of-the-century Iranian photography.
Antoin
Sevruguin and the Persian Image April 16 through July 2, 2005
Images
of Iran at the turn of the 20th century-taken by Antoin Sevruguin
(late 1830's - 1933), one of Iran's most renowned early photographers-offer
a rare glimpse at a country struggling to balance an ancient past
with the present. The exhibition includes 35 black-and-white photographs
made from original glass-plate negatives and vintage prints housed
in the archives of the Smithsonian's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and
Freer Gallery of Art. Sevruguin, an Armenian Christian who lived most
of his life in Tehran, moved comfortably among the diverse worlds
of Iranian society, photographing the shah and royal court while running
a public portrait studio. He traveled to the sites of ancient Persian
civilization, but was equally fascinated by scenes of modern life-from
palace interiors to a traffic jam in Tehran. Working with the then-new
medium of photography, he produced images of great technical precision
and artistry that documented the culture of Iran at the dawn of its
Industrial Age. The exhibition was organized by the Arthur M. Sackler
Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, and circulated by the Smithsonian
Traveling Exhibition Service. A small grouping of late-19th and early
20th century Persian artifacts from the Museum's own collection complements
the exhibition.
Treasures
from the Royal Tombs of Ur March 13, 2004 through June 18, 2005
Penn
Museum's nationally traveling exhibition features more than 200
ancient Sumerian treasures from the site of Ur in Mesopotamia (modern-day
Iraq). Visitors can see what art critic and former Metropolitan
Museum of Art Director Thomas Hoving has called "the finest,
most resplendent and magical works of art in all of America"
(artnet.com): the Ram-Caught-in-the-Thicket, Lady Puabi's lapis
lazuli and carnelian jewelry, an electrum drinking tumbler, and
a gold ostrich egg-as well as Lady Puabi's headdress, a silver bull's
head, and other treasures, large and small-from this world famous,
4500-year-old Sumerian collection.
The extraordinary objects of Mesopotamian art and culture were uncovered
in the late 1920s by renowned British archaeologist C. Leonard Woolley
in a joint expedition by the British Museum and the University of
Pennsylvania Museum. The royal tombs at Ur opened the world's
eyes to the full glory of ancient Sumerian culture (2600-2500 B.C.)
at its zenith. At the time, the Ur excavations competed only
with Howard Carter's discovery of the intact tomb of the boy pharaoh,
Tutankhamen, for public attention. By the end of the excavation
in 1934 Woolley had become, as The Illustrated London News termed
him, a "famous archaeologist," and in little more than
a year he was awarded knighthood.
"With continuing American involvement in Iraq and the region,
public awareness and interest in Mesopotamia and UPM's remarkable
Ur material has expanded," noted Dr. Richard Zettler, Associate
Curator-in-charge in the Museum's Near East Section and co-curator
of the traveling Ur exhibition. "We wanted UPM's visitors
to be able to see and consider this important material while Iraq's
endangered cultural heritage, and in fact the endangered cultural
heritage of so many peoples today, is so much in the headlines."
"Procession Near Tecpan" by Winifred Godfrey, oil on canvas, 80" x 60".
Mayan
Procession July 6 through September 26, 2004
Fourteen large-scale oil paintings by artist Winifred Godfrey depict
contemporary Maya people of Guatemala in both ceremonial and everyday
occasions. The Museum's display includes 32 color photographs of the
Maya people taken by the artist between 1992 and 2003, as well as
traditional, hand-woven Maya clothing and textiles from the collections
of the artist and William Goldman. (The paintings in this exhibition
opened Penn Museum's spring 2004 Maya Weekend outside the Museum's
Mosaic Gallery, March 26 through April 21.)
Mythic
Visions: Yarn Paintings of a Huichol Shaman November 8, 2003 - May 29, 2004
Though
the yarn paintings of the Huichol Indians of northwestern Mexico—vivid
works of textile art in which strands of brightly-colored yarn are
applied to boards thinly coated with bees wax—have achieved a
worldwide popularity in recent years, few outsiders know of the rich
religious and cultural stories they contain. Mythic Visions features 31 yarn paintings by shaman-artist José Benítez
Sánchez, considered the leading Huichol artist using this medium.
Benítez' fame comes from his unique ability to translate his
ephemeral visions into a two-dimensional art form. These fleeting
visions are of the Huichol world as it came into creation in a mystical
natural environment that has no boundaries between the present and
the ancestral past. It is the otherworldly visions, triggered by the
use of the sacred peyote cactus, which inspires shaman-artists like
Benítez to "paint in yarn." Despite the fact that
peyote is not native to the Huichol heartland, it is essential to
Huichol spirituality and cultural survival. Each year, small parties
of Huichols make a 300-mile pilgrimage to a desert in the State of
San Luis Potosi to gather visionary peyote. Huichols call this desert
Wirikuta, sacred home of their ancestors and the multitude of deities
in their pantheon. Exhibition curator and UPM Research Associate Dr.
Peter T. Furst offers narrative text that helps to shed light on the
complexities of Huichol art and the people who create it. Color photos
and related Huichol objects from Penn Museum's collections help set the art
form in cultural context.
Touching
the Mekong: A Southeast Asian Sojourn May 8, 2003 - September 30, 2003
Contemporary
life in mainland Southeast Asia-Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam, Cambodia
and Laos-is the subject of this exhibition of more than fifty black
and white images taken in 2001/02 by photographer Andrea Baldeck.
Photographs of architecture, landscapes and the region's people offer
a kaleidoscopic view of an area that slipped off the front page a
quarter-century ago with the end of American involvement in the Vietnam
War. Baldeck's work focuses on the enduring influence of ancient philosophies
and religions-Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism-on societies in
transition, where currents of tradition and change are constantly
reshaping the cultures of the Mekong River basin.
Photographic
Explorations: A Century of Images in Archaeology and Anthropology
from the University of Pennsylvania Museum May 2, 2002 - April 19, 2003
This
photographic exhibition provided a visual journey through the archaeological
and ethnographic landscape covered by the Museum's 110 years of research
around the world. More than sixty black-and-white photographs, selected
from the tens of thousands of expedition images in the Museum's Archives,
offered a kaleidoscopic view of a sampling of the nearly 400 field
projects in the Museum's history. Included were images from famous
expeditions to the Amazon (1913-1916), Memphis, Egypt (1915-1923),
Ur in Iraq (1922-34), Tikal, Guatemala (1956-1970) and Gordion, Turkey,
where the Museum continues field work it began in 1950. Wide-screen
plasma screens flashed images from contemporary Penn Museum expeditions and
research around the world.
Modern
Mongolia: Reclaiming Genghis Khan October 20, 2001 - June 1, 2002
For
most Americans, mention Genghis Khan and you elicit images of a fearful
marauder who swept through Eurasia in the 13th century, burning, pillaging
and destroying all in his path. Ask his descendants, the people of
modern Mongolia, about him, and you get a very different picture.
This exhibition, created by the University of Pennsylvania Museum
and the National Museum of Mongolian History, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia,
challenged our view of Genghis Khan, inviting the visitor to experience
Mongolian life from the beginning of the 20th century to today. Three
life-size dioramas of gers (the Mongolian word for yurt, the nomads'
traditional home), featured many of the exhibition’s 192 Mongolian
costumes and artifacts shown in America for the first time. These
gers and 35 rare archival photographs reconstructed 20th-century nomadic
life. Four films made especially for the exhibition provided historic
background, illuminating Genghis Khan’s relationship to contemporary
Mongolians' democratic ideals.
44
Celebrity Eyes in a Museum Storeroom April 16 - December 30, 2000
This
exhibition of artifacts selected by 22 celebrities on visits to Museum
storerooms was a visual reminder of the breadth and depth of the Museum’s
vast collections. To realize the exhibition, international celebrities
from diverse fields selected their own favorite object or objects
to be displayed. Composer
Philip Glass (shown here on the left), actor
Kevin Bacon, Robert Runcie, 102nd Archbishop of Canterbury, Maha Chakri
Sirindhorn, Princess of Thailand, and Broadway producer Hal Prince
were among those who made selections for the exhibition.
Visit the Virtual Exhibition-->
Pomo
Indian Basket Weavers, Their Baskets and the Art Market October 10, 1999 - February 25, 2001
This
exhibition, which traveled to multiple locations, including the National
Museum of the American Indian in New York City (where the New York
Times called it "a knockout presentation"), explored the
complex relationships between art, artist and society, tradition and
change, and the outside market forces that influenced this Native
American art tradition throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth
century. In the late nineteenth century, once-utilitarian baskets
became increasingly refined and ornamented—and increasingly sought
after by wealthy collectors. Large, functional burden baskets for
carrying heavy loads, cooking baskets, serving baskets, basketry bowls,
decorated gift baskets—even miniature baskets made as toys so
tiny they fit on a finger tip (or several within the palm of your
hand, as pictured here)—were shown in this exhibition, which
included 120 baskets, as well as historic photographs of basket weavers
and their families, art dealers and collectors. The exhibition was
made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities,
a federal agency, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and the California Humanities
Council.
to see the Adventures Slideshow
