 |
|
|
Penn Museum
• Exhibitions and Collections
• PAST Exhibitions
|
 April
29 - December 31, 2006
Trouble in Paradise:
The Art of Polynesian Warfare
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
Read
the press release
 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. 1st floor Merle Smith Gallery.
Caption:
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.
Read
the press release
 January
21 - April 15, 2006
In Focus: National Geographic Greatest Portraits
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.
Click here
to learn more about this exhibition.
Photo: 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.
|
| |
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.
First floor Merle-Smith Changing Exhibitions Gallery.
Read the press
release to learn more.
Caption: "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. |
| |
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. First floor Merle-Smith Changing Exhibitions
Gallery.
Read the press
release for more information.
Caption: "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. |
| |
Antoin
Sevruguin and the Persian Image
April 16 through July 2, 2005
For complete details, read the press
release
 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. 1st floor Merle-Smith Changing Exhibitions Gallery.
Caption: 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.
|
| |
Treasures
from the Royal Tombs of Ur
Opened 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."
2nd floor Dietrich Gallery.
|
|
|
| |
| |
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.) First floor Merle-Smith
Changing Exhibitions Gallery.
Shown here: "Procession Near Tecpan" by Winifred Godfrey,
oil on canvas, 80" x 60".
click
here for additional
information and images |
| |
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 UPM's collections help set the art
form in cultural context. 1st floor Merle-Smith Changing Exhibitions
Gallery.
Visit
the Virtual Exhibition
Purchase
Visions of a Huichol Shaman
from University Museum Publications |
|
|
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.
Visit the Virtual Exhibition
|
| |
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 UPM expeditions and
research around the world.
Learn
More and View Selections from the Show |
|
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.
Visit
the Virtual Exhibition |
| |
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. |
|
