The word blockbuster comes from the second world war: a massive bomb designed to destroy entire swaths of city at a time. In the 50s it started to be used about plays; in the 70s, the era of Star Wars, people began to talk about blockbuster movies.
The blockbuster also hit art. Maev Kennedy wrote on this blog a while back about fond memories of what many people think of as the first modern art blockbuster, the massive Tutankhamun show at the British Museum in 1972. It was a ground-breaking show: it made the cover of the Sunday Times magazine, sold out immediately; punters queued for hours to get in. Curators and gallerists suddenly realised that, if the marketing was right, real money could be made.
Yet if the new head of London's National Gallery has anything to do with it, the blockbuster could be at an end - at least in his neck of the woods.
See the above page for the full story - plus numerous comments offering feedback.
2 comments:
I really wish people could stop saying nasty things about the Tut show, especially if they've never been. The Guardian are downright nasty about it from what I have read (apart from that one review mentioned in this article-though I really disagree with many of the comments made there). Move on, stop ranting and look beyond the glossy presentation because there is substance under all that sparkle.
(btw I loved your review of the Tut show. It was exactly how I thought of it when I went-and I've been twice. You gave it a glowing but fair review from an initially sceptical view point and there should be more reviews like this than snobby scathing ones).
I also don't understand one of the comments saying that the exhibition is 'out of context with what is going on in the modern world', because despite not being tied to major political or social events in the world (like with the Chinese exhibition), there's always something new going on in Egyptian archeology these days, always a new discovery, always a new excavation. Egyptology isn't passe, there's still more to discover.
I very much agree - there really is substance under the sparkle at the Golden Age show. I was advising a friend last week to focus on each individual item and forget the rest of the world. The key to enjoyment is refusing to be distracted.
I don't think that there is any need for the frills and furbelows that adorned the Golden Age, but it may have appealed to some people. It is very difficult to please all of the people all of the time. If the National Gallery wish to promote more scholarly approaches to exhibition design, then that's fine - but there's room for both.
I thought that Jones was somewhat unfair to say that the Golden Age exhibition was "misleading". I would have liked to have seen more information about the exhibits and their context, but as I said in my review - this could have created some logistical problems. But I really cannot see what could be said to have mislead the visitor - it was a display of truly exceptional items arranged chronologically, concentrating on beauty and crafsmanship. I can't see what was misleading about it.
Oh well - one man's meat is another man's poison :-)
Post a Comment