Laing Art Gallery Is Hosting The Visions Of Ancient Egypt Exhibition

Newcastle hosts a major exhibition that highlights the continuing fascination of Ancient Egypt.

An extensive exhibition in Newcastle showcases the world's appreciation and respect for the realm of Ancient Egypt via the mediums of watercolours by Howard Carter, magnificent ruby and onyx jewellery, replica imperial thrones and many more unique pieces.

Laing Art Gallery hosts the exhibition called Visions of Ancient Egypt: Art, Design, and the Cultural Imagination that runs until April 29 and features 140 objects ranging from furniture to costumes, paintings, ceramics, photographs, and film that all show how this world has been mirrored in various mediums throughout the ages.

Curator from Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, Esmé Whittaker, believes people are fascinated with ancient Egypt and they now have the opportunity to look at it through the lens of art and design, as the exhibition's longevity is proof of the subject's ongoing appeal. What makes it so intriguing are the many angles shown, spanning several eras, that reveal the phenomenon's ability to hold the public's attention.

In addition to the traditional depictions of Ancient Egypt, the works of contemporary Egyptian artists also challenge the appropriation and misrepresentation of their own culture. This exhibition, on loan from the University of East Anglia's The Sainsbury Centre, explores the many ways in which Egypt has been depicted in art and literature from the time it was annexed by the Roman Empire to the current day.

Additionally, there are antique costumes with Egyptian designs, which were fashionable during the Art Deco era, and tourism posters from the 1930s featuring stereotypical images of camels and pyramids. Photographs showing the subsequent discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb are on display, along with Howard Carter's stunning, detailed watercolours of temple friezes and pharaohs.

The show is a continuation of a previous partnership with The Sainsbury Centre, whose exhibition Art Deco by the Sea, which explored how the art style altered the British seashore in the 1920s and 1930s, regrettably arrived here at a time when the lockdown was in effect due to the coronavirus outbreak. Exhibits are borrowed from museums and private collections in the United Kingdom and throughout the world.

The installation opens on the upper level of the gallery with Cleopatra, Egypt's last and perhaps most famous pharaoh, and continues down into a second chamber, where a film by Sara Sallam challenges Western prejudices in a representation of Egyptian "mummies" as monsters in cinema.

In other words, you have till April 29 to check out the show.

The Lindisfarne Gospels, the last major exhibition at the Newcastle gallery, attracted almost 56,000 visitors during its 11-week run. The 1,300-year-old illustrated manuscript, originally from Holy Island in Northumberland and currently kept at the British Library, was on display in the city for the first time since 2020, and it drew three times as many people as past recent exhibits, 23% of whom were first-time attendees.

 

Source: chroniclelive.co.uk