Walk Like an Egyptian
Contemporary art is full of references to ancient Egypt. In 1976, the year he died, Alexander Calder painted Lioness with Pyramids, a bright, colorful work in gouache and one of many works on paper that used the pyramids as a signature shape. (click to see Calder’s Lioness) Maia Urstad is a multi-discipline sound, installation, and performance artist from Norway whose work often references the historic remains of buildings. In 2000, her outdoor installation & performance, Cleopatra’s Needles, used 100 cassette radios to invoked Pharonic Egyptian architecture. (visit Urstad’s website to hear her sound) In 2006, Catherine Hall opened an exhibition at Burlington City Arts titled “Pasts and Presences,” the main image for which was a painting of the artist in a turban looking at the viewer while the bust of a pharaoh’s head looks at her. Two new exhibitions at the Robert Hull Fleming Museum explore the aesthetic impact of ancient Egypt on Western culture. “Egyptomania” shows Egyptian-inspired decorative arts and objects of material culture and “Napoleon on the Nile: Soldiers, Artists, and the Rediscovery of Egypt” is composed of more than 30 large, exquisitely detailed, engraved illustrations from Napoleon’s Description de l’Égypte, along with French Orientalist paintings and drawings that were influenced by the Description.
An opening reception takes place Wednesday, October 14 from 5:30-7:30PM. More information about the exhibitions can be found here. (Ric Kasini Kadour)
