British Museum expansion

Press, 12 September 1987, Page 26

British Museum expansion

By

MARINA VAIZEY,

art critic for the “Sunday

Times,” London.

The wealth of artefacts of historical value at the British Museum in Bloomsbury, central London, is growing in line with its international appeal. An expansion project is under way, including a $l4 million restructuring of the building. Funded by Japanese sources, this will, on completion, provide space for new Oriental galleries. Meanwhile, other refurbishments are proceeding. The museum’s ethnographic exhibitions are all now held at the Museum of Mankind in another part of central London.

The British Museum, attracting around four million visitors a year and located on a huge site of more than 4.5 hectares at Bloomsbury in central London, will undergo an expansion programme to house its ever-grow-ing collection of treasures and exhibits. : Although much extended and altered since its erection, it is still basically the enormous neoclassical building of the 1830 s designed by Sir Robert Smirke. The wonderfully impressive lonic colonnade and portico date from the 1840 s. ' However, one of the grandest buildings in Britain has to be preserved while still bringing it ■into line with today’s museological needs. There are many ways of doing this. One method is to go back in time. In 1980 the Egyptian galleries, for example, were restored and reinstalled using the hot, deep colours of Sjnirke’s original design. Now, the new Japanese galleries are going to be built literally jn the roof of the museum’s Print and Drawing Gallery and Oriental Gallery II — effectively a loft conversion on a big scale. Included in the over-all plans will .be a special conversation laboratory, and this has already -received a donation of $280,000 4rom the Japanese Association of Art Dealers. It will be the first in Europe to specialise in remounting Oriental paintings. .. Moreover, the new galleries ■will not only exhibit the historic collections but will be a showcase for contemporary Japanese art, in particular graphics, of which there has already been a special showing. An amount of $lB million is being raised from Japanese foundations and cor-

porations to pay for them and they are scheduled to open in late 1989. They represent just one spectacular part of an ongoing programme of development at the British Museum. About two galleries are now being refurbished, renewed, recreated, and reopened a year. Ten years ago, the exhibition “Man before Metals” opened to demonstrate art and history before societies had learned to use metal. In 1981, the “Image of Augustus,” depicting how the Romans promulgated the heroic look of the boy emperor, went on show. The special gallery of ancient Syria opened in 1982, and Roman Britain in 1983, followed by seven galleries in the next two years. An early medieval gallery was opened in 1985, one on ArchaicGreece last year, and in June, 1987, a special gallery was devoted to the prosperous, active and ancient Greek colonies of

southern Italy, where the influence over thousands of years is still felt in Greek dialects. There will be a rare treat later this year when a new showroom opens, funded by the A.G. Leventis Foundation and devoted to Cypriot antiquities. Also scheduled for later in the decade is a gallery devoted to Etruscan art, and another on “Rome: City and Empire.” Typical of the range of activities in the British Museum are the current and forthcoming exhibition programmes. The Museum of Mankind, the ethnographic wing, is now housed in a charming nineteenth century building behind the Royal Academy in London’s West End, but will rejoin its parent in the 19905. On view now at that venue are seven special exhibitions, including the highly unusual artists’ show where the contemporary sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi has roamed for several years, col-

lecting works to make a huge, special personal choice. There are special installations on Madagascar, Bolivia, and the Andes In South America, as well as one on carving an Indonesian rice barn. Coming later in the year will be the “Living Arctic” exhibition, which will look at the hunters of northern Canada. The Museum of Mankind brings to life dlf-

ferent societies from all over the world: some historic, others still very much alive. Exhibitions at the home base in Bloomsbury this year include the dazzling survey of seventeenth century English drawing, “From Hilliard to Hogarth”: the sixteenth century exhibition of maiolica, Italian renaissance tinglazed earthenware, in a show

called “Ceramic Art of the Italian Renaissance”; and “As Good as Gold,” which looks at 300 years of British banknote design. Coming at the end of 1987 is “Glass of the Caesars,” which brings together the highlights of three world famous collections of Roman glass, from West Germany, the United States and the

British Museum itself. “Suleyman the Magnificent” opens next year, and in 1989, there will be., an exhibition charting the British relationship to the French Revolution of 1789. Meanwhile, there is much happening behind the scenes. Two houses in Montague Street, near the British Museum, are to be

home to study collections of European pottery. The publica- . tion programme also increases. Soon the public will be able to book a guide, paying a small sum, to be taken around in groups to sample the offerings in the museum. Except for occasional special exhibitions, entrance is free at all times to visitors.