Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind at the British Museum

[inulro]

First, a word about membership. Free entry at any time to the major exhibitions is nice, but where membership really came into its own was the free cloakroom and the members' cafe and lounge - as I don't live in London and I'm invariably making my way to or from wherever I'm staying, I always have a big bulky bag in addition to winter clothes. Being able to stash these for free, without queuing with the rest of the world - priceless. Ditto for being able to eat and rest my feet in peace before making my way back into the hordes (Japanese tours and European school groups) that were making the Great Court practically impassible.

If the exhibition itself had been heaving I would have come back at another time, but it wasn't too bad. It was busy, but nothing like the crush at the Babylon exhibition.

Anyway, I'd been really looking forward to this, and the BBC Culture Show special made me even more excited, so even though it was very good, I felt kind of let down. I guess because seeing actual cave paintings a couple years back was a life-changing event, I had ridiculously high expectations. Also, an exhibition where all the objects are tiny and in low light is possibly not best viewed when completely exhausted.

While the human figures are of moderate interest to me (especially the really early ones, which have heads but not faces despite the level of skill showing that the artist clearly could have carved a face - there's something profound and ritualistic about that), the pieces that I found most moving were all animal representations. They're most like the cave paintings in the way that they portray movement very effectively. The lion headed man (one of the oldest carvings) is really evocative and the thought that we've been able to be so abstract and ritualistic for that long is pretty mind boggling.

I didn't buy the book - the photography is stunning, but it's expensive and doesn't contain any text but what accompanied the exhibition. If they'd thrown in a few extra essays I'd have bought it.

I'm really glad I went, even though it was a bit of a letdown.

I had plans to take in some of Ancient Near East rooms when I finished (as I always do), but between the screaming hordes and already sore feet, I retreated straight to my hotel.

Comments

[eciklb.livejournal.com]

Do you know, is it possible to get a membership there, or do you have to do it ahead of time? I ask because I'm going to be in London for another conference in April, and while I won't have much time, I'm semi-tempted to try to get back to the British Museum to catch this exhibit and maybe the Pompeii and Herculaneum one and buy a few spare sphinx duckies.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I think you can do it online, but it's £44 for the year, so if you're only seeing the one exhibition it may not be worth it.

By the way, they now have caveman, Roman and Viking ducks as well. So far I have resisted buying any, but am not sure how much longer I can hold out. Especially the Viking one.

[eciklb.livejournal.com]

Yep, I'm very tempted to get a centurion ducky for a colleague who teaches Roman archaeology. The Viking duck and the caveman duck are nifty but less career-relevant for me. :)

If I were to do both the paleolithic and the Pompeii/Vesuvius exhibits, that would be £25, and then a discount in the store, at which point the membership becomes fairly reasonably priced. But I'm not sure I can get the £44 rate because it's based on the idea that you have an automatic withdrawal from a bank account, and I don't know if that works for non-UK banks. But also, it sounds like they wouldn't actually set up the membership quickly enough for me to use it less than a month from now. Hence my curiosity about whether I might be able to do it on-site. :)

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Yes, you can - that's how I joied. they give you a temporary card when you join up at the museum.

[zenithed.livejournal.com]

I'd heard they were all pretty tiny, and was wondering if it's worth 15 quid a head. Hmm. Will see if I'm feeling rich before it finishes.

[mimmimmim.livejournal.com]

Museums really are foot-killers, aren't they?