Pharoahs and Queens: California's Mummy Invasion

Pharoahs and Queens: California's Mummy Invasion

Mummies from the British Museum. It consists of 140 funeral objects, including 14 mummies and coffins, masks and statues, ritual amulets and golden jewelry. Altogether, they tell the fascinating story of how the ancient Egyptians imagined and celebrated life after death, depicted in the many artworks as a series of elaborate rituals. It's the second exhibition that the Bowers has been able to organize in collaboration with the British Museum, which has the largest collection of ancient Egyptian art outside of Egypt. I saw this exhibition a year ago in London, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was scheduled to travel to Santa Ana, of all places. It's definitely worth your time to venture down there to the Bowers Museum to stroll through this exhibition, which skillfully combines serious scholarship with elements of showmanship, not the other way around---as done, unfortunately, by LACMA with The King Tut Commercial Extravaganza.

de Young Museum in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park will open its new facilities, designed by celebrated Swiss architecture firm

Herzog & de Meuron, best known for the building of the

Tate Modern in London. Among the Egyptian Pharaohs, Queen Hatshepsut cuts an especially enigmatic figure as the only female to have become a Pharaoh, which happened upon the death of her husband Pharaoh Thutmose II. For almost 20 years in the 15th Century BC, she ruled the fundamentally patriarchal society, and her many portraits depict her with a false beard strapped to her face. Her rule also coincided with an unprecedented period of artistic flourishing, which is precisely the subject of this exhibition, with its more than 260 objects, borrowed from major museums around the world. After San Francisco, this high-profile exhibition will travel to the

Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth and the

Metropolitan Museum in New York.

King Tut Roadshow is headed after the curtain goes down at LACMA? It goes on the road to distinctly second tier museums: in Ft. Lauderdale at the

Museum of Art, then to the

Field Museum in Chicago and the

Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. I think our friends in San Francisco got a much better deal.

Getty Trust made the surprising

announcement of their new museum director, Michael Brand, a 47 year-old native of Australia, who's currently the director of the

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, a respected but not necessarily stellar institution. The press release emphasizes Mr. Brand's experience as a fundraiser, which seems shouldn't be a priority for the Getty, the world's richest museum. Another surprise is the fact that Mr. Brand's professional expertise lies in the area of Indian Art, which has never been the subject of the Getty collection or their exhibitions. Barry Munitz, President of the Getty Trust, is quoted by the

New York Times as saying that this new appointment presents the possibility for the museum to focus on the art and culture of Asia and Latin America. If you can make sense of this, please let me know. Meanwhile, I can hear Mr. Getty turning in his grave.

Bowers Museum

Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh

LACMA

All images courtesy of the Bowers Museum