"Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," a show of less
spectacular objects than those in 1977 — the great mask, for
example, is gone, shown only in a hyped-up video — nonetheless
follows a similar pattern. It presents more than 130 pieces from Tut's
tomb and others in the Valley of the Kings. Several of the works —
a balustrade carving of Akhenaten and his family, a fan depicting an
ostrich hunt, two inlaid pectorals, a long-legged chest with decorative
fretwork — are of high artistic interest. But only the smallest of
its 10 galleries have text on "The Art of the Period," while the rest
are devoted to the lives of Tut and his reputed ancestors as well as
rituals of life and death.
Admittedly, anything made by the hand of man is an artefact, and
neither Tut show was promoted as an art exhibition. (The 2000 "Pharaohs
of the Sun: Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Tutankhamen," at the Art Institute of
Chicago, was a stellar art exhibition emphasizing the fineness of its
objects over the people who owned them, but it drew far fewer viewers.)
In all such exhibitions we silently ask, Why are these artefacts worth
seeing? The Tut show's answer: Because of an exotic teenager whose tomb
was discovered complete, unlooted, and the excitement of that story.
If the answer were truthful, it would say, because of the artistry of
the objects that sets them apart from others. And the show then would
explain how the pieces are different — and how our interest is
galvanized by the difference. But at a time when not even the recent
Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition at the Art Institute sought to explain what
raised his posters above mere advertising, what can we expect from a
museum dedicated to natural history..?
