Fancy pitting your powers of perception against some of historys masters of deception? Then heres your chance. Art and Illusions: Masterpieces of Trompe l’il from Antiquity to the Present Day, the first major exhibition on visual illusion to be held in Italy, is on at Florences Palazzo Strozzi until January 26. Visual illusion has been used in art for thousands of years to trick and deceive us. This exhibition is designed to chart this fascinating story of trompe lil, or optical deception; the story of the tug-of-war between reality and its simulation. The show places optical illusion not only in…
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A new exhibit that will look at forgery in ancient and modern art is going to be hitting the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) this January. The museum released details about it in a press release today. It’s called Fakes & Forgeries Yesterday and Today and it runs from January 9 to April 4, 2010. There are going to be four sections that will examine the ancient world: Egyptian Antiquities will examine why the west is so interested in Egypt and how this led to so many fake Egyptian antiquities being created. Among the examples is an authentic relief of the…
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The exhibit Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul has been on at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, in Ottawa Canada, since October 24. For that entire time nearly 400 workers (including education staff and tour guides) have been on strike. The news only gets worse. As Heritage Key has previously reported talks broke down nearly two weeks ago with the union believing a settlement to be impossible. The union wants the museum to agree to binding arbitration. So far the museum has said no. People who want to see the exhibit have had to cross picket lines to…
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A new exhibit that will look at forgery in ancient and modern art is going to be hitting the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) this January. The museum released details about it in a press release today. Its called Fakes & Forgeries Yesterday and Today and it runs from January 9 to April 4, 2010. There are going to be four sections that will examine the ancient world: Egyptian Antiquities will examine why the west is so interested in Egypt and how this led to so many fake Egyptian antiquities being created. Among the examples is an authentic relief of the…
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Unseen photographs by Flinders Petrie are now on temporary display in the Petrie Museum in London in an exhibition called Framing the Archaeologist: Portraits and Excavation. The photos were taken by Petrie on site in Egypt, featuring himself, his wife and the excavation workers, and offer a remarkable view of the early years of archaeology. To mark the exhibition, the museum hosted an informal talk between Stephen Quirke and documentary maker Ayman El-Kharrat, entitled Workers and/or Archaeologists: In Conversation, questioning the status of Bedouin workers involved in early excavations in Egypt. You can watch Dr Quirke in this video interview…
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Today’s religious folk may be gearing up for the pious festive season, but it seems the ancient world just keeps on getting filthier: alongside gay Graeco-Roman pornography and rude Roman graffiti, one Athens museum has decided to celebrate all things raunchy in Ancient Greece. Starting today and ending on the 5th April next year, “Eros: From Hesiod’s Theogony to Late Antiquity” at the Goulandris Museum of Cycladic Art will treat visitors to a cornucopia of ancient smut, from orgies and prostitution, to paedophilia and even beastiality. And while it may seem at loggerheads with today’s relatively constrained society, museum director…
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No Christmas would be the same without many a wasted hour spent buried in the couch wiped-out on a bellyful of turkey and stuffing, or nursing a hangover after a Herculean nights mulled wine consumption flicking the channels in a dozy haze. It’s a Christmas tradition (although we can’t guarentee that it dates back as far as some other ancient seasonal rituals) This year you can spare yourself all those awful festive films and Christmas music videos youve seen a million times, by keeping Heritage Keys handy guide to ancient world-themed Christmas TV close at hand. All the old-school three-hours…
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