FALL 2012 MAGAZINE

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Five Essentials for Fall

Ai Weiwei at PrincetonWhether you were born during the year of the dragon or of the rabbit, you must visit the new Ai Weiwei Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads installation, located along the reflecting pool of the Woodrow Wilson School’s Robertson Hall. Ten-foot-tall bronze animal heads on pedestals have invigorated the iconic plaza, enticing visitors to interact with the space in new ways. In honor of the installation, the Woodrow Wilson School will host a special screening of the documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry on October 1.

China’s Glory Immerse yourself in musical tributes to China during the Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s performance on Sunday, October 7, at Richardson Auditorium. The concert features the U.S. premiere of Zhou Tian’s The Grand Canal. A reception in conjunction with the exhibition On Water: Waves, Dragons, and Boats in Chinese Art will follow in the Art Museum.

A Mayan Feast Mark your calendars for three fascinating lectures that will further illuminate the special exhibition Dancing into Dreams: Maya Vase Painting of the Ik’ Kingdom. Lecturers include Dorie Reents-Budet, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Smithsonian Institution; Bryan R. Just, Princeton University Art Museum; and Mary E. Miller, Yale University.

World AIDS Day/Day Without Art On December 1, the international arts community pauses to remember and respond to the AIDS crisis and its impact on cultural life. In honor of the annual Day Without Art, the Museum will screen Derek Jarman’s Blue, which tells the story of the director’s own terminal struggle with AIDS. All proceeds collected in the Museum’s donations box during this day will be given to charity to promote HIV/AIDS-related research and awareness.

This fall we celebrate the opening of two new exhibitions, City of Gold: Tomb and Temple in Ancient Cyprus and Dancing into Dreams: Maya Vase Painting of the Ik’ Kingdom. Join us on October 20 for a keynote lecture by William A. P. Childs, professor emeritus in the Department of Art and Archaeology, entitled “How Vivid Is the Joy in Strangeness,” followed by a reception in the Art Museum.

A Fall Celebration

Cypriot, end of the 6th century b.c.: Funerary Lion for Kilikas. Limestone, h. 38 cm, w. 40 cm, th. 16 cm. Polis Chrysochous, Local Museum of Marion and Arsinoe (MMA 227). Courtesy of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus.

Ai Weiwei, Chinese, born 1957: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads, 2010. Bronze. Private Collection. Photo: Bruce M. White.

Princeton Symphony Orchestra. © All rights reserved.

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exhibition

City of Gold Tomb and Temple in Ancient Cyprus October 20, 2012–January 20, 2013

the form and presentation of art in cyprus is independent of and at the same time deeply connected to the arts of its neighbors in Greece, Egypt, and the Near East. In City of Gold: Tomb and Temple in Ancient Cyprus, this duality is explored through the art and archaeology of the ancient city of Marion and its successor, Arsinoe, cities that lie below the modern town of Polis Chrysochous in northwestern Cyprus.

A case in point is the treatment of funerary sculpture at Marion, much of which was inspired by Greek artistic forms—if not actually made in Greece. In ancient Greece, funerary sculptures, including statues of kouroi (naked male youths), were placed prominently above graves to celebrate the deceased. At Marion, however, an imported Greek marble kouros (the only example ever found on Cyprus), along with locally made male and female terra-cotta funerary statuettes, representing either the deceased or mourners, set the stage for rituals enacted in tomb dromoi, the sloping passages that led to the entrances of tomb chambers cut deep into the ground. When a tomb was closed, the dromos and its contents were covered with earth, not to be seen again in antiquity unless the tomb was reopened for the burial of another family member. The visually striking and often surprising remains that contribute to our understanding of the arts of Marion and Arsinoe are known almost entirely through archaeological excavations. A team from Princeton University, led by Professor Emeritus William A. P. Childs (Class of 1964, Graduate School Class of 1971) of the Department of Art and Archaeology, conducted excavations in Polis from 1983 to 2007. Of the 110 pieces

Greek, Cycladic, ca. 510–500 b.c.: Torso of a Kouros (Naked Male Youth). Found by Max Ohnefalsch-Richter at Polis-Necropolis II, in Tomb 92, in 1886. Parian marble; h. 72 cm. London, British Museum (1887.8-1.1) © The British Museum / British Museum Images.

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on display in this exhibition, 60 were uncovered by the Princeton team. The remaining 50 were documented by German, British, Cypriot, and Swedish archaeologists, including Erik Sjöqvist (professor of classical archaeology at Princeton from 1951 to 1969), who excavated in Polis in 1929 when he was a graduate student. All of the pieces in this exhibition are on loan, courtesy of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus, the British Museum, and the Musée du Louvre. Archaeological excavations in Polis began in 1885 when German excavator Max Ohnefalsch-Richter, a newspaperman turned inspector of antiquities, received a permit for tomb exploration. He was drawn to this remote corner of the island by then recent studies of ancient literary sources that identify Polis as the location of two ancient cities and, possibly, by the modern name of the town itself—Polis Chrysochous links the Greek word polis, meaning city, with the name of its fertile river valley containing the Greek word chrysos, meaning gold. In 1885 and 1886 Ohnefalsch-Richter excavated more than four hundred tombs. He and later excavators found splendid jewelry, much of it made of gold (see cover), and a wealth of other tomb gifts, including painted vases imported from Greece. The vases led scholars to consider Polis to have been the most Greek of the ancient cities on Cyprus. The tomb fields of Polis, explored by Ohnefalsch-Richter and the British, Swedish, and Cypriot exca-vators who succeeded him, revealed the funerary landscape of Marion. Founded by the eighth century b.c., Marion was destroyed in 312 b.c. when, in the aftermath of Alexander the Great’s death, the city’s last king, Stasioikos II, allied himself with the Macedonian king of Greece instead of with the Ptolemaic king of Egypt, Ptolemy I Soter.

Greek, Attic, ca. 530 b.c.: Black-Figure Wine Cup (Kylix), exterior, depicting Dionysus among lions. Found by Max Ohnefalsch-Richter at Polis-Necropolis II, in Tomb 228, in 1886. Ceramic, diam. 19.2 cm. Polis Chrysochous, Local Museum of Marion and Arsinoe (MMA 208). Courtesy of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus.

Polis Chrysochous, Cyprus, in 1946, showing pillar and capital discovered at the “town site” of Polis-Petrerades, then in the possession of Mr. Argyriou. Courtesy of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus.

In approximately 270 b.c., Ptolemy II Philadelphus re-estab-lished the city and named it after his sister and wife, Arsinoe. The ruins of this city, which remained the seat of a bishop into the fifteenth cen-tury, were visible everywhere to the early excavators in Polis. Columns and capitals from the town’s Late Antique churches lined the streets, and limestone and marble blocks covering the ancient settlement were quarried for building stone. Yet the complexity and expense of excavating this “town site” were seen as obstacles both to its study and to the acquisition of museum-quality pieces. It was only with the systematic archaeological excava-tions of the Princeton team that the city of Arsinoe and the settlement of Marion below it were uncovered. Each object chosen for this exhibition speaks to a compelling

aspect of Cypriot art, including how artists represented the human form; how the human body was adorned; how images signified human and divine authority; and how spaces were designed for the living, the dead, and the gods. Contexts of discovery, including the sometimes-fragmentary conditions of the objects, preserve valuable information about the ways that these works would have been experienced—and both revered and feared—in the past. For example, a female terracotta statuette of the sixth century b.c. was buried in a pit after the fire destruction of the Cypro-Archaic period sanctuary. Within the sanctuary, such statuettes could serve as permanent worshippers, acting as conduits for communication with the gods. To destroy its power, the statuette was “killed” before it was placed in the ground, its head twisted and pulled out of the body.

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City of Gold: Tomb and Temple in Ancient Cyprus has been made possible by major support from the A. G. Leventis Foundation; from an anonymous donor; and by the Department of Art and Archaeology and the Stanley J. Seeger, Class of 1952, Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University. Additional support has been provided by the Leon Levy Foundation; Hicham and Dina Aboutaam; Jonathan and Jeannette Rosen; Frederick Schultz Jr., Class of 1976; Michael and Judy Steinhardt; the Allen R. Adler, Class of 1967, Exhibitions Fund; Ross and Carol Brownson; Mr. and Mrs. Edward Boshell Jr.; and Donna and Hans Sternberg, Class of 1957. The publication has been made possible by the Barr Ferree Foundation Publication Fund, Princeton University, and by Annette Merle-Smith. Further support has been provided by the Partners and Friends of the Princeton University Art Museum.

City of Gold: The Archaeology of Polis Chrysochous, Cyprus Edited by William A.P. Childs, Joanna S. Smith, and J. Michael Padgett 360 pages, 9 1⁄4 x 11 1⁄4 inches 250 color and 30 b/w illustrations Softcover with flapsRetail $55, Friends members $49.50

Today we can appreciate the statuette’s formal features, such as the differences in scale and detail between the head and the body. When considered in light of the statuette’s condition at the time of burial, we can begin to access ancient views about the power of art even though there are no ancient written documents describing them. City of Gold displays objects from Marion and Arsinoe in ways that encourage the museum visitor to appreciate and learn from the objects’ formal details and condi-tions of discovery. A tomb dromos is evoked in the first gallery, drawing attention to the Greek kouros and its Cypriot context. In the city of Marion display, a male statue head, possibly of a royal figure, looks out on objects that illustrate Marion’s connections with Greece, Assyria, Phoenicia, Egypt, and Persia. The placement of objects and photographs begins to recreate the sanctuaries of Marion, including a colossal, nearly three-meter-tall Egyptianizing male votive statue that once stood in the Cypro-Classical sanctuary. Upon entering the Arsinoe gallery, the viewer encounters a polychrome column capital from a monumental por-ticoed building of the Hellenistic period. It was possible to reconstruct

the capital in spite of the generations who quarried the site’s ancient building stones. The Late Antique to medieval churches uncovered by the Princeton team are echoed by the design of this gallery, which takes the form of a three-aisled Byzantine church. Photographs of the modern village of Polis, taken by Elisabeth Childs, are displayed in the first-floor corridor of the Department of Art and Archaeology adjacent to the Museum. To further enhance the display, 3-D virtual walkthroughs were created of the four principal build-ings featured in the exhibition: the Cypro-Archaic period sanctuary, the Cypro-Classical sanctuary, the Hellenistic porticoed building, and a Late Antique church. Created by students in a seminar cross-listed among Art and Archaeology, Computer Science, and Hellenic Studies, these building models form the basis for the exhibition’s short film, on view in the galleries and online. Through this combination of archaeology and exhibition, Cypriot art is presented to the museum visitor, revealing its interconnec-tions and sometimes surprisingly independent visions. Joanna S. Smith, Class of 1987 Associate Professional Specialist, Department of Art and Archaeology

RELATED PUBLICATION

Cypriot, 6th century b.c.: Female Statuette. Found by Princeton at Polis-Peristeries, in a votive pit in 1991. Terracotta with red and black paint, h. 16.3 cm (head), 22.9 cm (body). Polis Chrysochous, Local Museum of Marion and Arsinoe (Princeton Cyprus Expedition R11662/TC4681 [head], R11666/TC4683 [body]). Courtesy of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus.

exhibition

The Fertile CrescentGender, Art, and Society through January 13, 2013

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special eventsfilm

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012) Director: Alison KlaymanMonday, October 1, 4:30 p.m.Dodds Auditorium, Roberston Hall

In honor of Ai Weiwei’s Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads, recently installed near Robertson Hall, the Woodrow Wilson School will screen the documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, which examines the complex intersection of artistic practice and social activism as seen through the life and art of China’s preeminent dissident artist. A discussion with director Alison Klayman will follow.

panel discussion & public talk

A Princeton Day with Ai Weiwei Wednesday, October 10

Princeton University has invited Ai Weiwei to campus on Wednesday, October 10, 2012. If Mr. Ai is permitted to travel, Princeton hopes to host the following public events with him:

panel discussion “Art in a Democratic Society”2:30–4 p.m., McCormick 101

public talk“Human Rights and Public Policy: A Conversation with Ai Weiwei”4:30–6 p.m., Richardson AuditoriumModerated by Bart Gellman Hosted by Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs

Program HighlightsFor complete program and event listings, please visit the Museum’s online calendar at artmuseum.princeton.edu

Fall CelebrationSaturday, October 20 Keynote lecture: 5 p.m., 10 McCosh HallReception: 6–7:30 p.m., Art Museum

William A.P. Childs, professor emeritus in the Department of Art and Archaeology, will deliver the keynote lecture, “How Vivid Is the Joy in Strangeness,” for the opening of City of Gold: Tomb and Temple in Ancient Cyprus. A reception celebrating the fall exhibitions season will follow in the Art Museum.

concert & reception The Princeton SingersSaturday, November 3, 5:30 p.m. Sunday, November 4, 5:30 p.mArt Museum$15 adults/students

In conjunction with the exhibition Dancing into Dreams, the Princeton Singers present an exciting program devoted to dreams, invocations, and transformations, showing the rich relationship between music and ritual. A reception in the Museum will follow. For more information and to order tickets, visit princetonsingers.org

film

Blue (1993)Director: Derek JarmanSaturday, December 1, 6:30–8 p.m.McCormick 101

Using a plain blue screen, sounds, and voice-overs, director Derek Jarman tells the story of his own terminal struggle with AIDS. In honor of World AIDS Day, all proceeds collected in the Museum’s donations box during this day will be given to charity to promote HIV/AIDS-related research and awareness.

Ai Weiwei with Sunflower Seeds, 2010, at Tate Modern, London; Greek, Attic, ca. 520–510 b.c., signed by the potter Hermaios and attributed to the Hermaios Painter: Red-Figure Wine Cup (Kylix), detail of interior. Ceramic. London, British Museum (8.5 [E34]). © The British Museum/British Museum Images.

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