Interpretation and Curation in The Greek Miracle 1992/93

Exhibitions are ephemeral. They may in part reflect the collecting practice, aesthetics of display and transition of knowledge of in a particular museum institution but the temporary nature of an exhibition means that the exact way in which these different processes are displayed can never be recaptured. The Greek Miracle was displayed at two public art museums – the National Gallery of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art – which both have an object-orientated approach to displays; that is a focus on an aesthetic or classification approach in their presentation of objects. In this case the focus was very much an aesthetic one, though The Greek Miracle also attempted to present a sculptural time line of Greek art from 500 to 400 BCE in a manner that could be described as classificatory and presenting art historical ‘masterpieces’.

Interpretation in museums produces meaning. There are various tools of interpretation, beyond the method of display used. The orientation, style and design, exhibition guide, text panels (of all varieties), audio-visual elements, catalogue and a programme of activities relating to an exhibition are all part of its interpretation. The Greek Miracle had an audiovisual presentation on fifth-century Greece shown in an adjacent space, which was narrated by Christopher Plummer (a prestigious actor) as well as tours, lectures and a symposium. A children’s guide to the exhibition was also produced alongside the catalogue. There are limitations to finding out about the various public programmes, the style, text panels and audiovisual presentation so long after an exhibition, though information about them is probably held in the archives of the National Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum.

Location

Architecturally the National Gallery of Art was suited to hosting the exhibition as it is a grand neo-classical building, designed by John Russell Pope and built in the late 1930s. Although the exhibition was actually displayed in the upper level of the mezzanine in the East Building extension (presumably in the ‘special exhibition gallery space’) and this space was constructed in the late 1970s. The huge building project was overseen by the former director of the National Gallery, J. Carter Brown and the building was designed by I. M. Pei. After opening on 1 June 1978, this flamboyant museum extension has influenced architectural style for new museums and extensions since. The National Gallery is also located at the heart of Washington DC on the Mall, the grand road on which numerous museums are situated that leads to the Washington Monument.

The archaic kouros was the first object seen on entering The Greek Miracle. Situated in its own vestibule, Gary Wills commented that the influence of Andrew Stewart’s book of plates (Greek Sculpture Vol. 2 1990)* showing the outline of the archaic kouroi loosening into the early classicism of the Kritios Boy can be seen in the exhibition:

All these are commonplaces of art history, but they become alive with a special force when one sees the clearly lit Kritios Boy ‘unveiled’ behind the more dimly illuminated kouros – by moving to the left or the right of the kouros, one can look through either of two windows into the next room, where the Kritios Boy is placed in the center of our vision. It is a clever way of accomplishing what Stewart did by means of his composite drawing.

The lighting of the objects is dramatic and evidently drew on natural light as well as spots. In the National Gallery of Art natural light from above illuminated the sculptures in the Upper Level of the Mezzanine in the East Building.

The sculptures were displayed at eye-level. The decision to display the sculptures – particularly those from temple friezes – at eye-level bothered Wills who had had the fortune to lie under the frieze block from Olympia when the exhibition was in build and saw the difference in viewing the sculptural relief from eye-level as the Heracles ‘looked down on me as I looked up’. Querying why these sculptures are displayed at eye level with curator Diana Buitron-Oliver, Wills finds out that Oliver considered raising the sculptures but the National Gallery did not want them displayed in this way. Placing the objects at eye-level is typical of the traditional method of display in art museums, which positions all objects within a gallery as art objects, irrespective of their original function. This position also reflects the traditional vantage point of looking at these sculptures as art objects created by individual artists. In order to give the objects in the exhibition some geographical context, large photographs of the Acropolis and other sites in Athens were used as well as an 1865 photograph of excavations on the Acropolis, in which the unearthing of the torso of the Kritios Boy is recorded.

The Greek Miracle moved from the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in March 1993. The main change in the exhibition at the Met was the addition of sculptures from the museum’s own collection. From within the museum’s own Greek and Roman department, six more original marble sculptures and four small bronze figures were added as well as three small works from private collections bringing the number of objects on display to 45. Unlike the National Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum has a large Greek and Roman department and two of the museum’s collection had already been included in The Greek Miracle. The Met’s collection enabled them to position their own earlier kouros (600-580 BCE) at the entrance to the exhibition in the circular upper gallery of the Lehman wing in the museum.

Curation

The guest curator of The Greek Miracle was Diana Buitron-Oliver (1946-2002), a classical archaeologist and lecturer at Georgetown University in Washington DC. Buitron-Oliver had previously curated The Human Figure in Early Greek Art at the National Gallery of Art in 1988 (January 31 – June 12 1988). Buitron-Oliver had experience at organising and interpreting a large exhibition filled by international loans and at working in partnership with museum professionals and archaeologists in Greece. Buitron-Oliver also co-curated with John Mck. Camp II the exhibition The Birth of Democracy: An Exhibition Celebrating the 2,500th Anniversary of Democracy, which was held at the National Archives in Washington DC from June – December 1993. The exhibition was officially organised by the National Gallery of Art in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Greece. Buitron-Oliver was assisted by a range of people. The Greek co-ordinator was Katerina Romiopoulou, Director of Antiquities for the Ministry of Culture of Greece.

The high profile nature of the exhibition also meant the Directors of the National Gallery of Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, Earl. A. Powell III and Philippe de Montebello respectively were heavily involved, as were directors of leading Greek museums, such as the Director of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens Dr Olga Tzachou-Alexandri and the Director of the Acropolis Museum Dr Peter G. Calligas. In fact, the exhibition had been backed by the former Director of the National Gallery of Art J. Carter Brown, who left shortly before it opened. Carter Brown was well known, if not notorious for his emphasis on blockbuster exhibitions in the 22 years he was at the National Gallery.

History Heroes and Texts in The Greek Miracle

There were no portrait busts in The Greek Miracle. The emphasis was not on the personalities of the period but on the art created, whether temple architecture, free standing figures or funerary memorials. Some attention is paid to the practice of known sculptors working in the period, such as Euenor whose signature is on the ‘Statue of Athena’ (catalogue number 7) in the exhibition or Pheidias who directed the sculptural work on the Parthenon. The work of these sculptors and others are used to provide some evidence for the development of Greek art in the fifth century BCE. However, given little is known about these artists and many of the objects have no recorded creator, the story of Greek art is told through the objects themselves and information about their rendition.

The fact that there were no portrait busts of Pericles, or other architects of Athenian democracy, in the exhibition meant that key individuals were discussed within the context of the exhibition (on the text panels or in the catalogue) but were not used to drive the narrative of the exhibition forward. The main emphasis was on Kleisthenes and his constitutional reforms in Athens in 507/8 BCE, which is to be expected given that is the date taken to be the founding of democracy in Athens and the reason for the 2,500th anniversary.