wed 04/12/2024

ancient Egypt

Nancy Spero & Marcus Coates, Serpentine Gallery

A maypole greets you on entry to the Serpentine Gallery; don’t expect a cheery celebration of spring, though. Nancy Spero’s installation Maypole: Take No Prisoners II (2008) is a scream of rage against violence and its hapless victims. Dangling from...

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Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World, British Museum

I’m in an exhibition of ancient artefacts from Afghanistan, all from the National Museum at Kabul, but I may well have stumbled into the wrong room at the British Museum. I could be in the BM’s Hellenic section of Greek art, or, taking a few steps...

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Cleopatra, Northern Ballet, Leeds Grand Theatre

Northern Ballet’s genes are rooted in the Royal Ballet’s narrative golden age of the Sixties, its most significant leader Christopher Gable having been the originally intended Romeo of Kenneth MacMillan’s iconic 1965 Romeo and Juliet. While the...

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theartsdesk in Cairo: Old Bones, New Coffins

The Egyptian Government is investing in the arts, which would normally be a cause for celebration. However, in building the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation, it feels like the country’s cultural budget is being spent on another new display...

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Journey Through the Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, British Museum

The sweet hereafter: Mummy of Katebet c 1300-1275 BC

Those ancient Egyptians, they loved life! So much so that they even conceived of an afterlife that differed hardly at all from the one on Earth, only better: they didn’t get sick and they carried on just as before, to eternity – which might sound...

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