Giacobbe Giusti, The Lampedusa Cross by Francesco Tuccio

Lampedusa Cross

The Lampedusa Cross was made specially for the museum by an Italian carpenter

La croce di Lampedusa usata dal Papa finisce tra le opere del British Museum

British Museum boss MacGregor leaves Lampedusa cross

British Museum boss Neil MacGregor’s final acquisition before stepping down is a cross made from the wreck of a refugee boat sunk in the Mediterranean.

The 2013 Lampedusa Cross was made and gifted by carpenter Francesco Tuccio, who lives on the Italian island.

The boat was carrying more than 500 refugees from Eritrea and Somalia, of which 151 people survived

MacGregor, who steps down on Friday, said: “This simple yet moving object is a poignant gift to the collection.”

He continued: “Mr Tuccio’s generosity will allow all visitors to the museum to reflect on this significant moment in the history of Europe, a great migration which may change the way we understand our continent.

“In my time at the museum we have acquired many wonderful objects, from the grand to the humble, but all have sought to shine a light on the needs and hopes that all human beings share.”

The overcrowded boat caught fire, capsized and sank. Some of the survivors were Eritrean Christians fleeing from persecution in their home country.

Mr Tuccio met some of them in his local church. Though unable to help them in a concrete way, he collected wood from their boat and made each of them a cross as a symbol of hope.

The carpenter also made a cross for Pope Francis to carry at a memorial service.

Image caption Neil MacGregor has been credited with transforming the one-time ‘stuffy’ image of the British Museum

Mr Tuccio then created another cross for the museum, after it contacted him to find out if he would donate one he had already made.

When the museum thanked the carpenter, he wrote back saying: “It is I who should thank you for drawing attention to the burden symbolised by this small piece of wood.”

The museum said: “It is essential that the museum continues to collect objects that reflect contemporary culture in order to ensure the collection remains dynamic and reflects the world as it is.

“The Lampedusa disaster was one of the first examples of the terrible tragedies that have befallen refugees/migrants as they seek to cross from Africa into Europe.

“The cross allows the museum to represent these events in a physical object so that in 10, 50,100 years’ time this latest migration can be reflected in a collection which tells the stories of multiple migrations across millennia.”

MacGregor, who joined the museum in 2002, has said he is stepping down as director because he wants to stop working full-time.

During his time in charge, he has been credited with reforming its one-time “stuffy” image to make it one of the world’s most visited attractions.

Major success stories under his watch have included its First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army exhibition in 2007 and Turner Prize-winner Grayson Perry’s Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman in 2011.

And overall, visitor numbers to the museum in central London have also risen from 4.6 million a year to 6.7 million since 2002.

Although he will no longer be working full-time, MacGregor has said he will continue to be involved with special projects undertaken by the museum.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35120004

http://palermo.repubblica.it/cronaca/2015/12/19/news/la_croce_di_lampedusa_usata_dal_papa_finisce_tra_le_opere_del_british_museum-129814683/#gallery-slider=129815215

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, Classical Sculpture

ENGLISH

Classical Sculpture: The body beautiful

Classical sculpture is the focus of a series of exhibitions this spring, one of them at the new Rem Koolhaas-designed Fondazione Prada in Milan. Claire Wrathall reports

‘This is the body people want to have,’ said Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, of the Belvedere Torso, the powerfully muscled trunk and thighs carved from marble during the first century B.C. and signed by the Athenian sculptor Apollonios. He was speaking at the launch of Defining Beauty: The Body in Ancient Greek Art (26 March– 5 July), one of several major surveys of classical sculpture opening this spring. This, the work on which Michelangelo based his depiction of Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling and which usually resides in the Vatican, will be a highlight.

Ilissos. Marble statue from the West pediment of the Parthenon. Designed by Phidias, Athens, Greece, 438BC-432BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

In these body-conscious times, perhaps it’s not so surprising that a fashion brand would want to launch the new HQ of its arts foundation with a celebration of classical statuary. Hence Miuccia Prada’s decision to open the new Fondazione Prada — Rem Koolhaas’s radical reinvention of a derelict, century-old distillery in Milan’s Largo Isarco — with Serial Classic (9 May–24 August). The show, curated by the distinguished archaeologist Salvatore Settis, explores ideas of imitation, multiples and editioning in Greek and Roman sculpture.

So committed to the idea of celebrating antiquity is Prada that it is staging a second, concurrent show, Portable Classic (9 May–13 September), at Ca’ Corner della Regina in Venice, which will explore miniaturisation and portability through 90 artworks. It, too, will feature versions of the Belvedere Torso: a 16th- century bronze just 20cm tall from the Bargello Museum, and a 19th-century plaster cast from the Museum of Classical Art at the Sapienza University of Rome, which is approximately the size of the original, a monumental 1.59m high.

A figure of a naked man, possibly Dionysos. Marble statue from the East pediment of the Parthenon. Designed by Phidias, Athens, Greece, 438BC-432BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Left:The bronze statuette of Ajax. Greece, 720BC-700BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum Right:Bronze vessel in the form of the head of a young African woman. Hellenistic, 2nd century BC-1st century BC. Funded by The Art Fund. © The Trustees of the British Museum

As the Vatican’s catalogue points out, the work — currently thought to depict Ajax as he contemplates suicide — was probably inspired by a bronze from the first half of the second century B.C. According to Jens Daehner and Kenneth Lapatin of the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the curators of Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence (Until 21 June), this medium ‘allowed artists to impart an unprecedented level of dynamism to their full-figure statues and of naturalism to their portraits, where psychological expression became a hallmark of the style’.

Left: Marble statue of a discus-thrower (discobolus) by Myron. Roman copy of a bronze Greek original of the 5th century BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum Right: Marble statue of a naked Aphrodite crouching at her bath, also known as Lely’s Venus. Roman copy of a Greek original, 2nd century AD. Lent by Her Majesty the Queen

Left: Pottery: black-figured amphora: the death of Priam. Greek, 550BC-540BC (circa). Vulci, Lazio, Italy. © The Trustees of the British Museum Right:Marble statuette of Socrates. A Hellenistic original of the 2nd century BC, or a Roman copy, Alexandria, Egypt. © The Trustees of the British Museum

One can only wonder at how expressive the original bronze sculpture might have been, although even in marble and without its head, the Vatican Torso communicates extraordinary tension and strength, even anguish. As Michelangelo wrote of it: ‘This is the work of a man who knew more than nature.’

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Classical Sculpture: The body beautiful

Classical sculpture is the focus of a series of exhibitions this spring, one of them at the new Rem Koolhaas-designed Fondazione Prada in Milan. Claire Wrathall reports

Ilissos. Marble statue from the West pediment of the Parthenon. Designed by Phidias, Athens, Greece, 438BC-432BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

A figure of a naked man, possibly Dionysos. Marble statue from the East pediment of the Parthenon. Designed by Phidias, Athens, Greece, 438BC-432BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum.