In honor of their 200th anniversary, the Brooklyn Museum is presenting a series of exhibitions which highlight a host of works in their collection. It’s no surprise that the museum’s repository holds precious objects aligned with the title of the exhibition, Solid Gold. Over 500 golden objects glisten in their special exhibition galleries to promote visitors engagement with one medium: gold. Fashion, jewelry, paintings, 3D installments, and film clips illustrate the interconnectedness and vivacity of this medium throughout ancient history to the present day. The exhibit studies the materiality of this metal, while also examining its varying attributions across different cultures and communities, such as “beauty, joy, success, wealth and spiritual enlightenment.” 

As you walk into the circular, opening gallery, Elizabeth Taylor’s 1963 classic Cleopatra plays on a large screen. During my visit, the scene marking Cleopatra’s triumphant arrival in Rome was shown. Ancient Egyptian jewelry and fashion were on view in the display cases and mannequins saturated throughout the gallery. This entrance set the tone for the entire experience of the exhibition – sensory overload. The film, Cleopatra, spared no expense when it came to its costumes, set designs and displays (it cost $44 million dollars – the equivalent of over $426 million dollars today). Thus, illustrating the sheer decadence and decorative nature of gold. As you pass by the entrance text and into the main gallery, the visitor doesn’t know where to begin. Ultimately, I’m under the impression that was inherent in the exhibition designers’ goal, to highlight the glamor and multifaceted meanings behind gold, and to then carefully guide visitors through smaller, bite sized thematic displays. 

The smaller, intimate galleries yielded a more engaging experience. In one section, the museum discussed the significance of gold in religious art in a room containing Christian icons. Additionally, they also incorporated several book of hours with gold leaf pages into this section. The grounding of a specific genre from the art historical canon provided a familiarity to explore one of the overarching themes of the exhibition.  

This is a massive, blockbuster exhibition. Many visitors will enjoy the varying works and themes discussed throughout. However, the sheer size and lack of centralization on a core theme leave much to be learned and lost through the fixation surrounding gold. I believe that individuals who visit the Met Costume Institute’s annual fashion exhibitions will enjoy Solid Gold. For me – I was happy I went, but felt I could count on one hand the number of galleries I enjoyed – especially as my pace seemed to quicken through the last 2-3 rooms. 

Visit the link here to snag your golden ticket before the exhibition closes on July 6th!

Categories: Uncategorized