Uppity British curators

British Curators are getting a bit above themselves.

Curators as collage makers. Curators as story tellers.

Jackanory, Jackanory

Darwin

...was a triumphalist and fetishistic exhibition.

It started with two little wrens in a glass box, pointing out how their beaks were different and then ended with a propaganda booth where dumbed down evolutionary theory was regurgitated from the craw of the scientific establishment and fed to visitors in an overwening patchwork of colourful metaphors.

Shah Abbas

It purported to show how the Shah cleverly united his country and used used Shia Islam to do so, in the process helping boost the arts and sciences. But it ended with the regulatory orientalist sting in the tail about the Shah and young boys.

Maharajah

Now there the curators told a tale of cultural emasculation. There was some explanation of how the British came to dominate India and the only natural response to the big painting towards the end of the exhibition was to snort with laughter at the airs and graces the Victorians gave themselves.

The hilarious coronation of George V with the whole royal entourage parading around ridiculously in front of an assembly of Indian nobility.

But the story line was trite. Decadence and decay. The last picture: dual identity. Now you see a Maharajah in Indian dress on his royal cushion, now you see a Maharajah in a suit.

Now you see it, now you don't.

Fins.

Moctezuma

It was like all the lurid bits cut out of a Mexican primary school textbook. It showed a few beautiful pieces, all purloined, all in private collections or European and US national museums. That was worth seeing. But every European narrative of the Aztecs focuses on the blood. The pubic gets what the public wants