Community: bloggers@brooklynmuseum

We’ve been so jealous of @museummodernart for so long because they’ve had multiple visits from Monkey and we’ve had none. We watched as Monkey got famous and took in Shakespeare in the Park, the High Line, the AIC—all the time hoping Monkey would one day cross the river to visit us. Then yesterday….there was a tweet and we knew Brooklyn’s time had come!

Having trouble seeing the slideshow? Check out the photoset.  And there’s even a behind the scenes shot here via CJN212.

It’s clear that Monkey had a good time in Caillebotte, so we’ll mention one last reminder that show closes today and if Monkey managed to catch the exhibition before it closed, you should too. Need more convincing? Be sure to read Judith Dolkart’s 5 Reasons to see Caillebotte before 5 July. All we can say is ‘yay’ and this is the kind of thing we always want to hear!

All images courtesy josespiano via Flickr. All Rights Reserved.

A team from the Indianapolis Museum of Art including curator Theodore Celenko, designer Tim Hilldebrand, director of new media Daniel Incandela, and new media project administrator Despi Mayes, Gregory Smith, Technical Designer, and Naeema Jackson, formerly in the Education Department visited me in Brooklyn last week to prepare for the opening of the exhibition, To Live Forever on July 13, 2008 at their museum. At lunch we talked about progress on preparing the labels, the layout of the exhibition, and details of mounts and casework. Then we went to the Egyptian galleries where Daniel and Despi (pictured above) filmed me talking about the exhibition for the web site they are preparing.

Daniel and Despi were also able to film Brooklyn conservators Lisa Bruno and Carolyn Tomkiewicz as they worked on preparing the mummy of Demetris and the painted shroud of Neferhotep for the exhibition. These two objects show two options for portraits that Egyptians had during the period when the Romans ruled the country. A panel painting on wood could be wrapped in the mummy wrappings as in the case of Demetrius’ mummy. Or the portrait could be painted directly on to the linen shroud that covers the mummy as Neferhotep did, eliminating the expense of the wood panel. The exhibition looks at the choices Egyptians had in planning their funerals. The visit was a great success.

Michael Jackson was here for an Ebony photo shoot. This was pretty exciting for us and it looks like there were good shots of our Kevorkian Gallery, Rubin Pavilion and Beaux-Arts Court. The shoot was for the December issue, so it should be on newsstands fairly soon.

On July 5, Marc Walton, a scientist with the Getty Conservation Institute came to examine one of our mummies, knows as Demetrios. He brought a portable X-ray fluorescence (XRF) machine with him. With this non-destructive technique, he can take readings of different inorganic materials on the surface of our mummy, which will tell us the chemical make-up. Marc wanted to compare both the red lead and gilding found on our mummy, Demetrios, to the red lead found on the Getty mummy, Herakleides. It turns out that the red lead and gold are very similar – they have similar trace elements. The Getty is continuing their research to find out what that all means, but it is possible that these all came from the same workshop. There is also evidence to suggest that the lead used to make the red lead pigment may have come from a silver mine in Spain. When silver is smelted from the ore, lead is a common by-product. The lead would have been used to make the red lead paint. The Getty is also researching this further to determine whether the red lead pigment was made in Spain then traded to Egypt, or if the raw lead was traded to Egypt and the pigment made there. It is also unclear why the color red was chosen. Perhaps it was because the color red was thought to ward off danger. Sometimes, the more we find out, the more questions we have - there is still a lot to learn about our mummies! Check back next week to find out what other techniques we are using to learn more about Demetrios.

In the popular imagination, the tipi has come to represent a common stereotype about how all Native American people used to live. In truth, however, it is a specific cultural expression of the Native peoples of the Great Plains region of North America: the primary means by which they organized their lives, families and communities. Today, Plains people live in modern homes, but the tipi remains an essential architectural form used by many for celebratory and ceremonial occasions. While the tipi has been featured in other exhibitions, the Brooklyn Museum exhibition, scheduled to open to the public in Fall 2009, will be unique because it takes the tipi as the point of departure to explore the numerous, complex sub-themes that place it at the center of Plains social, religious, and creative traditions.

On June 15, the first of two planning meetings was held at the Brooklyn Museum in order to determine the themes of the exhibition. A diverse group of ten consultants including scholars, tribal representatives and artists attended the meeting, along with the three exhibition curators (Nancy Rosoff, Susan Kennedy Zeller and Tim Ramsey), as well as other staff members.

Left to right sitting: Tim Ramsey (Southern Cheyenne-Choctaw), Teri Greeves (Kiowa), Christina Burke (Philbrook Museum), Derek Big Day (Crow), Heywood Big Day (Crow)

Left to right standing: Miranda Applebaum, Rima Ibrahim, Susan Kennedy Zeller, Don Moccasin (Rosebud Lakota Sioux), Barbara Hail (Haffenreffer Museum), Nancy Rosoff, Gerard Baker (Mandan-Hidatsa), Bently Spang (Northern Cheyenne), Dan Swan (Sam Noble Museum), and Mary Lou Big Day (Crow).

Consultants examine Plains objects from the Brooklyn Museum’s collection.

Tim Ramsey, Heywood Big Day and Gerard Baker examine the drawings on a tipi liner that was owned by the great Hunkpapa Sioux leader Rain-In-The-Face (ca. 1835-1905). Rain-In-The-Face was one of the Sioux leaders who fought and defeated General Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876. A tipi liner is hung around the inner tipi wall as insulation and decoration. The drawings on this liner depict battle scenes and religious ceremonies. This liner has never been studied or published and a special consultation meeting with other experts will be held at the Museum on September 7.

All photos by Rebecca Greenberg