Exhibition of the week Artist: Unknown
Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (01223-748100, kettlesyard.co.uk). Until 22 September
Personality counts for a lot in art, said Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times. Although we may not “linger on the signature” when looking at a painting, it tends to be the individual fame of great artists that draws us into museums and galleries. And without proof of authorship, even fine works of art tend to get overlooked, if not ignored. But does “a label alone” really have the power to “transform a work’s value and meaning”? This is the question posed by a new exhibition in Cambridge, Artist: Unknown, Art and Artefacts from the University of Cambridge Museums and Collections,
which brings together around 30 works of art and artefacts that share two key attributes: first, that we do not know who created them; and second, that they “nonetheless bear witness to unique creativity and superlative skill”. Taking in everything from a fourth century BC bust of Apollo and a wonderful Dutch Golden Age still life to goods packaging from the Soviet era, the show presents a global selection of treasures created by individuals whose names have long been forgotten. Rather than making “great claims”, it quietly challenges the importance we place on an artist’s name and reputation.
It’s a splendidly eclectic display of wonders, said Katherine Waters in Apollo magazine. One moment it confronts us with an “extravagant” and fiercely complicated Nigerian thumb piano; the next, we’re looking at a 19th century Indian miniature that depicts Radha and Krishna exchanging clothes before sleeping together – a work of truly “heart-stopping force”. Elsewhere, we see objects that testify to “human ingenuity”. One such, the cuff of a pair of Zoroastrian women’s trousers from Iran, incorporates “minutely detailed” pictures of plants and animals. It turns out that the garment’s astonishingly intricate patterning is a creative response to laws that forbade Zoroastrians from purchasing lengths of cloth.
I’m not convinced by everything here, said Martin Gayford in The Spectator. The show features some forgeries – a number of astrolabes “purportedly made in the 16th century” but actually manufactured in the 1920s; personally, I’d much rather be looking at “the real thing”. Nevertheless, there’s much to enjoy. Highlights include a “magnificent piece of Fijian barkcloth” composed of elaborate patterns with all the “visual energy and authority that you might expect from a great abstract painting”; a 19th century portrait once thought to be a Degas; and a “skilfully stuffed puttynosed monkey” that is “a virtuoso demonstration of the taxidermist’s skills”. Ultimately, this is an engaging show that “raises numerous intriguing questions”.