295 Blog Post Two

It’s Gettin’ Broody

British Museum as a work definitely affected my visit to the museum itself today. I was so put off by the amount of artifacts in front of me, most taken without permission and many uncredited and misrepresented. And so, with a lovely, open frame of mind, I went my way through the British Museum’s geographic embezzlement act.

The pieces I chose to ruminate on were large scale figures of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse: Disease, War, Famine, and Death. They were made in 1983 in Mexico City by the Linares family. They made this piece as a part of the Day of the Dead celebration, honoring the dead on All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days.

 

Something I found interesting was how the placard seemed to lump All Saints’ Day, All Souls’ Day, and Day of the Dead together. Though the traditions are certainly intertwined today, the research I’ve made tells that All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days are Catholic traditions. The original Día de los Muertos celebrations date back to indigenous Mesoamerica. Catholic rituals became blended with the traditional practices of native peoples around 1520 when the church came to Mexico.

I find this to be an important distinction to make. The Spanish conquests altered the native traditions found in Mesoamerica, inserting their own religious practices. Though today the two celebrations are more or less intertwined, the difference between the two is something I’d expect the museum to at least touch on, rather than stating the Day of the Dead and All Saints’/All Souls’ traditions are one in the same.

     

(Excuse the poor photography, I am a very short person)

The pieces themselves shocked me once I learned their true meaning. Hanging above the museum-goers, three saddled figures float around the globe, atop which sits a crowned skeleton. At first glance, the piece looks almost playful, like a nursery mobile set to put us patrons peacefully to sleep. This is probably the reason the installation had gained so much attention, as I saw more than a few tourists posing to take a picture underneath. A close-up view of the figures offers a more unsettling image. The skeleton seated on the world holds a missile and a scythe, one skeleton circles the world on a locust, one on a blaring red horse, the last on some sort of foul. The skeletons’ lively colors contrast their true meaning, made to represent Disease, War, Famine, and Death.

A large part of the museum’s injustice falls in what they chose to display in person here. In a photo on the sculpture’s placard (which, I might add, is not fairly close to the piece? I had to seek it out intentionally), you can find what the full installation once looked like.

It features the four horsemen, as well as countless other skeletons, floating, standing, and even lying on the floor, seemingly dead twice over. These extra details give a much fuller understanding of the art’s meaning and purpose. I can’t help but laugh at the museum’s watered down version, one that portrays playfulness more than an homage to death.

This assignment proved interesting to me introspectively. I began the trip more or less seeking out something to write about, a scavenger hunt for the most offensive offense in the room. I took pictures of pieces and placards I thought might satisfy the description, watching people’s faces as they examined the works beside me. However, I couldn’t separate myself from them. I would silently scorn at a person taking a picture of (or with) a statue of someone morally cruel, waiting my turn to take a photo for this assignment. My intentions may have been different, but did that make any difference? We were all here, creating traffic in the British Museum that we may or may not agree with. Even if it was my objective to find an installation being misused or misrepresented, I still stood with the crowd and snapped a photo in turn.

All of this to say, I was conflicted. I appreciated and agreed with Nagra’s examination of the British Museum, but what am I really doing to act against it? I do feel that Día de los Muertos should be given its rightful place in history and that the full extent of The Atomic Apocalypse should be displayed if its true connotation should be understood. But no matter. I’ll take my picture and walk through the rest of the exhibits anyway.