Cleaning Up Intersection of Ancient and ModernThere is a slide show here. The scene just described is at slide number 5.
By ETHAN BRONNER
Published: July 20, 2010
JERUSALEM — The director of the Israel Museum was leading a visitor to see a provocative contemporary sculpture of a naked African youth when, stepping over protective cloths and around an exhibit of late Canaanite sarcophagi, he nearly ran into four workmen carrying the million-year-old horns of a wild bull.
The horns are the oldest items in the museum’s collection, and something about the juxtaposition of contemporary social consciousness, ancient ceremony and prehistoric beast summed up the museum’s refocused mission as it completes a three-year, $100 million renewal. As described by the director, James S. Snyder, the museum offers a series of unexpected aesthetic links across cultures and their histories, like the way 2,000-year-old carved ritual cups that are on view in the museum near the Dead Sea Scrolls are somehow evocative of Brancusi.
[...]
And today, here in the capital of the Jewish state, there is a tendency to see the world purely through Jewish history and culture. That is precisely what Mr. Snyder, an American Jew who spent 22 years at the Museum of Modern Art, has sought to avoid. Rather, he has emphasized the commonalities of cultures and tried to place Jewish history and practices in a broader and clearer context.
One example is a new display that focuses on the Byzantine era. On one side is a restored synagogue; next to it are a church and the prayer niche of a mosque. Roughly contemporary structures, they are placed in a way that highlights both their distinctiveness and their commonality.
[...]
Background here.
