Art
BBC Oxford and museums across the county have revealed the list of 10 objects they have chosen to tell a history of Oxfordshire and its place in the world. The list of 10 objects can be seen on the BBC Local site for Oxford, www.bbc.co.uk/oxford and all the objects are on display at the relevant museums. The list of 10 objects for Oxfordshire is part of the wider A History of the World project formed out of a unique partnership between the BBC, the British Museum and 350 museums and institutions across the country. Dr John Hobart of Oxford University Museums said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for the museums and the people of Oxfordshire to focus on local objects and show how our county has contributed in many and diverse ways to the wider world. These ten objects are only a starting point for discussion, and we look forward to seeing what else is put forward from private and other collections to add to the story of Oxfordshire and its relationship with the world." These ten objects are a starting point for discussion and a catalyst for listeners and viewers to suggest objects that they believe have a story which should be told. The public can actively participate by uploading photographs of their own objects that have a local or global appeal. BBC Project manager for the Nations and English Regions, Seamus Boyd, said: “A truly fascinating range of objects has been chosen for each list across English regions. Some of them may have great monetary value, others little or none, but they're priceless in how they bring to life moments from history. This initial collection is just the blueprint to which we hope viewers and listeners will add their own objects and help to create a truly unique and vibrant tapestry of the past.” Museums around the county will be holding events in February half-term to celebrate A History of the World. More information on Oxford’s planned event will be released soon.
Art
Compton Verney Exhibitions are world class
Francis Bacon: In CameraExhibition dates: 27 March – 20 June 2010
This important new exhibition will focus on Francis Bacon’s work relating to film and photography. It will include significant oil paintings, archival material from Bacon’s original studio (now in Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane), and film footage and stills, all of which shed new light on the visual references to film and photography in his work and his transformation of these images in oils.
In 1949, Bacon’s fusion of a Velázquez portrait with stills from the Odessa Steps sequence in Eisenstein’s iconic film Battleship Potemkin was crucial to his developing agenda to make figurative art ‘modern’. The influence of films by directors such as Buňuel and Resnais will also be explored, together with photographs by Muybridge and John Deakin, which informed Bacon’s reconfigurations of the human body. For the very first time, items from the vast array of images that Bacon absorbed will be shown in close proximity to the paintings they inspired.
Volcano
Exhibition dates: 24 July – 31 October 2010
This is the first exhibition to celebrate the extraordinary outpouring of artistic genius that volcanic eruptions have triggered over the past five centuries. From sixteenth century engravings, showing imagined cross-sections of the fiery centre of the earth, to an explosive series of paintings by Joseph Wright, J M W Turner and Andy Warhol, the exhibition will include important loans from public and private collections in volcanic regions such as Naples, Reykjavik and Honolulu, as well as works from museums in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Birmingham, Paris, Philadelphia, Rome and New York.
The exhibition will be truly eye-opening and spectacular, taking as its route the sequence of volcanic eruptions – from the calm volcano in the landscape to the first ominous rumblings; to cataclysmic explosion; through panic and death; to aftermath, and then quietly back to dormancy and extinction. The show will compare and contrast the approaches of artists long dead with contemporary artists whose own approaches to eruptions may be analytical and elliptic rather than dramatic.
For more information visit www.comptonverney.org.uk or call 01926 645500.
Pictured is a painting by Pierre-Jaques Volaire (1729 - about 1792). Vesuvius Erupting at Night.
