Tate Modern:Boetti and Kusama Exhibitions

In January I had been encouraged to go to the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at Tate Modern by Linda Bolton, who wrote a guest post for the blog and has a good understanding of how much a visually impaired person can enjoy some modern art.  Without being specific, Linda said I would enjoy it. (We have since exchanged views on the exhibition.)

I contacted Marcus Dickey Horley at Tate Modern saying that I would try to visit and that having found out how to get there on my own, my hip problem meant that I would have to go nevertheless with a friend.  Marcus came back suggesting that I ought to also take in the Alighiero Boetti exhibition which had just opened and that if I needed any assistance to let them know.   Luckily Stephen (who had taken me to the Gerhard Richter Exhibition) offered to take me. He had seen the Kusama show and had not been too impressed. Another friend said the reviews did not make him want to take me though nevertheless offered to take me to the Zoffany Exhibition at the Royal Academy instead. 

The Boetti and Kusama exhibitions are on Level 4.  This can be reached by escalator or by lift (elevator)  We spent about 4 hours at Tate Modern:  viewed the Boetti exhibition, had lunch, viewed the Kusama, had coffee (cappuccino is an art form on level 6) and went to the shops and viewed the level 2 area which is outside and reached from the embankment.  I am hoping to go again to the exhibitions but these are my first thoughts and memories to which I have added some notes taken from a recording which we made of our conversations.

Visiting exhibitions or shows has, I am told, had an influence on my painting.  Some friends claim to detect Richter/Hockney influences in some of my work.  I am showing a painting I did over 2 weeks.  Val was showing me the application of some pigment with a palette knife.  I thought one of my paintings could do with an off centre ocean so I worked some “blue” giving a tactile effect to it in the process!

Azure - Bay

 © Prof Whitestick

Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan

Boetti was born in Turin, which is famous for cars, high technology and a movie (The Italian Job) with Michael Caine. Boetti employs many materials and designs objects and collages and what could be described as framed art work.  Some items are very large and I could make them out from a distance. His ideas are worth a “second look” and I was glad that Stephen noticed a few repeating themes which I could later identify.  Indeed, Boetti decided to form his own group after rejecting Arte Povera and there is a chart which has all the members of his group with identifying marks which were shared but had a unique combination.  This was laid out in a grid with simple geometry which I could detect. Boetti’s meticulous drawings are on display and the clear angles were discernible as were the final sculpture. 

In a scene reminiscent of the Gerhard Richter “Tote”, there is a body laid out.  It is, however, Boetti sunbathing in Turin and framed by panes of glass in the back. This body is made from ceramics.

1000 Rivers

Boetti illustrates the futility of measuring everything and seeking to classify the length of rivers and order them.  Issues such as where is the source, is the left bank different from the right bank and what happens in a delta are raised with running the names of the rivers together.   Boetti collaborated in this with his wife Annemarie Sauzeau.

Maps of the World

In one of the rooms there is a series of world maps which were made in Afghanistan.  Boetti had travelled extensively during the pre Soviet invasion in 1979 and gave work to men who embroidered large tapestry maps and weaved rugs.  Boetti designed and others carried out the work.  In one of the world maps the oceans were coloured in pink and not blue.  The story was that the Afghans had no idea of the concept of oceans, being landlocked and they had a lot of pink to use.

From school I can remember that for a map there has to be a minimum of 4 colours. This allows borders to be clearly marked.  The maps had flags of the nation states and Boetti had noted changes of state names and politics. In a map of the UK there was a Union Flag (Union Jack) over England + Wales, Scotland was a blue grey while Northern Ireland was orange with the Republic coloured with the tricolour. This was in 1969!

28^th March

The above was written down a few days after my visit and these notes are from a recording which I made with Stephen. This won’t win any prizes as we were not sure when the recorder was running and my mobile phone, also in my shirt pocket, picked up some interference.  

The title of the “Show” is Gameplan and this refers to the play Boetti makes on many techniques. After the 2^nd room there is no chronology and the show can be enjoyed by wandering around. We nevertheless followed the route for the most part and stopped at items which we both wanted to explore in more detail.

Boetti established a “classifactory” process where he would initiate, design and then leave others to complete.  In his first solo exhibition in Turin in 1967 he made objects out of industrial materials including corrugated cardboard, aluminium, varnished wood, fibre glass, steel rods, wire wool, spaghetti  an lighting devices. There are assembled piles of varnished wood range from yellow to cobalt dark shades.  Stephen noticed about 40 clusters.  I could make out the overall shape but missed out on the shades of the wood. On leaving the room I noticed a pair of flashing lights on either side of the door, they said Ping and Pong and flashed one after the other. The symbols chosen for the group resembled “Bassetts Dolly Mixture and liquorice Allsorts!”

X38479

X38945 Stretched cloth 2x3 metres with a 2m hand rail in front.

X39052 Lithograph Showman

A chessboard with squares of about 2 inches made of rusty steel with squares of tracing paper giving the chessboard effect. I noticed this on my peripheral vision when navigating to an item hanging on the wall.

Order and disorder is a subject where Boetti has formed letters from the Italian and mixed them up in sketches and later used the results for other works.

X38350 - 2m square formed from paper dots arranged.

X38338 The sighted vedete.

X38635 Boetti has assembled a montage of glossy magazine covers from Vogue, Economist, Elle , Scientific American, Il Mondiale, Le Figaro but these have been drawn on paper with pencil from issues of 1990.

X38395

In talking about the maps of the world I made a comment about the Hajj Exhibition maps of the Middle East and an alternative projection other than that of Mercator.  Regarding the Afghans not knowing the colour of the ocean, there was a programme on BBC Radio 3 on Schubert settings of Goethe’s poetry of Sicily and some sea descriptions. Schubert had never seen the sea and had only visited the Austrian lakes.

Postcards:

lo che prendo il sole a Torino il 19 gennaio 1969 (Me Sunbathing in Turin 19 January 1969)
Guatemala 1974 4 photographs
La Mole Antonelliana 1970-75 - 7 stamped postcards

Yayoi Kusama

Kusama was born into a middle class Japanese family and used materials from the family nursery and horticultural business to use as artist’s materials which were in short supply.  She also made use of sacks.  She moved to USA and in some way predates Andy Warhol by 3 years in painting by repetition.  This is obsession par excellence and her pen strokes when repeated and assembled form patterns which I could recognise.  Any scientist familiar with Wave Theory would recognise peaks, troughs, beats and both sound and light effects (Young’s slits with single slit and double slit)

To say that Kusama was obsessive is putting it mildly.  In some of the work there is definitely a single theme of bits of male anatomy. Everything is apparently in what Grayson Perry called Herms.

Notes from the recordings:

Room 7

Series of repetition themed items with a collage of airmail stickers. Kusama had to be supported secretly by her family and the collage in 1962 has the theme of letter writing as the point of communication. 

Room 10

Kusama adjusts to being a voluntary In-Patient in a hospital. Using the hospital as a base she returned to running a sculpture studio.  The accumulations series which had resulted in a motif has by now changed to snake like coils or as Stephen said, like entrails.

Revived soul 1995. Acrylic on canvas X34402

This was probably the first item we enjoyed. It may have been that we were tired and it was after lunch.   This is a large painting triptych 1.5 m by 4 metres. Black background with dots applied. The dots vary in size from a pin prick to dots about 12 mm across. This gives an undulating effect rather like the folds of a curtain. The effect is like snake skin, though when I saw this from a distance it seemed clear enough but in the installation it is not possible to view it in any other way than from an angle. There is an assembly of what appear to be cushions of various sizes piled up.  The cushions have paint applied to the fabric and some spray paint on the edges.

Room 11

Kusama has by now (1980s and 1990s) returned to painting with acrylic on canvas. Installations were multi-canvas thus “extending the visual field”. There is something haunting about these paintings and in some I could imagine an eye. 

Earlier work of Kusama had shown eyes with caterpillar eyebrows.  Her repetitions are by now of the polka dot or tadpole variety.

Yellow Trees 1994 Acrylic on canvas X34380  Brown/yellow on black 1.2 m by 4 m

The final installation is a big surprise! This is one of two which I enjoyed and seemed to be popular with younger people and families.  There is some basic entertainment with the use of polka dots in the dark with some UV lighting picking up the polka dots. The exhibition has by now come alive for me and I enjoyed the last few rooms. 

In summary the Kusama was a very slow burn and the obsession can grate unless you can pick up the visual tricks. The last installation is the culmination and one enters the lit world after having been at a slight advantage within a dark room with polka dots, mirrors and a maze type path which, I suspect, disorientates the others but we cane users are used to tapping and navigating our way round obstacles.

Postcards:
Late-night Char is Filled with Dreams 2009
I Want to Live Honestly, Like the Eye in the Picture 2009

Royal Academy: Johan Zoffany RA :Exhibition “Society Observed”

** Update 7/4/2012

Zoffany's paintings capture much of society at the time.  It is interesting that Zoffany records lectures given by Professor William Hunter on anatomy to the Royal Academicians.  In the 18th century, the distinction between arts and science may have been less clear cut.  Here is an exchange I had with Athene Donald on her blog concerning Erasmus Darwin and Dr Johnson: http://occamstypewriter.org/athenedonald/2012/04/05/the-man-of-science-and-the-man-of-letters/

The Zoffany exhibition also covered the role of women or rather the lack of it in gatherings of the Royal Academy for a life-class.  Next door to the RA is the Royal Society of Chemistry, whose new president will be Professor Lesley Yellowlees - http://www.rsc.org/AboutUs/News/PressReleases/2011/LesleyYellowleesRSCPresident.asp

** end of update

The Royal Academy still has the David Hockney exhibition “A Bigger Picture” running and it has proved to be very popular.  ( My post on this exhibition can be found on
http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/royal-academy-in-touch-david-hockney.html
)
With the Hockney taking over the 1^st Floor there is a more intimate exhibition on the 2^nd Floor in the Sackler Wing of paintings of Johan Zoffany, who was famous as a society and court painter in the late 1700s.  http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/johan-zoffany-ra-society-observed/

A friend met me at an Underground station and we went to Green Park by Tube.  With my crutch and cane combination I find going down steps a major problem. (I have to manage 39 steps at home) I found getting on an escalator was not too awkward though getting off an escalator is very tricky.  I can do this normally but with a crutch trailing it is painful on stepping off. 

That said we entered the Royal Academy in Burlington House in Piccadilly.  One of the stewards asked me at the steps if I needed any help in the galleries, a kind gesture which I much appreciated.  We took the lift to the 2^nd Floor and having been kitted out with audio guide, entered the exhibition.  At this point I was beginning to resemble a scarecrow as I had my sunglasses round my neck, headphones on head, cane in left hand, crutch on right hand, audio controls round my neck and my straw hat on head! 

The audio guide has 5 selected paintings for a detailed geometrical description.  These are aimed at the visually impaired visitor and if you can recognise a large mark by the caption or ask for some help in hitting the right buttons, conveniently push buttons starting with number 5, you have the option of an introduction to the geometry followed by the usual options on art history, curator Martin Postle’s notes and notes by other art historians.  

Zoffany catalogue - a portrait

The first painting in this group was David and Goliath (No 51) The introductory commentary was useful in setting the scene for Zoffany and his earlier commissions from the Archbishop of Trier and an Elector Palatine in Germany.  Classical Greek themes and Old Testament stories were staples of some commissioned work and there is a painting of the Sacrifice of Iphigenia in Aulis.  I studied this play by Euripedes and “saw” it with my father in the National Theatre in London not long after I lost my sight.  Greek plays are ideal for visually impaired people as there are few speaking roles at any one time on the stage. This painting was more crowded but my friend read out the caption and we moved to David and Goliath. The geometry of this painting is very well explained.  It shows David with his torso twisted and his left shoulder twisted to the viewer and the left arm bent at the elbow forming a V shape.  Goliath is slain and David is holding a pebble?

( On my laptop I can just about make out the V-shape on this site: http://d4k7s9ho8qact.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Key-7.jpg?9d7bd4)

The next theme is theatrical as Zoffany was on good terms with David Garrick and some of the paintings on display are on loan from the Garrick Club. Garrick was said to be a nightmare as far as sitting for a portrait is concerned.  There are scenes from various plays.  Some are well known some are rarely if ever played today.  There is a scene with Lady Macbeth and her dagger.  The play needed no introduction as all Scottish schoolchildren had to study “The Scottish Play”.  We missed number 52 and had to find it for the description. 

Zoffany had the knack of getting the dramatic, if overacted, point of a drama.  What I found fascinating was that I could make out both the candlelit lighting apparatus and the light shining on the actors on the stage in an almost frozen moment.  This is similar to what I remember of strobe lighting, which was all the rage in my younger days (an advance on the 1960s revolving mirror). Zoffany manages to freeze a moment of action and the audio played a section of the text (husband about to strike wife with dagger).

There are sections with Zoffany in the Royal Academy and with the Royal Family.  There is a painting of a talk with Professor William Hunter from the RA on anatomy.  Another painting shows the RA gathered in a life class, though 2 women are represented by their portraits shown on the wall.   

Zoffany was in demand as a portrait painter and his works also include conversation pieces as well as family groups. There is a portrait of Gainsborough and family groups of the boys and girls of the Earl of Bute; as well as one of the famous Sharp family, who were musicians and celebrities of the time.

A described painting was that of Lawrence Dundas with his family, house and possessions on display.  Dundas had collected 17^th Century Dutch paintings and these are shown in the wall in the background and on an adjacent wall.  Zoffany had meticulously painted the paintings on the wall of the painting.  This resembles the new Dutch Galleries at the Wallace Collection or the Torrie Collection of Dutch Paintings on show in the Georgian Gallery in Talbot Rice in Edinburgh.  The painting gives an inventory of the accumulated wealth of some families.  Another painting exhibiting wealth was that of Charles Townlee. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/mar/02/johan-zoffany-society-portrait-painter

 Self portrait of Zoffany, surrounded by postcards, inspired by the Dundas painting.

The next theme of the exhibition was Zoffany in India.  There are many paintings of British Colonial officials and some of the East India Company.  Warren Hastings is featured as are some local royals. 

The final paintings show looting in Paris during the French Revolution and the destruction of Paris. No doubt some of the treasures found their way into the collections of some of the more magpie collectors.

Conclusion

A very enjoyable visit.  The Royal Academy are to be congratulated for clear descriptions of the geometries found in each painting of the 5 paintings selected.  I would encourage this development in unescorted visits.   These explanations also stop one becoming a pest if viewing with friends, which forms half the fun in going to the gallery. 

The friend who took me has known me for 32 years and this was the first time we had been to a gallery together since I lost my sight. He also tuned into the visually impaired selections and learned a lot more. The size and aspect of the dimensions are clear as is the navigation of the subjects in the painting.  Lighting is an important feature of the works and Zoffany illustrates lamps of the period.  My sighted friend tuned into the audio descriptions himself and discovered more than he had found on his first visit. While I enjoyed these 5 selected paintings I also enjoyed the others once the captions had been read. 

The Royal Academy offers assistance if you ask for it. This exhibition has a few bottlenecks in common with many exhibitions. It may be a result of timing or an engrossing audio but I found the only hazard was my hat which I ought to have checked and my sunglasses which got tangled with the audio. I bought some postcards and treated myself to a catalogue.

Paintings with full titles

David with the Head of Goliath

Martyrdom of St Bartholomew

Thomas King as Touchstone in ‘As You Like It’

Mr and Mrs Garrick by the Shakespeare Temple at Hampton (today this temple still exists and in the River Thames is a houseboat owned by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd!  Access by local bus R68)

Venus Marina – “recalls frolicsome allegories of French Master Francois Boucher”

David Garrick and Mrs Pritchard in ‘Macbeth’

Dr William Hunter Teaching Anatomy at the Royal Academy – big lamp, stage, audience including Sir Joshua Reynolds

The Portraits of the Academicians of the Royal Academy – includes Zoffany

David Garrick and Mrs Cibber as Jaffier and Belvidera in ‘Venice Preserv’d’

Three Sons of John, Third Earl of Bute

Three Daughters of John, Third Earl of Bute

The Sharp Family

Sir Lawrence Dundas with his Grandson – paintings by David Teniers the younger and Jan van de Cappelle in the background

Prince Jawan Bakht (Jahandar Singh)

Warren Hastings

Hasan Reza Khan

Royal Academy related posts:

My post on the RA Summer Exhibition 2012 can be found on:

http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/royal-academy-summer-exhibition-2012.html

My posts on the David Hockney exhibition at the Royal Academy can be found on:

http://profwhitestick.blogspot.com/2012/02/david-hockney-bigger-picture.html

http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/royal-academy-in-touch-david-hockney.html

My post on the From Paris - a taste for Impressionism exhibition can be found on:

http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/royal-academy-from-paris-taste-for.html

British Museum exhibition - Hajj : journey to the heart of Islam

The British Museum has an exhibition on the Hajj. This is the pilgrimage to Makkah (Mecca) and at this point I realise that I am going to have to put some things in context.

In the early 1980s I worked in Saudi Arabia for a Saudi company based in the Eastern Province.  This is the Gulf side of the country and not the Hijaz side, where Makkah is located.  Second, the spelling of names which are only truly represented in Arabic can be a problem for those using a screenreader.  I am going to try to use commonly accepted English spellings and will try to give an indication of the sound of the Arabic using Jaws (in American). This may not look attractive to my sighted readers!

The Hajj is one of the 5 pillars of Islam and should be undertaken provided one is able to satisfy certain conditions like finance and health.  Given that the Hajj was underway from the 7^th Century AD, I note that I have to explain something else.  The Muslim calendar is based on 12 lunar months and is about 11 days shorter than our solar year.  The British Museum has a policy of using AD and not CE which is sometimes used in academic circles in order not to offend.  My blog is hardly academic but it ought to be obvious that fixed events in the Muslim Calendar do not match the solar calendar; hence the month of Ramadhan occurs earlier every year. 

The Hajj attracts up to 3 million pilgrims from all over the world and the majority arrive in Jiddah (Jeddah) at the Hajj terminal.  Muslims usually have to travel on a Hajj visa accredited to a country of nationality.  For expatriates living in Saudi Arabia there was some control on the frequency of completing the Hajj.  There is also a lesser pilgrimage known as Umra and this is combined with the Hajj for those who are making a first visit. 

When I lived in Saudi Arabia, the Hajj was one of 2 important dates in the year, the other being Ramadhan.  At the end of both there were the Eids or feasts. These are often known in local names in countries such as Turkey but in Saudi Arabia the two Eids were Eid Al Fitr (Eed al fitter) and Eid Al Adha (Eed al Add ha).

The Eid after completion of the Hajj was known as the feast of the sacrifice when it is customary to slaughter a sheep giving some of the meat to the poor. In the 1980s this could be done in person or by purchase of a voucher.  The Hajj rituals follow in much the same pattern of a journey out, ritual, worship, meditation and celebration and the journey back home. 

When I lived in Saudi Arabia there were only 2 TV channels I could receive (the only occasion I have owned a TV) and during prayer times the channels would switch to the sunset (maghrib) prayers and evening (Isha) prayers, and during the Hajj the TV channels were almost exclusively Hajj related.  Channel 1 was in Arabic and Channel 2, which started when I was there, was in English, French and some Asian languages.  Prayers are set by the sun so prayer times in the East of Saudi Arabia were much earlier than those in Makkah.  This meant that TV screens almost always had views of Makkah and the Hajj rituals going on and one became familiar with the ritual, locations such as the Ka’ba, Arafat, Muzdalifa and Medina (Madinah). 

Men have their heads shaved after completing the Hajj and it was obvious that all their friends and colleagues knew where they had been for the Hajj Holidays. Saudi TV also put out notices that the time allowed after the Hajj visit for private business was up and that guests ought to leave the country.  Any expatriate who has worked in Saudi Arabia will have similar anecdotes about the country. 

I had changed planes in Jiddah and when travelling to Jiddah from London (coincidentally it was Easter) I had boarded a Saudia flight and was travelling in Guest (of God) class.  Jiddah airport has a Hajj Terminal to process the many Hajj charter flights.  Over the centuries Jiddah became a cosmopolitan city and many Hajjis (courtesy given to those who have completed the Hajj) did not return to their country of origin.

I was invited to a private view of Hajj:Journey to the Centre of Islam at the British Museum.  Under other circumstances I would have gone on my own but as my mobility is restricted I have based my report on this private view with access to the project curator Qaisra Khan.  I went by cab with a Muslim friend and we were admitted at 6.30 to the

Great Court

and welcomed with Middle Eastern snacks and fruit juices. 

Before leaving I had tweeted mentioning Qaisra and we duly met her and chatted before the brief introduction to the viewing.  Qaisra had gone herself on the Hajj in 2010 and though going as part of her own spiritual journey also went with a curatorial hat on, as well.  The following are my notes I made on returning from the exhibition and the twitter exchanges with Qaisra on getting back home.

-        Circumambulatory in approach to reading room, clockwise before stairs (lift access available). Sounds of Adhan (call to prayer Allah Akbar-God is great) and scenes of pilgrims in Ihram (white pilgrim garb)

-        Kiswah and Sitara  covering of the faces and door (respectively) of Ka’ba in Makkah. This one had the late King Fahd written or rather sewn into the black cloth with silver thread and this gives a filigree appearance on my peripheral vision.  Tradition of covering Ka’ba in pre-Islamic times with different colours.

-        Exhibition divided into three main themes such as :Journey, Makkah and Medina,  journey taken home and souvenirs

-        Queen Mary Tudor atlas for Philip of Spain with map of Arabia.  Mentioning  of Arabia Felix(Yemen) and Arabia Petra(Jordan)  and “Saracen Cathedral.  Muslim atlas same time 16^th century showing south at top.

-        Very Old Quran 

-        Cairo Kiswah workshop and black and white film shot in 1918 showing procession of Mahmal mounted on camel and banners of caravan which “started” from parts of Ottoman Empire when Sultan claimed Caliphate.  Damascus and Cairo were traditional starting points.  After formation of Saudi Arabia by Abdul Aziz (Ibn Saud) control of Holy places made by Saudis with Makkah workshops. 

-        Tradition of Egyptians painting houses on return from Hajj. (I have seen this in Luxor)

-        The construction of the Hijaz Railway cut time to 5 days from 40 days. Istanbul (Haydarpasha station on Asian side of Bosphorus)to Medina.(Mad eenat al Moon a war ah) was built and surveyed under some German influence. In the First World War, destroyed in 1918 (Read TE Lawrence of Arabia Pillars of Wisdom) 

-        Compasses for Qibla. Muslims face Makkah and during prayers all face Ka’ba. 

-        The circumambulation before is done in anticlockwise direction.

-        Pilgrimage is associated with travel, accommodation, money exchange and there were many examples of coins, tokens, guidebooks, vouchers and even some Hajj currency issued by the Government of Pakistan (Rupees from 1950s). 

-        Dutch East Indies (Indonesia ) Ache prayer book of local imam who had surrendered to Dutch control.  Different roles in colonial authorities over Arab and Muslim populations.  

-        There are many books with large illustrations on top.  While there are few figurative art works as graven images are “frowned” upon, there are nevertheless examples of Alexander the Great, said to be the Dhul Qarnan mentioned in the Quran.  These books resemble Book of Hours with verse and some illustrations. 

-        Complete mahmal and sitara doors to Ka’ba

-        Keys to door and bag to carry key.

-        Coverings and belts for Ka’ba renewed in Cairo though Kiswah made fresh each year.  The Ka’ba is never left uncovered as the Kiswah is unrolled another is rolled out from the top.

-        Indian Gujarati paintings with Mughal style.

-        The exhibition covers Makkah and Madinah and there is some reference to Jerusalem as the point and direction of prayer in the early years of Islam.  There are engravings of Jerusalem with the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.  The Night Journey is described in some books and prints.

-        Names of prophets family and descendants are embroidered in large letters and I could make out some of the shorter names such as : Mohammed, Ali, Hasan and Hussein.

The majority of Muslims are Sunni as opposed to Shia.  Much of Shia history is based in Kerbala and Najjaf in Iraq while Iran (Persia) has a majority Shia population.  Following the death of Mohammad, there were disputes resulting in eventual schism after Ali the Caliph and his two sons Hassan and Hussein. Many Shia rituals will celebrate and commemorate events in the lives of Ali, Hassan and Hussein in ways disputed by many Sunni Muslims. 

There are 4 schools of thought or Fiqh in Sunni Islam with some differences in interpretation of Shariah.  There are quite often some marked disagreements over some timings and precedence and this has resulted in friction at the Hajj.  The Saudi King is styled as the “Custodian of the two Holy Places.

-        Verses of the Quran containing the opening words of the Fetiyah  “Bismillah al rahman al rahim” (Biss me la al raha man al ra heem)could be discerned as they are printed on every piece of formal mail.

-        God or Allah has 99 names in the Quran and often the names of men are styled as “Servant of God, using one of the 99 names. Servant is Abd in Arabic so names such as Abdallah, Abdalaziz and abdalrahman can be recognized.

-        There were drawings of the sanctuary in Makkah with diagrams of Haram and sanctuary, some of them drawn in 3D effect.

-        Water takes a leading role in many pilgrimages. Many Roman Catholics treasure water from Lourdes, some Christians would have some water from the River Jordan and Muslims like to take back bottles of Zam Zam water.  Examples of this were shown.

         

-        One of the delights for me were the mementos of St John Philby.  St John Philby was the father of Kim Philby (the double agent) and had converted to Islam.  He had been an advisor to Ibn Saud and is mentioned in Wilfred Thesiger Book The Arabian Sands.  Philby had the Ford Motor Company franchise.  Philby left a collection of brushes used to sweep the Ka’ba.

Conclusion

For me this was a memorable visit as I was able to discern many objects I had seen only on Saudi TV or in the form of images. The serendipity element was also there with items from St John Philby and the Hijaz Railway. (There is a stop on the Hijaz Railway at Madain Saleh and this is a famous Nabatean (Petra) site in the peninsula.) The mahmal was a complete surprise and as it is so large I could not miss it.  There is also something about a black and white film played on a flat screen and I could make out a lot.

One of the insights Qaisra mentioned was that the original installation of the artists impression of the Jeddah-Makkah highway sign (advises non-Muslims to exit now!) had pointed to the emergency exit and so had to be relocated! I had never seen this sign but know many who have driven there.  

The books are mainly printed on paper and I could make little of them but the British Museum has placed large prints or drawings of some of the illustrations.

Before the exhibition I had some twitter exchanges over the value of buying a catalogue at all and one reviewer suggested that one ought to buy the catalogue and skip the exhibition altogether. There has also been some criticism of the British Museum pandering to the Saudi Authorities. Having been to the British Museum and having enjoyed the Persians exhibition this had been arranged with the loan of the Cyrus cylinder to Iran and it appears that with diminished Iranian contact the British Museum can rise above diplomatic and political intrigues.  The Cyrus cylinder has been returned to the British Museum following an exhibition loan in Iran.

As a visually impaired person I found a lot to enjoy and I was given much additional information by Qaisra at the event.  I have mentioned before that the British Museum is usually able to offer some extra assistance if you contact them.  There are tactile and large print guides available as well as an audio tour, which is free for the visually impaired.

I have not used the following websites but these may be useful.Related websites of interest:

BBC News - Hajj exhibition opens at the British Museum

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16750633

BBC News - World's first Hajj exhibition to open at British Museum

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-16704305

Mysteries of the hajj revealed as British Museum opens exhibition on Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2092056/British-Museum-Hajj-Exhibition-Mysteries-Muslim-pilgrimage-Mecca-revealed.html

The Twitter Exchange with Qaisra Khan is as follows:

 @ProfWhitestick

Looking forward to visiting #HajjExhibition tonight with a talk by @QaisraKhan to guide us on our way round.

@QaisraKhan

@ProfWhitestick it was an absolute pleasure to meet you at the #hajjexhibition I hope you enjoyed it- I had a wonderful evening.

‏@ProfWhitestick

@QaisraKhan It was a surprise how much detail I could detect on kiswah on peripheral vision #hajjexhibition A great evening, thanks

@QaisraKhan

@ProfWhitestick that's absolutely wonderful! Am so pleased!

Many thanks to Qaisra for guiding us round and for sharing some insights.