The Brooklyn Museum's exhibition celebrates the enduring significance of gold, tracing its connection to power from ancient civilisations to the modern day. It juxtaposes gold's protective and decorative roles with its exploitative history, showcasing artifacts like a crocodile deity plaque from the Coclé culture and contemporary critiques such as William Kentridge's film Mine. The diverse use of gold, from haute couture to 20th-century art, emphasizes its lasting impact and complexity, revealing how this precious material carries both beauty and a complicated legacy.
The exhibition traces gold's perennial association with political, economic, technological and religious power from ancient civilisations to the present day.
A standout example is a gold plaque from the ancient Coclé culture, bridging art, fashion and ritual through its depiction of a crocodile deity.
William Kentridge's short film Mine reflects on the environmental and human costs of South Africa's gold industry, highlighting gold's fraught history.
The exhibition affirms that gold's symbolic and economic weight persists, even as its deeply complicated legacy is acknowledged.
Collection
[
|
...
]