LONDON — Visitors to Frieze have an embarrassment of other attractions to choose from in London. All they need to do is step off the fairgrounds in Regent’s Park and roam the capital’s many museums and galleries. Here is a selection of exhibitions taking place during Frieze week.
Queen’s Gallery — Ever wondered what treasures were contained in Britain’s Royal Collection, which Queen Elizabeth II had custody of for seven decades until her recent passing? Regular glimpses into the collection are provided by the Queen’s Gallery, part of Buckingham Palace. (It originally served as Queen Victoria’s private chapel before it was left in ruins after a World War II air raid and was turned into a museum in 1962.) Currently on display is “Japan: Courts and Culture,” a selection of more than 150 exquisite Japanese treasures received by the British court over the course of more than three centuries. They include Britain’s first samurai armor, sent as a gift to the sovereign in 1613, and an embroidered folding screen that Queen Victoria received for her Diamond Jubilee in 1897.
Hieroglyphs at the British Museum — In 1799, Napoleon’s occupying forces were rebuilding fortifications near the port city of Rosetta in Egypt when a French Army officer chanced upon a tall black granite slab covered with inscriptions in three writing systems: hieroglyphs, demotic (a kind of hieroglyphic cursive) and Ancient Greek. That etched fragment, the Rosetta Stone, allowed the French researcher Jean-François Champollion to decipher the writings of the ancient Egyptians two decades later — and open the doors to a world of knowledge and discovery. The Rosetta Stone, now a proud possession of the British Museum, is the centerpiece of a new exhibition of more than 240 objects titled “Hieroglyphs.” Items on view include Champollion’s personal notes and a 3,000-year-old measuring rod he used to understand Egyptian mathematics, and priceless antiquities such as vessels, sarcophagi and mummy bandages.
Carolee Schneemann — Three years after her death, the trailblazing American performance artist Carolee Schneemann — whose dramatic public actions addressed issues such as sexual power dynamics, female objectification, war and pain — is getting her first-ever British survey at the Barbican. “Body Politics” features more than 300 objects (paintings, sculptural objects, films, photographs and archival material). Look out for images of her famous…
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