In commemoration of its 200th anniversary, the Brooklyn Museum launched on Friday an expansive exhibit that shines the spotlight on gold through 6,000 years of history. Dubbed "Solid Gold," the exhibition features more than 400 gold objects, ranging from jewelry and luxury objects, to works of art, fashion and film.
Organized in eight sections, Solid Gold will present historical works in visual juxtaposition and “collisions'' with contemporary objects and fashions, sparking dynamic conversations across time and space. Entry galleries explore manifestations of ancient gold, pairing antiquities from the Brooklyn Museum’s collection with iconic 20th- and 21st-century objects.
“Solid Gold will transport visitors through the many worlds of gold, its joyful (though sometimes heartbreaking) histories, and its innumerable luminous expressions across cultures, past and present,” noted Matthew Yokobosky, Senior Curator of Fashion and Material Culture, Brooklyn Museum. “As a museum dedicated to bridging art and people in shared experiences, audiences will find inspiration, opening them to unexplored realms of beauty in their world.”
Highlights include a large wooden sarcophagus from Dynasty 22 (945–740 BCE), which is on display for the first time in more than 100 years. The coffin is decorated with images and inscriptions painted with yellow orpiment pigments to imitate gold inlays.
Illustrating the ancient world’s fascination with the metal, the museum is presenting an extraordinary “horde” of 181 individual gold pieces from the Hellenistic period and a selection of ancient jewelry, helmets, and chainmail spanning three millennia of creation across Egypt, the Mediterranean coast and the pre-Hispanic Americas.
The exhibition also includes a look at golden smiles as seen in ancient Panama, in the form of gold disks and facial jewelry made around the first millennium CE. According to the senior curator, such gold smiles, for various practical and aesthetic reasons, have continued into contemporary culture in the form of grillz (also known as fronts or golds). These dialogues, created between ancient and contemporary objects, emphasize the significance that the metal plays from aesthetic and anthropological perspectives.
One of the exhibition’s main galleries examines the wide array of techniques used by artisans, craftsmen, fashion designers and others when working with gold, whether to construct objects or for applications across surfaces.
In the long history of its use, gold experienced a “democratic surge” around the 6th century BCE, beginning with the invention of coinage in ancient Lydia (present-day Turkey). Access to and use of gold was no longer restricted to the upper echelons of royalty or for ritual purposes.
The final section celebrates gold as the universal symbol of achievement: a gold crown, a gold medal, a gold record, an Oscar, or a gold star on a report card. An ancient Greek gold laurel wreath dating to the third to second century BCE (one of only four wholly extant wreaths in the world, and a gem from the Brooklyn Museum’s collection) is displayed alongside modern-day crowns, such as a spectacular gold, platinum and diamond tiara designed by Fulco di Verdura.
To close out the exhibition, visitors will walk upon the gleaming animated gold waves by international art collective teamLab, an immersive digital experience that emphasizes the fact that like the inexhaustible waves of our oceans, gold is truly eternal.
Co-sponsored by Bank of America and Dior, the exhibition will run through July 6, 2025.
Captions: Wreath (detail), reportedly Corinth, Greece, 3rd-2nd century B.C.E. Gold. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of George D. Pratt, 26.763. Image courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum; Mummy Cartonnage of a Woman, probably Hawara, Egypt, 1st century. Linen, gesso, gold leaf, glass, and faience. Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 69.35. Image courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum; Coclé artist. Plaque with Crocodile Deity, 900–1000. Gold. Brooklyn Museum, Museum Expedition 1931, Museum Collection Fund, 33.448.12. Image courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum. Wreath, reportedly Corinth, Greece, 3rd–2nd century B.C.E. Gold. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of George D. Pratt, 26.763. Image courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum; teamLab. Gold Waves, 2017. Digital work, 4 channels, 6 channels, 8 channels, and 12 channels, continuous loop. ©teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery.