January the 1st the Presidency of the Council of the European Union passed from Poland to Denmark. This week the official inauguration took place. Finally this morning an exhibition on “Europe Meets the World” opened at The National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. Present at the reception was amongst others the current chairman of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso. In his opening speech he spoke in a poetical vein about Europe being this beautiful princess, who was kidnapped by Zeus disguised as a bull and brought to Crete, later giving birth to three sons. “She should be treated with respect”, he said, and continued to point out that Europe is not just about markets and money. Nay, he said, foremost Europe is about culture, value and civilisation. It represents a great vision of the world as a community of law filled with peace, freedom and solidarity. It is our duty, he stressed, to be at the same time clear about our identity and open towards the rest of the world. We have so much to offer, he declared.
Without doubt the Portuguese chairman was inspired by another founding myth involving Zeus, aka Jupiter, Os Luisidas. Luís de Camões, the most famous of all Portuguese Poets wrote this grand poetical vision for Portugal in 1556, while he was sojourning in Goa. In it another family-member of Zeus plays the main role, Bacchus, and his “friend” Lusus. It is his sons, the Lusiads, amongst others Vasco da Gama, whose creative and entrepreneurial spirit is celebrated while the story is told about their magnificent discoveries.
It was fascinating to hear the chairman obviously letting himself be inspired by the “opening piece” of the exhibition – a shard from a Greek vase showing the lovely girl sitting astray on a white bull. But it also bear witness to the qualities of the exhibition, which is organised around a small, but very evocative collection of artefacts solely picked from the stack-rooms of the museum. All in all the collections total 10 million artefacts, ancient and modern, historical and ethnographic. The idea has been not to borrow and create a visual blockbuster, but to demonstrate that it is possible to curate an exhibition with what is at hand. And make it worthwhile. The National Museum of Copenhagen should be complimented on this endeavour (and was by Barroso in his speech).
The exhibition is installed in eight cylindrical tents and one formed as a globe. Each tent focuses on an aspect of the relation between Europe and the rest of the world – wisdom, power, belief, communication and conflict, discovery, enlightenment, industrialisation, war and finally present-day fluid borders and boundless cities. Each tent shows a small, but careful selection of objects whose stories are told through imaginative use of a wide variety of digital tools. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue in the form of a collection of essays available both in English and Danish.
For anyone passionate about Europe the exhibition is definitely worth a detour. Just visiting Copenhagen this spring? Don’t miss it. No time left? Get the catalogue!
Read the speech of president José Manuel Barroso