A review of the reviews of the 2014 exhibition of the Vikings – Life and Legend at the British Museum
Until 1960s the Vikings were regarded as ferocious, vile and uncivilised pirates bent on plundering a post-Carolingian Europe steeped in strife. With their superior ships they ended up reaching from East of Constantinople all the way to Vinland in Newfoundland. However, wherever they went, they seemed to have created new and very vibrant colonies as for instance in Dublin, York and Normandy. Around that time to events contributed to a new and different story. On one hand the peace-movement, which grew out of the Vietnam war, made it much more politically correct to envisage the vile warriors as polite and friendly tradesmen setting up emporia on whichever beach they happened to land. On the other hand the budding medieval archaeologist started uncovering exactly these trading activities, leading to the huge excavation of Dublin, York and not least Haithabau in present-day Northern Germany.
Since then, however, the pendulum has once more swung giving us back a vision of the Vikings as both alien, heathen and violent as well as crafty tradesmen exporting a very distinct culture and forging new states, wherever their migration led them. In the words of Gareth Williams, curator of the exhibitions, “the Vikings are warriors, traders, craftsmen, farmers, priests and priestesses. They are a complex society…”. At a private tour in Copenhagen, where the exhibition (in another edition) was shown last year, the director of the National Museum thus voiced it: “I truly feel that we in some ways have “been given the Vikings back”.
It is this new Janus-faced view of Vikings, which the British Museum is showing in the major exhibition, which opened to the public a few days ago.
Unfortunately – as voiced by the reviewers of the exhibition in London – this goal has not been achieved. In general they complain about the dry and academic tone of the exhibition – too few swords, too little about Lindisfarne (pillaged in 793) and too many brooches and meaningless bling like pendants, bracelets, necklaces, chunky gold and fine-wrought silver.
“I felt like crying, writes Jonathan Jones, from the Guardian, and continues: “Where were the swords? And … what does this exhibition offer its younger visitors? It can’t claim not to be for them. You can’t put on an exhibition called Vikings without expecting some kids.” Or in the words of Brian Sewell from the London Evening Standard: “Other than for archaeologists, the exhibition …is a disaster, deadly dull. It is a gathering of small things, some exquisite, most not, of bits and bobs and buttons, coins and ornament; if large — that is as large as a helmet, sword or the clotted mass of a chainmail shirt — then rust, rot and decay have eaten into it”.
The ship
Even the recreation of the largest Viking-ship ever found – a 37 metre long troop-carrier, probably part of the fleet of Cnut the Great from 1025, disappoints to some degree. Although claimed as the real Eureka-moment by Simon Armitage from the Guardian – , other reviewers find it a bland experience. Rachel Campbell-Johnston from The Times writes “it demands a vivid imagination to conjure the few planks of wood that remain into a gleaming vision of an invading vessel”. Brian Sewell from the London Evening Standard dismisses it as “ingenious, but meaningless without the timber: A 37-metre steel reconstruction of a Viking longboat”.
The new exhibition space
One of the challenges here is obviously that the exhibition has been mounted in the new wing of the British Museum, the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery, which essentially looks and feels like an dilapidated warehouse from the 70s; (in fact, it looks much like the industrial location in Copenhagen, which was fitted into a conservation hall, where the remains of the ship were treated and reconstructed). Characterized by a bleak modernist stance epitomizing “Northern Noire” the new gallery presents absolutely no help to fire up the imagination of any visitor, young or adult.
To compare: In Copenhagen the model of the ship was framed by a series of blown-up videos seeking to reconstruct a sense of what it might mean to travel from Denmark to England in the roaring blizzards of a westerly storm 1025 AD. In Britain this feature has puritanically been relegated to the far-end of the astern of the ship and is shown on a simple video-screen.
Some of this might simply be the result of an abundance of space; while the Copenhagen Exhibition only had 1000 m2 to play with, the new Sainsbury Gallery is huge and airy with its 1100m2. But it is obviously also a matter of curatorial practice. In Copenhagen the exhibition tried to show the context of all the magnificent pieces on show (jewellery on recreated dresses etc.) In London, the pieces are also shown in such way that the visitor is invited to admire the “artsy” quality.
The catalogue
As opposed to the exhibition itself, the catalogue receives acclamation. Here we are offered the story of the myths, beliefs, rituals, daily life, commercial aspirations and political successes. Apart from Brian Sewell, who wish for more maps, a timeline posted up front and more detailed information about some of the key-players, the reviewers generally agree as to the superior quality of this publication; but then Brian Sewell is obviously starting from a much lower rung of the ladder. In his review we may thus read that there never was “a Viking Empire, but in their three or four centuries Viking expansion was perhaps as extensive as the Roman Empire over twice as many years”. Here he seems to forget the fact that in the end there was exactly a Viking empire, that of Cnut the Great, who reigned over Denmark, Norway and England and acted as overlord of parts of Sweden plus Wales and Scotland. It was in order to establish this reign, ships like Roskilde 6, were built.
But this is of course a story, some English apparently like to forget about…
EXHIBITION:
Vikings: Life and Legend
The British Museum, WC1 (020 7323 8000, britishmuseum.org) until Sun Jun 22.
07.03.2014 – 22.06.2014
Open Sat-Thurs, 10am-5.30pm; Friday 10am-8.30pm.Admission £16.50, concessions available.
CATALOGUE:
Vikings: life and legend
By Gareth Williams, Peter Pentz, Matthias Wemhoff
The British Museum Press 2013
ISBN: 9780714123370
ISBN: 9780714123363
READ MORE:
The British Exhibition on Vikings: Life and legend
The Largest Viking Ship ever Found
Review of exhibition in Copenhagen