Warriors, Guardians, and Demons
An important part of our Centennial Celebration is honoring the many generous people who have supported the Museum through the donation of artifacts. This lobby exhibit features a selection from the large collection of Asian carvings donated by Mr. Fred A. Freund.
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Collecting and Connecting: One Hundred Years at the Spurlock Museum
The museum celebrates 100 years of collecting—gathering artifacts and the knowledge that surrounds them—and connecting—relating people, artifacts, information, and ideas to one another. We sketch the story of the museum over its history, providing glimpses of the collections, individuals, and events that shaped its growth.
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Siyazama: Traditional Arts, Education, and AIDS in South Africa
Throughout the world art has long been used as a tool for cultural, social, and economic change. In South Africa many educators and activists used performing and visual arts in the successful anti-apartheid movement. Now arts are being used there to educate individuals about the realities of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This exhibition explores how traditional knowledge and skills are used to address contemporary issues in South Africa. It showcases the Siyazama (Zulu for "we are trying") Project, an arts education project based in KwaZulu Natal which uses traditional crafts to raise awareness about AIDS. Over 100 pieces in this exhibit - including indigenous traditional art forms such as beadwork, dollmaking, basketry and wirework - reveal how South African artists are using their work to educate others as well as to cope with the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS in their own lives and communities.
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Korean Funerary Figures: Companions for the Journey to the Other World
Organized by The Korea Society, New York City
In nineteenth and early twentieth century Korea, artisans carved joyful wooden figurines depicting acrobats, clowns and mystical animals (kokdu) to place on the funeral biers of the departed. In their first exhibition in the US, a collection of 72 kokdu reflect the realities of rural Korean village life during a period that left few written records and open a window on a timeless, characteristically Korean attitude towards death.
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The Transforming Arts of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea, a Pacific Island nation-state, is home to a remarkable diversity of grand artistic traditions. This exhibition, featuring artifacts from the Museum's own collections, explores the arts of several regions and illustrates over half a century of change in design, media, and audience. Of special significance is discussioin of artistic developments sparked by the country's independence in 1975.
Exhibit Preview (news) | The Transforming Arts of Papua New Guinea (online resource) | Exhibit Photo Gallery
Children Just Like Me
Children Just Like Me is an engaging, hands-on exhibit that invites young museum visitors to learn about the diversity of world cultures by meeting peers who live in different countries around the globe. In addition, this unique exhibit also reveals how many children, regardless of where they live, hold important aspects of life in common.
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Calypso Music in Postwar America: Photographs and Illustrations, 1945-1960
Calypso Music in Postwar America explores the major impact of Trinidadian calypso on the popular culture of the United States between 1945 and 1960. Rare photographs and promotional graphics are used to trace calypso in phonograph recordings, song publishing, nightclub acts, concerts, Broadway shows and Hollywood movies.
Qak'aslem, Qakem: Kaqchikel Maya Weavings
Three Maya woven textiles, each piece representing a different village in the Kaqchikel-speaking region of Guatemala, are featured in this exhibit of recent acquisitions. One of these pieces, a po't (shirt) of brilliant flowers, is a commissioned work, woven for the Museum by Magda Silvia Sotz Mux of San Juan Comalapa.
Ancient Egypt: The Origins
Some of the most fundamental and fascinating aspects of the ancient Egyptian civilization can only be understood by looking deep into Egypt's past. Hallmarks of Egyptian culture - from pyramids and hieroglyphic writing to the belief in the afterlife and fervent nationalism - can be traced in an unbroken line back to Egypt's earliest periods. this exhibition explores the prehistoric Nile Valley and illustrates the origins of ancient Egypt through its material culture. "Ancient Egypt: The Origins" features artifacts on loan by the Brooklyn Museum. The exhibit is supported in part by the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency. The exhibit is curated by Douglas Brewer.
Uncovering Life's Third Domain: The Discovery of Archaea
This exhibit showcases some of the original tools used by Professor Carl R. Woese, 2003 recipient of the Crafoord Prize, and the team of scientists at the University of Illinois-Champaign who conducted groundbreaking work in the use of molecular signatures to map the evolutionary history of life. The work of this team led, eventually, to the discovery of the Archaea, the third domain of life.
Why Knot?
For at least 20,000 years, human beings have manipulated fibers of many kinds to construct objects that are highly diverse in form and function. In Why Knot? the Spurlock Museum celebrates these artifacts and the skilled craftspeople who create them.
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Where Animals Dance
Where Animals Dance is a discussion of contemporary masquerading traditions of West Africa, featuring masks and related shrine artifacts and focusing on the place of these traditions in belief, social structure, and daily life. The ethnicities being discussed include Bamana, Baga, Nuna, Toma, and Bobo. The exhibit also includes discussion of the Ciwara complex, age sets, secret societies, and initiation practices.
Rainforest Visions
This exhibition focuses on artistic representations by contemporary South American indigenous people of ecological, mythical, and cosmic spirit forces in their lives. The focal people whose myths and narratives provide the basis for the imagery are the Canelos Quichua of Amazonian Ecuador. Complementary artifacts come from the Achuar, Tigua, and Chachi of Ecuador, the Shipibo-Conibo of Peru, the Waounam and Emberá of Colombia and Panama, the Tukuna of Colombia and Brazil, and the Yekuana of Venezuela.
Visions of the Unseen: Picturing Balinese Ceremony and Myth
Explore a collection of paintings and sculptures that reveals the link between an invisible world of gods and demons and the visible world of Balinese people, ceremony, and everyday life.
Digging Barbarians
Historians talk about the "decline and fall" of the Roman Empire. But during the chaotic period between 400 and 500 CE, the line between Roman and barbarian were often blurred. Learn more about this interesting period of history in the exhibit Digging Barbarians, located in the Museum's Gallery of European Cultures. The exhibit focuses on life in early medieval France with highlighted artifacts from the Museum's extensive collection from this period.
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Following the Paper Trail from China to the World
Paper is integral to every aspect of human life. Following the Paper Trail from China to the World tracks paper from its invention in China to its modern uses around the world.
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A Celebration of Souls: Day of the Dead in Southern Mexico
This colorful bilingual exhibition examines the complex and rich histories of honoring the dead in ancient Mesoamerica, the labor of love involved in these diverse rituals, and the spiritual importance of this holiday in rural Mexico today.
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Illinois: An Epic Landscape
The exhibit Illinois: An Epic Landscape highlights the stunning array of biological diversity found in Illinois, and targets the unique Cache River basin.
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The American Indian Center of Chicago Celebrates 50 Years of Powwow
Through images, videos, and artifacts, the exhibit highlights the vibrant sights and sounds of this American Indian arts and culture celebration.
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Korean Dolls: A Celebration of Life
Korean dollmakers come together each year to display their unique creations: vibrant, mulberry paper dolls fashioned to depict important events and scenes of everyday life. This exhibit displays the creations of Soon Oak Kim, whose dolls have been shown throughout Korea.
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Luxurious Layers: Kimonos of the Heian Court
The sense of Heian style and color are beautifully reflected in the multi-layered kimono worn by members of the Court. Kimono creation and symbolism, court life, and the modern continuation of kimono traditions are topics discussed among the layers of wondrous silk on display.
Beethoven and the Creative Process
This exhibit illuminates this extraordinary creative process through first edition scores and sketches from a major work, the Missa solemnis. A lock of the composer's hair will also be on display.
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Trading in the Bronze Age
This exhibit discusses sea trade among the cultures of the Mediterranean and highlights the archaeological work that has uncovered material evidence for this era of history.
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The Horowitz Collection of Memorial Brass Rubbings
Starting early in the 13th century, the wealthy of England began using brass engravings as grave markers. The images in this exhibit take their name, brass rubbings, from the process of rubbing wax against paper placed over the original brasses, and provide a visual record of 350 years of these engravings.