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Barry
Barker and Peter
Seddon, as part of their work around
curatorial interventions for the CCVA, have been
offered the opportunity to mount a ‘curatorial intervention/exhibition’ by
the Musee des Beaux Arts in Nimes in November 2007.
Intervention is a strange word to use perhaps, after all are not all
temporary exhibitions in museums ‘interventions’ into their spaces and
collections? Nevertheless the word does point towards certain approaches
not quite covered by words such as ‘site- specific’, or ‘installation’ or
‘curated exhibition,’ all of which carry implications in today’s art world
that do not quite cover the didactic intent and manipulation of the word
‘intervention’.
The intervention at Nimes will centre on a
large salon history painting in the 19th century rooms of the collection by
Paul Delaroche. Painted in 1831 and depicting
“Cromwell gazing at the beheaded corpse of Charles 1st in his coffin after
his execution”, this painting was dispatched to the Museum at Nimes shortly
after its exhibition at the Paris Salon of 1832, where it has remained
displayed on the museum walls ever since. Delaroche
is perhaps most famous for his remark in the 1840’s about photography which
was that “from today painting is dead”. The intervention at Nimes will reflect on
death and corpses in a number of different cultural senses.
Barker and Seddon will
display a number of items and texts around this painting in the 19th
century galleries at Nimes. The principal
one will be a large digital projection of an image of Cromwell’s own head as
it was photographed in the 1950’s adjacent to or near the painting. It may
not be commonly known that Britain’s premier republican was, after his
death in 1658, dug up at the Restoration of 1660 and his body displayed on
a gibbet, his head cut off and displayed on the roof of Westminster hall as
a warning to all would be King killers. The head passed down the
generations as a cabinet curiosity only to be finally reburied in 1960 in a
secret location in the grounds of his old college Sidney Sussex, Cambridge. Though based on
still photographs the image will be digitally manipulated to twitch
occasionally as an unnerving contrast to the absolute stillness of the
painting.
Barker and Seddon over the
Spring and Summer terms of the last academic year have made research visits
to Nimes, Sidney Sussex
and the Museum of London, all institutions
that will participate in the exhibition through both lending items and by
making their archives of Cromwelliana available
for research towards the event. Dr Nicholas Rodgers, curator of the Muniment Room, and secretary to the College Council,
took the photograph illustrating this short article. It shows Barker and Seddon either side of an 18th century bust of Cromwell
held by the College and also an item to be installed in the Nimes exhibition. The
intervention, in addition, will make use of a painting in Sidney Sussex of
Cromwell’s head made in 1799 and of graphic items and a further painting of
the 1660’s from the Museum of London that depicts
Charles 1st after death with his head sown back on! All this might seem
grotesque, gratuitously gruesome and bizarre but the two heads of Cromwell
and Charles still carry a substantial charge over
the centuries.
The exhibition will deal with a number of interlinked art historical, historiographic
and cultural concerns between England and France. There is the
issue of looking and the unreturned gaze for example, and the bringing
together of 17th, 19th and 21st century art in a manner that positions work
differently for museum audiences. Delaroche’s
painting depicts an incident described by Francois Guizot
a government minister in France at the time and
an historian. He was born in Nimes. Cromwell also
has a personal connection with Nimes since he
threatened to intervene when Nimes City Council tried to expel Protestant
representatives. Unfortunately, unlike the more famous case of the Savoy, Cromwell’s
minister for Latin tongues, Milton, did not produce
a sonnet on the subject.
Pascal Tarieux, the resident curator at the Musee des Beaux Arts is enthusiastic about a project
that dwells on one of the best-known holdings in its collection as well as
connections between French and British history. Barker and Seddon are also working on a publication to accompany
the exhibition with essays by them and a number of other authors, among who
will be Stephen Bann, Britain’s foremost expert
on the work of Delaroche. The exhibition is due
to open in November 2007 and will last for the month.
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