38 It will also take a comprehensive historical approach that includes contemporary creations, many of which were commissioned specifically for the show. Another first for the British Museum is its current exhibition on Pacific Island tapa, which will be on view until August 16, 2015. Given the almost nine hundred examples it has in its collection, most of which are very old, the museum had the wherewithal to be selective for this project. Shifting Patterns: Pacific Barkcloth Clothing features seventy-seven examples of clothing, headgear, masks, and ornaments from New Guinea to Easter Island, by way of Hawaii and New Zealand. The show’s curators place emphasis on the objects’ traditional social and cultural contexts but also examine how more recent developments associated with colonization have altered their forms and uses. The exhibition has the added benefit of having motivated the institution to launch a restoration and conservation effort in the interest of preserving these often fragile and ephemeral works of art. MUSEUM news OCEANIC SPRING AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM London—Two shows held by the British Museum make a visit to that venerable institution a must this spring. Both focus on the arts of the Pacific, an area that, despite its remarkable collection, the museum has not maintained a permanent display of since the closing of the Museum of Mankind in 1996. Opening April 23 and on view until August 2, 2015, the museum will be holding a major exhibition on Australian Aboriginal art, the first of its kind ever to be held in England. The colonization of Australia is closely associated with England, of course, since it played a key role in the Western discovery and exploration of the “island continent” and, tragically, also in the decimation of its Native cultures. Titled Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilization, this will be a rare opportunity for the public to see the museum’s remarkable collection of Australian art, the oldest pieces of which were brought to England as early as the 1770s. The exhibition will also feature works lent by a variety of other prestigious institutions such as the British Library, the Pitt-Rivers Museum, and the Cambridge Museum. Together, these objects will present a sweeping artistic panorama of mainland Australian material culture, as well as of works from the islands of the Torres Strait. Above: Barkcloth, kua’ula. Hawaii. Late 18th century. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Left: Hula dancers from the group Hālau Nā Kipuʻupuʻu, Kaʻauea, Hawaii, 2011. © Dino Morrow. Above: Pearlshell decorated with dancing figures. Kimberley region, Western Australia. Before 1926. Shell, charcoal. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Left: Mask. Torres Strait, Queensland, Australia, before 1855. Tortoise shell, shell, fiber. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Left: Wedding dress by Samoan designer Paula Chan Cheuk, 2014. Commissioned with funds from the New Zealand Society UK and private funds. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Below: Kunmanara Hogan, Tjaruwa Woods, Yarangka Thomas, Estelle Hogan, Ngalpingka Simms, and Myrtle Pennington, Kungkarangkalpa, 2013. Acrylic on canvas. © the artists, reproduced by permission of the Spinifex Arts Project.
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