New ROM exhibits showcase Greek and Indian artistry

History, freedom and artistry are the ties that bind two seemingly diverse exhibits that opened at the Royal Ontario Museum this week: the ancient Kore 670 sculpture from Greece and Swapnaa Tamhane’s textile installations created in 2020, the “Mobile Palace.”

“The Kore 670 was shattered into pieces 2,500 years ago by an invading force that sought to overthrow a fragile democracy,” said Victor Maligoudis, the consul general of Greece in Toronto. “She survived and travels today to convey the message that no force can ever subdue the minds of free people.”

Similarly, Tamhane’s modern “Mobile Palace” and bazaar speak of freedom from colonial rule, giving the people of India responsibility for their own destiny.

Kore translates as maiden and Kore 670 is the elegant sculpture of a young girl, perhaps 12 or 13, created in 520 to 510 BCE, during the Archaic Age. She was an offering to Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom, war and handicrafts, and the daughter of Zeus. In ancient Greece, wealthy Athenian families would pay to have korai sculpted to honour Athena, the patroness of their city. They would place them on pedestals at the Acropolis, the city’s hilltop citadel that was home to a temple dedicated to Athena.

“They were like a forest dotting the temple, along with other offerings,” said Paul Denis, the ROM’s assistant curator of Greek, Etruscan, Roman and Byzantine art and culture.

Unfortunately, conflict came to the goddess of war’s city 30 years later. The Persians defeated Athens in 480 BCE and left the two temples on the Acropolis in ruins. When the site was cleared of rubble afterward, 14 korai, including Kore 670, were buried together underground.

Nearly 2,000 years later, in 1821, Greece gained its independence and archeologists began flocking to the country to search for its historical artifacts. In 1886, Greek archeologist Panagiotis Kavvadias and his team, who scientifically excavated every inch of Acropolis soil, discovered the 14 buried korai near the Erechtheum. The ruins of this “newer” temple to Athena (built 421 to 405 BCE) now stand on the Acropolis. At the time, the korai were in pieces, but their traditional bright colours shone.

Exposure to the air and the elements since then has caused Kore 670’s colours to fade: her blue crown now a grey-green, as are the blue flowers on her kiton, the draped gown she wears. Her hair still sports the red underpainting of what was once brown hair.

Sculptures in ancient Greece weren’t considered finished, Denis said, until they were painted, a concept that should cause us to rethink our view of antiquities. As 20th-century French novelist and statesman André Malraux observed, “Athens was never white, but her statues, bereft of colours, have conditioned the sensibilities of Europe … the whole past has reached us colourless.”

Faded or not, she is magnificent. Her body, sculpted of marble from the Greek islands, appears ready to come alive. The waves of her hair flow down her back; the buttons on her sleeves seemingly hold her kiton in place and the folds of her gown drape elegantly across her body.

The loan of Kore 670 to the ROM from the Acropolis Museum is an honour few nations can claim; she has previously been displayed only at the Hermitage in Russia and in Shanghai. Her visit celebrates 80 years of Canada-Greece trade and she will remain in Toronto until Sept. 25. The ROM will return the favour by sending two ancient Greek vases from its collection to Athens for the summer.

Two floors above, textile installations by Swapnaa Tamhane, a Toronto artist now based in Montreal, pay modern homage to the ancient art of textile printing using motifs drawn from 20th-century post-colonial architecture. Walking into the gallery, the visitor is immersed in a riot of colour as printed cotton banners float across the ceiling, hang like drapes and form a tent. They hearken back to the mobile palaces that rulers would use when touring their kingdoms.

“This is about architecture turned into ornament and cotton as a material that discusses colonization and decolonization,” said Tamhane, noting that cotton fabric was a staple in India long before the British learned to make it more cheaply during the Industrial Revolution, using cotton picked by slaves in the Americas.

The architectural motifs, inspired by a 1950s Le Corbusier building in India, the Ahmedabad Textile Mill Owners’ Association House, were designed by Tamhane and brought to life by Indian artists: the blocks hand-chiseled, printed by hand on Indian cotton and hand-embroidered by a women’s collective.

“By using machine-made cotton, she also demonstrates that the industrial and the handmade can coexist,” said Deepali Dewan, the ROM’s Dan Mishra curator of South Asian art and culture. “The play of colour and light shows that all of us are now welcome.”

Past and present, freedom and colour come together in striking but different ways in these two enticing exhibits. Don’t miss them.