The writer and broadcaster Ian Hislop has long been recognised as one the UK’s leading satirists. His subversive take on life can now be seen at the British Museum’s I Object: Ian Hislop’s Search for Dissent exhibition (until 20 January 2019), which he has guest-curated.
Hislop was supported by Tom Hockenhull, the curator of modern money at the British Museum, but it is the Private Eye editor who is the public face of the exhibition – he appears in video content, lends his voice to audio pieces and provides written commentary on items alongside the museum’s descriptions.
Linking Hislop’s name with the subject matter was clever branding on the museum’s part and there’s no doubt his involvement has been crucial in making the exhibition a hit.
The same can be said of Hever Castle & Gardens in Kent and the recent restorative work on its Tudor Long Gallery with the historian and broadcaster David Starkey. Duncan Leslie, the chief executive of Hever, says the new gallery is Starkey’s brainchild. “David said, ‘You’ve got such a great Tudor portrait collection, we could tell the story of the Tudors with Tudor pictures’, so I think we have to give him the main credit,” Leslie says.
Starkey used his wealth of knowledge on the period to put together a permanent display of how the Tudors would view portraiture in their time. The historian does have prior experience with curating exhibitions and Hever Castle is his seventh.
“I see every exhibition that I have curated as reflecting my expertise,” Starkey says. “The first one I did, I put on an exhibition myself with
a single researcher in six months and worked myself into acute dermatitis.”
Leslie says Starkey’s broadcasting fame and approach to history has been beneficial to the project.
“It’s not just that he has an encyclopaedic mind, it’s the fact that he makes history digestible to a range of people on lots of levels,” Leslie says. The partnership with Starkey seems to have paid off, with visitor numbers increasing significantly between the opening on 4 October and the start of half-term.
Of course, such collaborations are a chance for the celebrity to learn about running an exhibition. York Art Gallery’s upcoming exhibition When All Is Quiet – Kaiser Chiefs in Conversation with York Art Gallery sees the platinum- selling rock band making one of the gallery’s first full exhibitions based around sound art, including a silent gig using light and colour instead of sound.
“It’s not advertising them as such, but rather advertising them as creative practitioners and thinking about art as a part of music, and how we can juxtapose and link the two together,” says Fiona Green, the collections facilitator at York Art Gallery.
Of course, there have been collaborations with celebrities that smack of publicity stunts – Sotheby’s 2015 auction in partnership with the rapper Drake could fall into this category, as he had never shown any interest in art dealing and the auction house was just beginning its private sales business at the time.
Hislop was supported by Tom Hockenhull, the curator of modern money at the British Museum, but it is the Private Eye editor who is the public face of the exhibition – he appears in video content, lends his voice to audio pieces and provides written commentary on items alongside the museum’s descriptions.
The British Museum director, Hartwig Fischer, says Hislop, perhaps best known as a panel member on the BBC television programme Have I Got News for You, is better placed than anyone to help the museum find stories of dissent often hidden in the collection.
The exhibition uses the museum’s artefacts to interpret the ways in which people have protested against authority over more than 2,000 years, presenting a way of interpreting history that subverts traditional representations of great civilisations and their straight- faced accomplishments.
Linking Hislop’s name with the subject matter was clever branding on the museum’s part and there’s no doubt his involvement has been crucial in making the exhibition a hit.
The same can be said of Hever Castle & Gardens in Kent and the recent restorative work on its Tudor Long Gallery with the historian and broadcaster David Starkey. Duncan Leslie, the chief executive of Hever, says the new gallery is Starkey’s brainchild. “David said, ‘You’ve got such a great Tudor portrait collection, we could tell the story of the Tudors with Tudor pictures’, so I think we have to give him the main credit,” Leslie says.
Starkey used his wealth of knowledge on the period to put together a permanent display of how the Tudors would view portraiture in their time. The historian does have prior experience with curating exhibitions and Hever Castle is his seventh.
“I see every exhibition that I have curated as reflecting my expertise,” Starkey says. “The first one I did, I put on an exhibition myself with
a single researcher in six months and worked myself into acute dermatitis.”
Leslie says Starkey’s broadcasting fame and approach to history has been beneficial to the project.
“It’s not just that he has an encyclopaedic mind, it’s the fact that he makes history digestible to a range of people on lots of levels,” Leslie says. The partnership with Starkey seems to have paid off, with visitor numbers increasing significantly between the opening on 4 October and the start of half-term.
Of course, such collaborations are a chance for the celebrity to learn about running an exhibition. York Art Gallery’s upcoming exhibition When All Is Quiet – Kaiser Chiefs in Conversation with York Art Gallery sees the platinum- selling rock band making one of the gallery’s first full exhibitions based around sound art, including a silent gig using light and colour instead of sound.
“It’s not advertising them as such, but rather advertising them as creative practitioners and thinking about art as a part of music, and how we can juxtapose and link the two together,” says Fiona Green, the collections facilitator at York Art Gallery.
Of course, there have been collaborations with celebrities that smack of publicity stunts – Sotheby’s 2015 auction in partnership with the rapper Drake could fall into this category, as he had never shown any interest in art dealing and the auction house was just beginning its private sales business at the time.
But the examples featured here show that museums can use the knowledge and skills of a celebrity to create compelling exhibitions that have the added bonus of being easy to publicise as a result.
Jasper Hart is a freelance writer
