If Museums Journal reviewers attended press previews, I would have avoided the cattle crush of this exhibition.
I have never witnessed such open discontent from visitors, with raised voices telling dawdlers to get out of the way, a pushchair shoved aside by an incensed visitor and one woman turning spontaneously to me and declaring with ironic understatement that they “could do better”.
The British Museum has trumpeted this as its first major exhibition on Vikings for more than 30 years. In fact, when I was there several visitors remembered the 1980 show and were drawing unfavourable comparisons to anyone who would listen.
The very lifeblood has been drained from what should have been a dramatic, visually arresting topic. Vikings: Life and Legend has been superbly marketed, but the end product is a letdown.
This is a three-venue exhibition so, in fairness, the responsibility is shared with co-curators in Copenhagen and Berlin, but the disappointment is more remarkable because this is the British Museum’s first show in the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery, which is part of the £135m World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre.
This purpose-built 1,100sq m space, accessed from the corner of the Great Court, was meant to solve the problem our premier national museum had in staging blockbusters.
The idea is that the space is a blank canvas that does not intrude on the exhibition within and provides maximum flexibility to show large items. But the layout of Vikings: Life and Legend does not make best use of these new opportunities.
On entering, visitors are funnelled into a cramped bottleneck, home to a ship-shaped brooch, which is beautiful but far too small to grab the attention.
Another form of vessel (a small bowl) followed, but it seemed a bit random and I was already wondering as to the whereabouts of the large objects promised.
The labelling, set too low and too small to be read at a distance, is obscured by visitors for at least the first third of the exhibition. The large space above the displays that could have been used to solve this has been ignored.
One of the reasons for the crowding was the struggle some visitors were clearly having in identifying which caption related to which object. These do not necessarily “speak for themselves” and clearer labelling, with greater use of explanatory diagrams, could have brought them to life.
Vikings features archaeological discoveries never seen before in the UK, but visitors might not realise this. I initially failed to notice the Vale of York Hoard, shown in its entirety for the first time since its discovery in 2007, and had to double back to find it.
This exhibit is highlighted by a label with bright yellow background, but this visual technique is used inconsistently through the exhibition; elsewhere it denotes literary quotations or items for handling.
At one point, luxury goods are shown against rich red fabric but much of the exhibition features drab grey-green backdrops which, for a new display space open less than a week, were already surprisingly marked, a fault less acceptable than the highly visible finger marks on much of the glass.
I expected to see the colour of blood, the brightness of fire, the vast azure expanse of the sea, but I mostly saw the same dull grey.
The central problem of the opening half, apart from its layout, is that, having defined Vikings as “pirates/raiders”, the storyline attempts instead a potted history of all the contemporary cultures across most of the known world.
This attempt to portray the “Viking World” as a concept in its own right, a cultural melting pot, risks either dilution or confusion of the central message – is this really the exhibition to tell us that Byzantium was a coin-based economy?
It falls apart when a caption admits that west of Iceland “cultural contacts” were somewhat lacking.
In a remarkable article published in the Evening Standard prior to the opening of the exhibition, academic medievalist David Dumville appealed for “the bloody truth” to be told and for a renewed emphasis on the “evil” and terror that the Viking lifestyle brought with it.
This exhibition has, rightly, far more to say on peaceful factors such as trade, but is surely mistaken in implying that this is a revisionist view; it’s what most Dark Age scholars have been arguing for four decades.
The second half of the exhibition expands into the large space I’d anticipated.
Ironically, amid all this space, a criticism might be the paucity of exhibits. Certainly some of the smaller coins and amulets appear lost in their showcases.
Fortunately, they are presented more satisfyingly in the excellent catalogue, which does a much better job of explaining the rationale behind the exhibition.
I found Roskilde 6, an 11th-century Viking ship and the centrepiece of the show, underwhelming. The ship comprises no more than one-fifth of an original sea-going vessel, and is overwhelmed by its modern supporting cradle, likened by some critics to an Ikea flat-pack structure.
There are very few positions where you can elevate yourself enough to see the original wooden timbers over this.
Previously, the British Museum would not have had the space to show an item this length, but visitors would do better to visit Roskilde's Viking Ship Museum in Denmark itself, where for decades they have displayed shorter but otherwise far more complete and spectacular ships.
Some individual components from other ships, displayed along the right-hand wall, work well as an exhibition in their own right and my personal favourite is a much smaller ship from Shetland that is well-presented.
This includes commentary in local Norse-influenced dialect, which is somehow completely intelligible. It is one of the few uses of multi-sensory interpretation and is remarkably effective, as well as proof that the largest exhibits are not always the biggest draw.
Neil Handley is the museum curator at the College of Optometrists, London
I have never witnessed such open discontent from visitors, with raised voices telling dawdlers to get out of the way, a pushchair shoved aside by an incensed visitor and one woman turning spontaneously to me and declaring with ironic understatement that they “could do better”.
The British Museum has trumpeted this as its first major exhibition on Vikings for more than 30 years. In fact, when I was there several visitors remembered the 1980 show and were drawing unfavourable comparisons to anyone who would listen.
The very lifeblood has been drained from what should have been a dramatic, visually arresting topic. Vikings: Life and Legend has been superbly marketed, but the end product is a letdown.
This is a three-venue exhibition so, in fairness, the responsibility is shared with co-curators in Copenhagen and Berlin, but the disappointment is more remarkable because this is the British Museum’s first show in the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery, which is part of the £135m World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre.
This purpose-built 1,100sq m space, accessed from the corner of the Great Court, was meant to solve the problem our premier national museum had in staging blockbusters.
The idea is that the space is a blank canvas that does not intrude on the exhibition within and provides maximum flexibility to show large items. But the layout of Vikings: Life and Legend does not make best use of these new opportunities.
On entering, visitors are funnelled into a cramped bottleneck, home to a ship-shaped brooch, which is beautiful but far too small to grab the attention.
Another form of vessel (a small bowl) followed, but it seemed a bit random and I was already wondering as to the whereabouts of the large objects promised.
The labelling, set too low and too small to be read at a distance, is obscured by visitors for at least the first third of the exhibition. The large space above the displays that could have been used to solve this has been ignored.
One of the reasons for the crowding was the struggle some visitors were clearly having in identifying which caption related to which object. These do not necessarily “speak for themselves” and clearer labelling, with greater use of explanatory diagrams, could have brought them to life.
Vikings features archaeological discoveries never seen before in the UK, but visitors might not realise this. I initially failed to notice the Vale of York Hoard, shown in its entirety for the first time since its discovery in 2007, and had to double back to find it.
This exhibit is highlighted by a label with bright yellow background, but this visual technique is used inconsistently through the exhibition; elsewhere it denotes literary quotations or items for handling.
At one point, luxury goods are shown against rich red fabric but much of the exhibition features drab grey-green backdrops which, for a new display space open less than a week, were already surprisingly marked, a fault less acceptable than the highly visible finger marks on much of the glass.
I expected to see the colour of blood, the brightness of fire, the vast azure expanse of the sea, but I mostly saw the same dull grey.
The central problem of the opening half, apart from its layout, is that, having defined Vikings as “pirates/raiders”, the storyline attempts instead a potted history of all the contemporary cultures across most of the known world.
This attempt to portray the “Viking World” as a concept in its own right, a cultural melting pot, risks either dilution or confusion of the central message – is this really the exhibition to tell us that Byzantium was a coin-based economy?
It falls apart when a caption admits that west of Iceland “cultural contacts” were somewhat lacking.
In a remarkable article published in the Evening Standard prior to the opening of the exhibition, academic medievalist David Dumville appealed for “the bloody truth” to be told and for a renewed emphasis on the “evil” and terror that the Viking lifestyle brought with it.
This exhibition has, rightly, far more to say on peaceful factors such as trade, but is surely mistaken in implying that this is a revisionist view; it’s what most Dark Age scholars have been arguing for four decades.
The second half of the exhibition expands into the large space I’d anticipated.
Ironically, amid all this space, a criticism might be the paucity of exhibits. Certainly some of the smaller coins and amulets appear lost in their showcases.
Fortunately, they are presented more satisfyingly in the excellent catalogue, which does a much better job of explaining the rationale behind the exhibition.
I found Roskilde 6, an 11th-century Viking ship and the centrepiece of the show, underwhelming. The ship comprises no more than one-fifth of an original sea-going vessel, and is overwhelmed by its modern supporting cradle, likened by some critics to an Ikea flat-pack structure.
There are very few positions where you can elevate yourself enough to see the original wooden timbers over this.
Previously, the British Museum would not have had the space to show an item this length, but visitors would do better to visit Roskilde's Viking Ship Museum in Denmark itself, where for decades they have displayed shorter but otherwise far more complete and spectacular ships.
Some individual components from other ships, displayed along the right-hand wall, work well as an exhibition in their own right and my personal favourite is a much smaller ship from Shetland that is well-presented.
This includes commentary in local Norse-influenced dialect, which is somehow completely intelligible. It is one of the few uses of multi-sensory interpretation and is remarkably effective, as well as proof that the largest exhibits are not always the biggest draw.
Neil Handley is the museum curator at the College of Optometrists, London
Project data
- Cost Undisclosed
- Sponsor BP
- Partners National Museum of Denmark; Berlin State Museums
- Exhibition design FRK Architects
- Project management British Museum
- Graphic design British Museum
- Lighting design Studio ZNA
- Digital media design Elbow Productions
- Construction Benchworks
- Showcase construction ClickNetherfield; Moylan Displays
- Graphic production Service Graphics; Halcyon Design
- Digital media hardware Sysco
- Cost planning PT projects
- CDM Peter Harris
- Object mounts Colin Linley; British Museum
- Tactile objects Topografik
- Metal mount for Roskilde 6 Herfølge Kleinsmedie
- Fine art transport Momart
- Multimedia and audioguides Kate Paul; Pippa Vaughan; Wardour Studios; British Museum
- Tactile and Braille book production RNIB
- Family guide design Anna Wilkinson
- Exhibition ends 22 June
