One-of-a-kind exhibit on Byzantium to open in London next month
It was clear from the press conference that the exhibition «Byzantium 330-1453» is a major event. The hall at the Benaki Museum was full of journalists and, in the front rows, members of the exhibition’s honorary committee and of the Benaki Museum’s board of directors wore happy smiles. The Royal Academy of Arts in London, with the collaboration of the Benaki Museum, Athens, is organizing an exhibition on Byzantium from its founding until its fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. «This history spans 11 centuries and is presented in nine sections,» said Professor Maria Vassilaki, who is curating the exhibition along with Professor Robin Cormack of London’s Courtauld Institute (who was absent on Wednesday due to other obligations in the USA). On the panel was Charles Saumarez Smith, chief executive of the Royal Academy of Arts, along with Aimila Yeroulanou, president of the Benaki’s board of trustees, and Benaki Museum director Angelos Delivorrias. «It took the Metropolitan Museum three exhibitions to present Byzantium; we will do it in one,» Smith said. This is the first time that the Royal Academy of Arts is collaborating in this way with a foreign institution. The exhibition will run from October 25 to March 22, 2009. Charles, the Prince of Wales, is its patron. The exhibition is supported by the J.F. Costopoulos Foundation, the A.G. Leventis Foundation and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
