The Archaeological Museum of Madrid (MAR) has closed this weekend the exhibition 'Idols. Millennial Glances'. The exhibition, co-organised with the Provincial Archaeological Museum of Alicante (MARQ), has achieved nearly 45,000 visits in its first two venues, since its inauguration in January 2020. The dismantling and packing of the pieces will begin today in order to transfer them to the National Museum of Archaeology of Portugal (MNA), in Lisbon, where they will be exhibited until next year. 12 October.
The Vice-President and Member of Parliament for Culture, Julia ParraHe explained that "it is a singular and unique project in which 16 Spanish museums and 13 Portuguese museums will participate; the latter will increase their presence, notably enriching an exhibition that will form part of the cultural programme that will be promoted in the first half of 2021, coinciding with Portugal holding the rotating presidency of the European Union".
The exhibition, curated by Primitiva Bueno RamirezProfessor of Prehistory at the University of Alcalá, and Jorge A. Soler DíazThe exhibition was inaugurated in January 2020 in Alicante, where it could be visited until 5 July. The Regional Archaeological Museum of the Community of Madrid hosted the exhibition between 28 July last year and yesterday, Sunday 10 January, although the storm prevented the opening of the facilities this past weekend.
Idols, the result of collaboration between the MARQ and the MAR, reveals the earliest artistic expressions of the human figure and face on supports as diverse as stone, ceramics, bone, ivory and gold. It brings together pieces from the prehistory in the Iberian Peninsulabetween 3,300 and 2,500 B.C., with the origin of religiosity, social hierarchisation or neolithic survival as protagonists.
The exhibition brings together 226 pieces from more than twenty museums and collections in Spain and Portugal.l, including the National Archaeological Museum, the Museum of Huelva, the Museum of Jaén, the Archaeological Museum of Seville, the Archaeological and Ethnological Museum of Córdoba, the Provincial Archaeological Museum of Badajoz, the Museum of Valladolid, the Museo de Prehistoria de Valencia, the Museo Arqueológico Provincial de Alicante, the Museu Arqueològic Camil Visedo Moltó de Alcoi, the Museo Municipal de Lorca, the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia de Lisboa, Colección ERA and the Museo Arqueológico Regional de Madrid.
The exhibition has been designed by the architect from Elche. Angel Rocamora and has the support of different audiovisuals directed by the Alicante-born Gustavo VílchezThe exhibition and the research process of the idols are presented and their significance is evoked.
