| Dierdre Lawrence: Perhaps we can start by your telling me which images in Egypt Through Other Eyes you found most intriguing, or which theme. Timothy Hull: I can’t remember an exact piece, well, maybe I do…. I remember being drawn to a poster about an exposition of Egyptian artifacts. I was fascinated with the idea of Egyptian artifacts being used as a type of spectacle or a latter-day cabinet of curiosities. In my recent show at Freight + Volume I tried to channel that sentiment, and in that channeling, find a space that is both serious and ironic. |
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Conversations with Deirdre Lawrence, Head Librarian, The Brooklyn Museum, Autumn 2007
Dierdre Lawrence: Perhaps we can start by your telling me which images in Egypt Through Other Eyes you found most intriguing, or which theme.
Timothy Hull: I can’t remember an exact piece, well, maybe I do…. I remember being drawn to a poster about an exposition of Egyptian artifacts. I was fascinated with the idea of Egyptian artifacts being used as a type of spectacle or a latter-day cabinet of curiosities. In my recent show at Freight + Volume I tried to channel that sentiment, and in that channeling, find a space that is both serious and ironic.
I find that people are still drawn to Egypt for myriad reasons…there are still so many unknown aspects of Ancient Egypt. Essentially Ancient Egypt was a death cult, and I think people are perennially obsessed with death and immortality. Do you think that the Victorian Age, which was totally in the throes of the Industrial Revolution, was fascinated so deeply with Egypt because of its assumed magic and mysticism, which seem wholly unlinked to the idea of the Age of Enlightenment and Industrialization?
DL: The first major exhibition of Egyptian antiquities in North America was the Stuyvesant Institute. Anyone who was anyone went to see it and probably met the collector—Dr. Henry Abbott. In a way his collection and the fascination around the objects closely resembled the 16th-century cabinet of curiosities, or Wunderkammer. I am very interested in the idea of the Wunderkammer both on a historical and contemporary level: it really is the nexus and genesis of museums and libraries we know today. It is also a wonderful indicator of taste at a specific moment in time.
When we were putting the exhibition together I became very excited about Walt Whitman’s fascination with Abbott and Egypt in general. As for Egypt in the public consciousness, there is a very strong interest in Ancient Egypt and its influences on our daily lives in terms of objects that we look at and live with. We had a terrific response to Egypt Through Other Eyes. People loved seeing the older volumes—Horapollo, the Description, Belzoni’s work—and the idea that 19th-century scholars actually captured the images and colors that still appeared on the monuments when they visited Egypt. These images and colors were then seen by designers, and Egyptomania was officially born and lives on today. I do think that the Victorians were drawn to Egypt for a variety of reasons: learning about history, travel to an exotic place either by getting on a boat or by reading a book (armchair traveling), the fascination with “the other" evidenced by the interest generated through the world’s fairs and other public exhibits.
TH: I remember reading about Walt Whitman’s fascination with Egypt, especially after he saw the Abbott Collection. It is interesting to see how he used Egyptian gods and ideas in his poetry to express a latent spirituality, or to explicate the ideal of “the other.” That lead me to wonder to what extent Egyptian myth and mystery influenced the Transcendentalists, who although proto-Whitman, seemed to revel in ideas of ancient i.e. (more pure) spirituality and esotericism.…
I’ve been developing this hare-brained idea that Americans, or moreover Western Christians, are perennially fascinated with Ancient Egypt because its death cult obsessed with resurrection and life after death. There are many aspects of Egyptian death and burial practices that seem like precursors or correlations to Christianity. Obviously Christians do not objectify the body after death—although Catholicism relies heavily on the corpses of deceased saints for intercession—but Christianity believes in a paradisiacal existence after death, and that life on earth is merely a preparation or a way-station into death, which is eternal. This must account for the obsession with Ancient Egypt, because we’re far less concerned and obsessed with ancient Babylon or Assyria or ancient China or other cultures from antiquity. Do you find this to be true? Do you think this is a plausible reason as to why Egypt is so compelling not only aesthetically, but spiritually?
Do you think that Egyptomania is on the wane because of a larger secularization of the country and Western culture? I mean, even though the Tut exhibit is still a blockbuster, it’s not as pervasive in the larger pop culture in it’s more pure or austere state. I mean, Egyptomania now is rather kitschy and gaudy, no?
DL: The topics of Ancient Egypt and Walt Whitman are huge and are not so easy to address. First of all, let me say how much I enjoyed seeing your exhibition and looking at the "catalogue" you produced to accompany the show. I was pulled into your patterned drawings, which I think successfully incorporated imagery and sensibilities found in books and photos of the original monuments and of the people who so-called "discovered" the tombs, temples, pyramids and other physical remnants of this great civilization. You very successfully made connections between what you saw in Egypt and the people who sought to document what they saw through their colonial perspective.
TH: Can you tell me how Gertrude Stein inspired your work? The Shelley poem is one of many that inspired visions of a civilization gone now, and we are left with remnants—monuments, objects, texts—that quietly speak about the people who lived. Since the Ancient Egyptians were so invested in the afterlife we are blessed with a great deal of physical evidence about them as compared to other cultures…and this physical evidence continues to generate an interest in Ancient Egyptian civilization. It also gives us a great deal to fantasize about and allows us to make connections to our lives today. The story of Ancient Egypt belongs to everybody. Who they were, how they were so invested in empowerment and their desire to continue to live through their statues, monuments, etc. are issues that resonate with us all today.
DL: Issues of "the other", exoticism and orientalism continue to swirl around us as we look at what has been written and exhibited over the years especially in world’s fairs and expositions that took place in America and Europe in the 1800s and 1900s. This information is continually recreated as we all try to understand and to "re-record", especially as new discoveries are made through excavation and interpretation of ancient texts. This circling around produces a legacy of information that takes on a life itself and the books in Egypt Through Other Eyes are the evidence of that legacy. And indeed the search is as fascinating as the discovery!
As for Whitman, I envision him as a vacuum sucking up everything that interested him and he then merged it with his own thoughts and reissued it in his writings much like the way the literature on Ancient Egypt has evolved over the years. Whitman indeed was inspired about Ancient Egypt and its religious beliefs in life and the afterlife. He was inspired by the Transcendalists, especially Emerson, and this is evidenced in his very organic yet aesthetic writings. If you haven’t read it, Walt Whitman’s America: a cultural biography by David S. Reynolds is an excellent resource on Whitman and what influenced his work. Also would you be interested in visiting me at the Museum? I could show you some wonderful things we have in the Wilbour Library collection.
TH: Thanks so much for all this.… I like how you said "…this circling around produces a legacy of information…" An idea that I find particularly interesting in reference to the title of my show, The Swarm of Possible Meanings, surrounding the ancient pyramids. It is the idea of a swarm, or a wild accumulation of information, images, and speculations that add up to a particular history. I have often thought of some aspects of my work operating under the notion of revisionist history, funny because the history of Egypt is so often revised in one way or another.
I read the essay on the afterlife that you faxed me and found that inspiring, especially in the concept that Egyptians prepared for their death throughout their entire life. I wonder if we would have a much healthier outlook on death in our culture if we considered death an important part of our entire cycle of being. I think we ignore it and avoid it more than any other culture in history, and therefore have very little regard for the preparation and completion of being. It is also interesting to note that you said we know so much more about the Egyptians than any other ancient culture because of their insistence on the afterlife and preserving their culture and detritus. Three cheers for preservationists!
DL: I’m glad you asked me about my interests in Gertrude Stein, and while she doesn’t directly inspire this particular body of work, the spirit and energy of her writings are a general guiding force creatively. I take great pleasure in reading her poems and repetitive, lengthy, and chaotic prose. Her unique employment of the English language, her biography, outsized personality, and ideas are all aspects of her legacy that interest me. She has a series of lectures that go into her critical theory on art and writing, but appear mostly like nonsense to the uninitiated. Maybe that’s a reason that I like her.… It’s very hard to just randomly pick something up of hers and simply read it. I think she was probably from the future. No one has ever used our language like her. Maybe Shakespeare.
TH: The other day I went to the Green-Wood Cemetery and it is really mind blowing. I loved seeing all the Egyptian-themed mausoleums and obelisks, obelisks everywhere! It seemed very fashionable in the late 19th century to adorn one’s grave with Egyptian themes…there are even pyramid mausoleums there too! There also are many other architectural references to Egypt in 19th-century buildings. But you don’t see this now, especially the references in graveyards. I suppose it’s too expensive now to do so, or maybe the obsession with everlasting recognition via monument is not fashionable now, but today’s graves are so uncreative and uninspiring. Boring in fact! I do love the idea of a latter day granite pyramid mausoleum, they simply look great!
DL: While I have not had the opportunity to visit Camden, New Jersey where Walt Whitman is buried, I have been told that his grave which he designed resembles an Egyptian tomb. Going back to your earlier message about revising history, I think there is a wonderful parallel here with Whitman, who continually rewrote and added to Leaves of Grass throughout his life. Perhaps a metaphor for our larger conversation.
