The Brooklyn Museum's exhibition, running until July 6, underscores gold's enduring importance across various fields, including art, fashion, and spirituality. It showcases the duality of gold as a symbol of power and its history of exploitation, illustrated by cultural artifacts like a Coclé gold plaque and contemporary reflections on gold mining's environmental costs. Additionally, the impact of gold on 20th-century art, exemplified through works by Agnes Martin and Louise Nevelson, reveals the material's deep-seated historical complexities and cultural significance today.
The exhibition traces gold's perennial association with political, economic, technological and religious power from ancient civilisations to the present day.
The show foregrounds the tension between gold's role as a protective emblem and its fraught history of exploitation.
Gold's widespread use in haute couture and decorative arts is unsurprising, but its impact in the work of 20th-century artists is a revelation.
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