Sponsored by: AIA-Chicago Society
The current OI Museum exhibition, Making Sense of Marbles: Roman Sculpture at the OI (through March 12, 2023), presents to the public for the first time the OI’s full collection of Roman sculpture. Assembled in the 1950s—through acquisitions from both the OI’s excavations at Ptolemais in Libya and the international art market, this group exemplifies the importance of revisiting artifact and archival collections, with new questions, perspectives, technology, and scrutiny. Museums do not require new artifacts, new acquisitions in order to tell new stories. In this talk, Kiersten Neumann, exhibition co-curator and curator of the OI Museum, will walk through the latest considerations of the identities and significance of these individual sculptures while delving into timely discussions related to collecting practices, provenience and provenance, archaeology and the art market, and display practices that seek greater transparency and public engagement.