Idols: The Power of Images

A unique journey through time and space to the origins of the figuration of the human body, from the Neolithic era to the Bronze Age, through works of extraordinary beauty and charm.

The dawn of anthropomorphic figurative culture, the founding myths of humanity and the representation of power, whether inseminated by gods or heroes – all these concerns are addressed and embodied in Idols. Edited by by Annie Caubet – she being a great archaeologist herself and Emerita of the Louvre – Idols, from the Greek eidolon, or image, invites the reader to embark on an aesthetic journey across time and space, to discover how artists who lived and worked around 4000–2000 BC created three-dimensional images of the human body, from the first ambiguous images of the Neolithic era, which still to this day have no definitive interpretation, to their evolution during the Bronze Age.

The vast geographic area extends from West to East, from the Iberian peninsula to the Indus valley, from the gates of the Atlantic to the confines of the Far East. A tribute to Giancarlo Ligabue, whose multicultural interests are reflected in the exhibition, the journey will reveal a surprising number of common traits, shared by distant people and regions, and compare local variants.

A unique journey that climbs mountains, treks through steppes and deserts and braves oceans and seas to reveal networks of connections, a commonality of perception, and contacts between remote lands.