At This New Exhibit, All That Glitters Actually Is Gold
Gold, the gleaming mineral that has inspired awe and lust for millennia, is having a modern moment thanks to a major new show at the Brooklyn Museum. Solid Gold (opening today and running through June 2025) explores the 6,000-year long history of this coveted metal and includes over 400 golden objects and artworks ranging from jewelry to furniture, sculpture, and photography. While some pieces are historic—think giltwood beds, ancient jewelry, and early forms of currency—others, like gold dental grills, point to more recent uses of this luxurious material.
The exhibition was planned to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the museum. Matthew Yokobosky, the senior curator of fashion and material culture, teamed with curators Catherine Futter, Lisa Small, and Imani Williford to assemble the show from pieces in the museum’s vast archive.
The expansive nature of the show allowed the curators to explore the complicated history of this precious metal. While Solid Gold explores the aesthetics of decorative objects and art made of gold, it also delves into the history of the metal as a prized commodity that has fueled colonization and global disparities. “South Africa became prosperous from a particular type of gold mining which utilized a highly toxic cyanide-leaching process,” Yokobosky notes. “Americas’ mines in Nevada have yielded the highest volumes of gold in recent years. Indonesia, the Dominican Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have all been in the top ten producers of gold in the world. And of course there are always questions around who benefits.”
As you walk through the exhibition, you will find sections devoted not only to the repercussions of gold mining, but to gold as a medium for fine jewelry and furniture, and as a representation of the everlasting.
There are examples of gold as currency on view, like bullion from a 1620s Spanish galleon ship—a vivid reminder of Europe’s conquest of the Americas and the role gold played in early colonial American lore. A British pier table from a century later is also exhibited, with gilded gesso gleaming on a walnut and beech frame. A gilt wood Peruvian bed from the same century was pulled out of the museum’s archives as a centerpiece for the show as well. The range of objects is vast, from a 20th-century staff from the West African Fante tribe with gold surface decorations, to a gold and diamond feathered tiara made by Verdura for American heiress Betsey Whitney’s 1957 meeting with Queen Elizabeth II.
Even grills—the gold teeth worn by rappers from the 1980s through the early 2000s – make an appearance alongside actual gold teeth worn centuries prior. “We wanted to show the trajectory of gold smiles, as not just something new, but also ancient and trans-cultural. Gold has been used in dental work since Etruscan times through the Victorian era and the 20th-century,” says Yokobosky. Visitors are also invited to think of gold as a magical substance, much in the way it was perceived in Renaissance alchemical laboratories; a contemporary work by Olga de Amaral explores gold’s alchemical properties further.
Whatever the angle, gold never seems to lose its luster, so why not explore it’s relevance more deeply, starting with Solid Gold.
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