Sunday 28 September 2008

Berlin




Berlin is the capital and largest city in Germany. Throughout the year, it plays host to many events - including Popkomm, Festival of Lights, Art Forum Berlin and the Berlin Marathon.

But the most impressive event to be held in the city this year is definitely Babylon – Myth and Truth. Here’s what the official website www.berlin.de has to say about it:

"With this major exhibition, the National Museums in Berlin, jointly with the Musée du Louvre in Paris and the British Museum in London, venture to explore the myth of Babel and the true facts surrounding the ancient city of Babylon: two worlds - one exhibition.

Truth
The first section of the exhibition exposes the roots of our Western culture by looking at the archaeological remains of Babylon, thus revealing what lies behind the legends. This section centres around the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way of Babylon. Over 800 objects are exhibited, among them statues, reliefs, votive offerings, architectural fragments and documents.

Myth
The second section of the exhibition regards Babylon as a metaphor for the dark sides of civilisation - repression and the lack of freedom, terror and violence, hubris and madness. In European art and culture, the myth of Babel is closely related to mankind's primal fears.

Here, visitors experience the mythical story of the rise and fall of Babylon as a city of sin and tyranny, as the site of the confusion of tongues and the metropolis of eternal apocalypse. They venture on an expedition to the mysterious roots of these ideas, their emergence and establishment throughout the centuries up to the current day. The story is not one of a historical truth about Babylon, but of a truth about a civilisation that needs the myth of Babel in order to understand itself."


The exhibition is open now until 5th October.

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