Spellbound • LiveFriday After Hours • Free Displays One World Festival • Talks Courses • Family Fun Gallery Activities • Music OCT 2018–JAN 2019 1 VISITOR INFORMATION Everything you need to know about visiting the Ashmolean. OPENING TIMES MONDAY OPENINGS The Ashmolean is the University of Oxford’s museum Tue–Sun, 10am–5pm From Monday 4 February 2019 the Ashmolean will be of art and archaeology, opened in 1683. It is the Open until 8pm last Friday of the month. open to the public on Mondays from 10am to 5pm so oldest public museum in the world and has incredibly Please note that we will be closed on the 24, 25, 26 you can enjoy our collections every day of the week. rich and diverse collections from around the globe, & 31 December and 1 January for Christmas and New Year. ranging from Egyptian mummies and classical FRONT DOOR CLOSURE sculpture to Pre-Raphaelite paintings and modern art. The front door of the Ashmolean will be undergoing BOOKING works from Monday 19 November 2018 to Friday Event information is correct at time of printing, 1 February 2019. Over this period, access to the but may be subject to change. We encourage all Museum will be through the St. Giles entrance visitors to check ashmolean.org for the most located around the corner from the front entrance. up-to-date information. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. CONTENTS In person Buy tickets to our exhibitions, talks, events and activities at the Museum Information Desk, in advance ACCESSIBILITY There is level access throughout the Museum except SPECIAL EXHIBITION 4 or on the day during Museum opening hours. for the lower-ground floor of the Cast Gallery which is regrettably only accessible by stairs due to the layout FREE EXHIBITIONS & DISPLAYS 6 Online of the historic building. There are ramps into the ashmolean.org/tickets building and lifts to all other floors. Wheelchairs are TALKS 8 Secure 24-hour online booking. available on request. We can arrange free touch tours Booking fee per transaction: £1 and audio description tours for blind and partially LIVE FRIDAY 12 sighted visitors and those who need an accompanied Telephone & Email visit. For more information, call 01865 278015. FAMILY FUN 14 01865 278112 Mon–Sun, 11am–3pm FESTIVALS & LATES 15 Please leave a voicemail, or email [email protected] SOCIAL COURSES & WORKSHOPS 16 Discover more inspiration, news and exclusive images We aim to respond within 24 hours. on our social channels. Booking fee per transaction: £2 GALLERY ACTIVITIES 17 /AshmoleanMuseum TOURS 18 Booking fees AshmoleanMuseum There is no booking fee when tickets are purchased in person from the Information Desk. Booking fees @AshmoleanMuseum MUSIC 19 correct at the time of printing. Beaumont Street Oxford OX1 2PH Telephone: 01865 278 000 BECOME A MEMBER TODAY www.ashmolean.org Enjoy closer access to our collection of art and archaeology through unlimited entry Cover Image: to all exhibitions, an exclusive programme Witchcraft on the Brocken Mountain, 1742. See it on display in Spellbound: Magic, Witchcraft & Ritual of events, reduced event prices and many other benefits. Designed by Emily Jarrett. ashmolean.org/become-member 3 SPECIAL EXHIBITION MAGIC, RITUAL & WITCHCRAFT SPELLBOUND Magic, Ritual & Witchcraft Until 6 January 2019 Explore the history of magic over eight centuries in this immersive and thought-provoking exhibition. The intriguing objects on display show how our ancestors used magical thinking to cope with the unpredictable world around them. They range from the fantastical and macabre (a unicorn’s horn, a human heart encased in lead), the beautiful and mysterious (exquisitely engraved rings Rock crystal ball bound in a silver-gilt to bind a lover and medieval books of ritual magic), to the deeply mount, c.1650. Geoffrey Munn Collection. moving confessions of women accused of witchcraft. The exhibition asks us to examine our own beliefs and rituals, and aims to show how, even in this sceptical age, we still use magical thinking and why we might need a bit of magic in our lives. “Promises to be one To illuminate the links between past and present, specially commissioned works by contemporary artists provide dramatic responses to the themes of the Ashmolean’s of the show, conjuring demons, flames and the scuttling of malignant most intriguing and spirits. unusual exhibitions” This exhibition is generously supported by: Philip Pullman EXHIBITION The Bagri Foundation The Patrons of the Ashmolean EVENTS EVENT The Wellcome Trust The Spellbound Magic Circle University of East Anglia Philip & Jude Pullman Dasha Shenkman OBE, HonRCM And others who wish to remain anonymous Exhibition Tours Wednesdays, 3.30–4.15pm FREE with the price of exhibition TICKETS ticket. No booking required. Standard: £12.25, £13.50 with Gift Aid MEMBERS Late Opening Hours Concessions: £11.25, £12.50 with Gift Aid GET IN Fri 26 Oct until 10.30pm 50% discount for under 25s, children aged Fri 30 Nov until 8pm 12–17, and students FREE Sat 5 Jan until 8pm FREE for Ashmolean Members, Supported by: University of Oxford students and under-12s For more exhibition events see pages 8, 9, 12, 14 & 16. Some content may be unsuitable for younger children. Book now www.ashmolean.org/spellbound The Spellbound Magic Circle | The Patrons of the Ashmolean 4 SPECIAL EXHIBITION SPECIAL EXHIBITION 5 Lui Shou-kwan Centenary Exhibition: Abstraction, Ink and Enlightenment 27 Oct 2018–7 Apr 2019 FREE EXHIBITIONS & DISPLAYS Gallery 11 Temporary displays from our vast collection, plus highlights from recent research. Lui Shou-kwan was one of the most significant artists in Hong Kong during the mid-twentieth century. The paintings in this exhibition marking No Offence: Exploring LGBTQ+ Histories the anniversary of his birth are from the Ashmolean’s own collection. Until 2 Dec 2018 Two themes in particular, landscapes and spirituality, dominate his output Gallery 8 but it is his Chan (Japanese: “Zen”) paintings for which he became most famous. Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act, this British Museum touring exhibition explores the ways same-sex desire, love and gender diversity have varied throughout history and across Curator’s Tour cultures. Explore the often overlooked or underrepresented LGBTQ+ Wed 23 Jan, 2.30–3.30pm, Gallery 11 histories, experiences and lives by examining objects from around the Join Christensen Fellow in Chinese Painting Dr Paul Bevan for a world. guided tour of the Lui Shou-kwan exhibition. FREE, booking required. Nineteenth-century copy of an Etruscan painting of two men from fifth- century BC, Tarquina, Italy © Trustees of the British Museum Antinous: boy made god Chan Painting by Lui Shou-kwan, 1969. Barker Bequest © The Artist’s Estate Until 24 Feb 2019 Gallery 8 Plum Blossom and Green Willow: Surimono Poetry Prints 2 Oct 2018–17 Mar 2019 Antinous was a court favourite of the Emperor Hadrian. He drowned in Gallery 29 the Nile in AD 130, and the emperor founded a city in middle Egypt in his honour called Antinoopolis or ‘Antinous City’. A striking portrait of Some of the finest examples of Japanese printmaking in the early the boy was created by a great court sculptor, and this image was widely nineteenth century were the exquisitely printed woodblock prints called reproduced around the empire. This exhibition explores the spread of surimono (‘printed objects’). These privately published prints combined Antinous’ image and his empire-wide cult as a hero and god. witty poems with elegant images by leading designers. This exhibition highlights rarely shown surimono from the Ashmolean’s collections, Bust of Antinous, AD 130–138, discovered in Balanea, Syria. Private Collection- including a number of new acquisitions, offering a rare insight into Japanese literati culture and customs of the early nineteenth century. Talking...Antinous & No Offence Poet and calligrapher Ono no Tōfu, Totoya Hokkei (1780–1850), 1822 Gallery 8. FREE, no booking required. Join us for a series of short research-inspired gallery talks linked to the Antinous and No Offence The Art of Contemporary Japanese Tea exhibitions led by Oxford University DPhil Candidates and Early Career Researchers. FREE, no booking 23 Oct–16 Dec 2018 required. Visit ashmolean.org/event/no-offence for details. Gallery 36 Celebrate the art of the Japanese tea ceremony through this unique Tricks of Trade: Magic and Money in Context display of contemporary Japanese tea utensils that is part of the Until 16 Dec 2018 AREThé Festival 2018. Find out more about related AREThé Festival tea Gallery 7 ceremonies on page 17. Money can be ‘magical’ in more ways than one – it multiplies, it grows, Teabowl by Tanoue Shinya, 2017, MIZEN Fine Art Gallery it can buy happiness and bring forth plenitude. This display explores how money and magic come together, showcasing coins used as magical objects and exploring how money has worked magic over centuries. FANCY A CUPPA? Relax and recharge with tea, coffee, MEMBERS cake and sandwiches in the Ashmolean Gold Angel of Charles I pierced to form a touch piece, 1631–1632 Café, or enjoy the pre-theatre menu in GET 10% our Rooftop Restaurant. OFF ashmolean.org/eating 6 FREE EXHIBITIONS & DISPLAYS From Aether to Air All that Glitters: De Morgan’s Pursuit of With Ackroyd & Harvey, Artists, and Dr EXHIBITION Perfection in Lustre EVENT Sophie Page, Historian and Co-Curator of With Sarah Hardy, Curator and Manager at the TALKS Spellbound De Morgan Foundation Join us for one of our talks on art and archaeology delivered by experts in their field. Wed 14 Nov, 1–2pm, Lecture Theatre Thu 6 Dec, 1–2pm, Lecture Theatre Artists Ackroyd & Harvey discuss the medieval William De Morgan is best remembered for his inspirations for their sculptural artwork in Spellbound designs featuring mystical and fantastical beasts and Philip Pullman in Conversation which evokes the medieval cosmos where humans his Arts and Crafts tiles, but this lecture focuses on Thu 8 Nov, 6–7pm, Randolph Sculpture Gallery EXHIBITION navigated the competing forces of good and evil his work in lustreware which was so revered during EVENT TICKETS: £8/£7/£6 Full, Concessions, Members.