Beauty and the Bead - from Madonna to the Maasai
An exhibition of beaded costumes from every age and culture
This is the first exhibition ever to focus on beads as a worldwide phenomenon: a tiny object symbolizing for more than 100,000 years identity, status, origin and emotion. ‘Beauty and the Bead’ is above all about people: self-expression and creativity, identity and status, vanity and greed, power and temptation, but also spirituality, technical ingenuity and commerce. The show reveals how beads have brought peoples from different continents into contact and how they influenced each other, with beads serving as a visual language.
The exhibition starts with an introduction showing the variety of materials, appearance and function of beads. Since the dawn of history beads have been used to decorate the body, as a means of exchange, a status symbol and a medium of communication between people and gods. Beads on a rosary help worshippers keep track of the number of prayers they have said, a custom taken up in many religions.
The section ‘From Head to Toe’ reveals the way each part of the body is decorated with beads in different cultures. Special beads, such as cowries, coins, pearls and buttons are featured in ‘Gifts of Nature, Objects of Culture’. ‘From Icon to Fashion’ focuses on the interaction between haute couture and designer’s trends, as well as between Western and ethnic dress. ‘From Cradle to Grave’ shows how beads accompany life’s journey. A wedding, for example, is considered the apex of one’s life in almost every culture. Wedding gowns throughout the world are often decorated with beads, whether an Ndebele ensemble from South Africa, or the bridal dress of Princess Grace of Monaco.
Beads from Paris, Hollywood, Moscow and Amsterdam
Items from more than 70 collections have been lent to this exhibition. Among the lenders are the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Kremlin Museum in Moscow, fashion houses such as Dior, Versace and Armani, with garments worn by such celebrities as Diana Ross, Madonna and Marilyn Monroe. From the Tropenmuseum’s own collection the exhibition features the famous Sick Collection of approximately 22,000 glass beads on sample cards collected in the twentieth century.
Catalogue
The catalogue accompanying the exhibition is available in Dutch only. The author of ‘Pracht en Kraal’, Loan Oei, is guest curator of the exhibition. The catalogue is available in the museum shop.
Loan Oei, guest curator, and Itie van Hout, curator of textiles of the Tropenmuseum, are responsible for the concept and realization of the exhibition. ‘Beauty and the Bead’ was designed by Architectenbureau Jowa.
The exhibition was made possible through the support of the VSBfonds, GasTerra, BankGiro Loterij, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Wilhelmina E. Jansen Fonds, K.F. Hein Fonds and Voyage & Culture (Natalia Konstantinova). VJF Glaser BV and D. Swarovski & Co made the educational projects possible. With this exhibition the Tropenmuseum provides a platform for the Medical Knowledge Institute (MKI) to promote its objectives to a wider audience.
High resolution images are available on request. Choose from the contactsheet below and order at tropenmuseum@kit.nl. Please mention in your e-mail the medium which you want to use the image for.
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