MEDALS OF DISHONOUR

The exhibition at the British Museum’s Medals of Dishonour (25 June - 27 September 2009) wass accompanied by an illustrated catalogue published by the British Museum Press.

To buy the catalogue go to the British Museum.

(Images copyright the British Museum, Jake and Dinos
Chapman, Ellen Gallagher, Felicity Powell, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Mona Hatoum, Grayson Perry, William Kentridge)

The principal message of the British Museum’s Medals of Dishonour exhibition was that alongside the longstanding and well-known association of medals with glory and achievement lies another darker tradition of the medal as an indicator of dishonour.

The exhibition was divided into two parts. The first part drew on the Museum’s collection of historical medals and comprised a select group of satirical and other political medals from the 16th to the 20th centuries along with associated material. Also included were loaned medals by David Smith (from whose Medals for Dishonor of the late 1930s the exhibition takes its title) and Marcel Duchamp.

The second part consisted of medals (with related material) recently commissioned from twelve leading international artists by the British Art Medal Trust, a registered charity (no. 288869) dedicated to the making and study of medals. The artists were Jake and Dinos Chapman, Ellen Gallagher, Richard Hamilton, Mona Hatoum, Yun-Fei Ji, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, William Kentridge, Michael Landy, Langlands and Bell, Cornelia Parker, Grayson Perry, and Felicity Powell. The award-winning political cartoonist Steve Bell also made a medal for the exhibition. The British Art Medal Trust presented an example of each to the British Museum for its permanent collection.

HOMAGE EXIBITION AT THE LISBON MINT- Lisbon (Portugal)

An homage exhibition with medals from the two Portuguese and FIDEM medallists Irene Vilar and Luz Correia (deceased in 2008) was held at the INCM (Mint of Lisbon) in 2010. A catalogue was published for this occasion. It can be downloaded from the enclosed PDF.

For more information