This substantial – and free – exhibition uses its tight focus, the eye, to examine a great big heap of provoking ideas and quirky, fascinating things. It’s about how we see: physically, artistically, historically, medically and spiritually. It also glances at experience of becoming blind– lyrically, via an ethereally beautiful new VR artwork describing a writer’s loss of sight and cultivation of an inner eye.
We start with striking examples of the all-seeing eye: from a precious ancient Egyptian amulet Eye of Horus, to folkier but no less striking Ojos de Dios, Mexican ‘gods eyes’ woven from bright colourful wool. It’s fun to ramble through the curiosities, glimpsing eye symbols being used to ward off evil and illness. A stunning modern version of a magical robe gleams, and is pieced from hundreds of individual squares like armour, each inscribed with the symbol of a deadly virus like Corona.
The show brilliantly illuminates the medical history and anthropology of vision and the eye
The medical science section has equally striking stuff: like a superbly calibrated contraption for measuring eyesight and lens thickness that looks like a steampunk torture device, and fascinating paraphernalia surrounding writer Aldous Huxley and the American specialist who claimed to cure his extreme short-sightedness via patent 'eye exercises'. I loved the mini-history of eyewear, starting with ancient inuit snow goggles. More glam are the green-lensed 'Goldoni glasses', probably named after the eighteenth century playwright who wore them constantly on the streets of Venice, and a gorgeous fan with two secret lenses in the handle, the aristocrat’s perfect weapon in the theatre to spy out the goings on of the ‘ton.
The show brilliantly illuminates the medical history and anthropology of vision and the eye, and describes physical perception and ways of seeing. It’s thinner when it ventures into identity and ways of being seen, a prickly subject that deserves its own show not just a nod – although it’s always a joy to see one of Hassan Hajjaj’s popping portraits of east Londoners. The institution is clearly conscious of its privilege and its founder’s: on a more practical note, they have made this show as accessible as possible to the partially sighted, including audio, a tactile path to follow, and ‘lights up’ sessions where the galleries will be brighter than usual. All in all: this major public exhibition is ambitious, lucid, accessible, informative, substantial and totally free. Plainly: a must-see.