In collaboration with Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha and the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, The Valencia Institute of Modern Art (IVAM) is pleased to host the exhibition “Tea with Nefertiti: the making of an artwork by the artist, the museum and the public”. Marking the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the Nefertiti bust, the exhibition revisits the contested histories of how Egyptian collections have been amassed by numerous museums from the 19th century onwards.

Through its three thematic chapters that reflect on the process of appropriation that the artwork undergoes as it travels through time and place, the exhibition explores the mechanisms by which artworks come to acquire a range of meanings and functions that can embody a number of diverse, and at times conflicting narratives.

In the Artist section, the focus is on the artist’s formalistic departures and contributions as evidenced through the works on display. In the Museum section, the emphasis shifts to the context in which an artwork is presented. In the Public section, the viewer is presented with a number of incidents where artworks have expanded, both physically and ideologically, beyond the artist’s studio and the walls of the museum into the public arena.

“Tea with Nefertiti” comprises of more than 100 artworks dating from ca. 1800 B.C. to the present ranging from painting, sculpture and photography to video and mixed-media installation. It also includes a newly commissioned site-specific intervention by Bassem Yousri. Along with these ancient, modern and contemporary works, around 50 archival documents will be on view including a number of first-to-be-exhibited materials.

The exhibition is curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath of Art Reoriented, and it will run from the 7th of November 2013 to the 26th of January 2014.