Botticelli Reimagined exhibition coming to V&A after opening in Berlin

London show will feature modern artwork, fashion, film and music inspired by the Renaissance artist, as well as large collection of original Botticelli paintings

Maybe Helen of Troy’s beauty launched a thousand ships but Sandro Botticelli’s paintings of Venus, Pallas Athena, Simonetta Vespucci and other women, both real and mythical, have inspired countless imitations that will form a constellation of ideal and profane love in Botticelli Reimagined, a blockbuster show that opens at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin next month before coming to the V&A in the spring.

From David LaChapelle’s opulently kitsch 2009 photowork Rebirth of Venus, to a Botticelli-themed dress by Dolce and Gabbana that Lady Gaga wore for her Artpop tour, to a clip of Ursula Andress emerging like Botticelli’s Venus from the waves in the 1962 Bond film Dr No, this bold exploration of a great artist’s afterlives trawls far and wide through popular culture.

Continue reading...