The Museum of the Ancient Near East in Berlin (Vorderasiatisches Museum, Staatlisches Museen zu Berlin) presents the Ishtar Chariot of Nebuchadnezzar II, a sculpture by American artist Robert Reynolds, on view at the Pergamonmuseum from October 30, 2008 to January 30, 2009.
The exhibition is curated by Joachim Marzahn of the Vorderasiatisches Museum.

The sculpture Ishtar Chariot of Nebuchadnezzar II is a representation of a four-door sedan covered by colored glazed tiles and reproducing the museum reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way of Babylon from the 6th Century B.C. - now preserved at the Museum of the Ancient Near East in Berlin.

This work has been inspired by a former visit of the artist to the Berlin Pergamonmuseum and it not only communicates his ardor of the design and architecture of the Babylonians but also tells about his affinity to produce patterns of geo-political as well as religious and cultural associations by the use of a conceptual archaeology.
Nowadays, the reference to a car is not accidental: it does not only refer to a familiar image of ideas of freedom and mobility - and their confinement to the dependence on energy resources - but it also relates to the mobility of the human soul as found described in narrative motives within Old-Mesopotamian myths about death and afterlife.

This is the second exhibition of the artist at the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin. His sculpture Dragon of Marduk - a three dimensional interpretation of the animal protector of the Babylonian god - was included within Babylon. Myth and Truth, an exhibition of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in cooperation with the Musée du Louvre and the Réunion des musées nationaux in Paris, as well as the British Museum in London.. The major exhibition, on view at the Pergamonmuseum from June 26 to October 5 2008, has come to a close with a total of 560,000 visitors and the scupture Dragon of Marduk has been acquired by the Vorderasiatisches Museum to be included in its permanent collection.

Press inquiries please contact

Museum of the Ancient Near East, Berlin
(Vorderasiatisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin)
Joachim Marzahn
Ph + 49 - (0)30 - 20905304
j.marzahn@smb.spk-berlin.de

Robert Reynolds Studio, Los Angeles
Gemma Sonego
Ph + 1 213 621 9566
artistrr@yahoo.com


Robert Reynolds
lives and works in Los Angeles
www.roberthreynolds.com