Queen Nefertari's Egypt at the Kimbell Art Museum is an exhibition that features approximately 230 objects of varying scales including sculptures, jewelry, vases, papyrus, and tools used to create royal tombs. Every fine arts museum has different thoughts on how to approach exhibitions that consist of historic artifacts; at the Kimbell, presenting the objects as fine art is important, as is the architecture of the building, which is characterized by firmly defined bays and an irregular modular grid. As such, the design had to carefully walk the line between respecting and working with the architecture of the gallery while also transporting visitors to another world by suggesting the historical and geographical context of ancient Egypt.

TSKP x IKD  worked closely with both the curatorial and facilities staff at the Kimbell to understand the “Kimbell aesthetic” and to find creative ways to take advantage of specific gallery systems already in place. As this project was being developed just as the COVID outbreak was beginning to affect museum operations, cost considerations were also a priority. 

Although close to 90% of the casework in the gallery was repurposed from existing museum inventory, the design features clever ways to transform them in order to provide a variety of display conditions. Tall “hats” with applied graphics were added to regular pedestal cases to evoke the columnar language frequently seen in Egyptian architecture, and as a nod to the exterior architectural columns on the other side of the gallery wall. Embedded wall cases were made by taking advantage of the existing structural framing inside the museum’s stock of movable walls. Large scale graphics were selectively deployed to evoke the sweeping landscapes as well as the inside of Nefertari’s tomb.