Over two thousand years the Greeks experimented with representing the human body in works that range from abstract simplicity to full-blown realism. In athletics the male body was displayed as if it were a living sculpture, and victors were commemorated by actual statues. In art, not only were mortal men and women represented, but also the gods and other beings of myth and the supernatural world. They were either conceived in the image of humankind or in monstrous combinations of human and animal form.

If we look for an overarching definition of the Greek body, it has to be its humanism. Interest in the human self motivates much of that which we now regard as innovative in ancient Greek culture. In drama, philosophy, written history, scientific medicine and the natural sciences at large, Greeks were the first to direct the human mind on its modern quest for self-knowledge. The development of the human body in art as object of beauty and bearer of meaning was driven by the ancient Greek lust for life and constant enquiry.

Drawing exclusively on the rich collections of the British Museum, the exhibition will look at Greek interest in human character and in sexual and social identity, and will offer a visually engaging and thought-provoking exploration of the human condition seen through ancient Greek eyes.