Dome Raider

A much-hyped exhibition - Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs - opened this week at The O2 (formerly the ill-starred Millennium Dome) in London. But papier mache pillars and imposing muzak made Jonathan Jones wish he'd never bothered turning up.

This is a simulacrum of a serious exhibition. It makes real objects look and feel like fakes. It is artful in its meanness: there is just enough to silence complaint. There's an excellent choice of King Tut's jewellery, for example. But this is still just the garnish on the food. The food is not here. Art, as Ruskin said, should not be approached in dumb wonder - it is a human expression. The beauty of Tutankhamun's tomb does not consist in the sheer quantity of priceless items. It is about communicating with someone who died more than three millennia ago. The sadness, the loss of a young life, is so immediate. But here he becomes a lifeless nothing, a famous name. From his wooden statue you can almost hear him cry: "I'm the world's oldest celebrity -
get me out of here!"