Martin Gayford looks at Neil MacGregor’s plans for the future of the British Museum. Perhaps the most interesting comment though is his summary of the way in which the British Museum grew to its current status: The BM collection was largely put together by 18th and 19th century gentlemen who traveled widely, accumulating specimens — a sculpture there, a rare ceramic here — as a botanist might gather flowers. Often, this collecting was done in a rough and ready fashion that would not be regarded as remotely legal these days.
Neil MacGregor (The British Museum’s director) talks about widening access to artefacts, but it seems that this is only ever possible when it happens on his own terms.

From:
Bloomberg News

Last Updated: May 22, 2007 02:35 EDT
MacGregor Sees Global Role for British Museum
By Martin Gayford

May 22 (Bloomberg) — What is the British Museum for? The answer might seem obvious, though it is an important question because there are forces working to dismantle great collections of artifacts from around the world.

It is after all, an 18th century institution. So I asked the BM’s director, Neil MacGregor, why we need an museum like this in the 21st century.

“I think the world needs to have a new history,” he said. “The history we grew up with is no longer enough to enable us to understand the world as it now is. It was Eurocentric. In so far as the rest of the world figured at all, it was only at the point when Europe came into contact with it — usually hostile, dominating contact.

“That new history is a venture in which a collection such as the British Museum is one of the key resources.”

In other words, the BM, along with the other “world museums” — that is the Met in New York , the Louvre, the Hermitage, and the Berlin museums — is one of the few places where all the different cultures of the globe can be examined, side by side.

As MacGregor sees it, the museum is profoundly unlike the last great collection he ran, the National Gallery — where he was a successful director until 2002 (MacGregor is now a youthful and energetic 60).

“The British Museum is not a museum of art, it is a museum of the history of societies,” he said. “It contains works of art but it is not about art. It’s about understanding, not aesthetic pleasure.”

Under Pressure

That, he argues, makes it eminently valuable and worthy of preservation. There is a question of whether it will be enough. There are many growing pressures to disperse those great world collections.

The reason is that the world museums, as their locations suggest, were colonial and pre-colonial institutions.

“The British Museum is probably the first physical consequence of a global economy. London in the 18th century was the first place to trade with the entire world. That is what makes the British Museum such an extraordinary historical phenomenon. As soon as you are dealing with the whole world, it becomes evident you need to have a collection where you can look at the whole world.”

The BM collection was largely put together by 18th and 19th century gentlemen who traveled widely, accumulating specimens — a sculpture there, a rare ceramic here — as a botanist might gather flowers. Often, this collecting was done in a rough and ready fashion that would not be regarded as remotely legal these days.

Rosetta, Cyrus

Now, in many cases, the places from which these specimens were gathered want them back. The Egyptians would like the Rosetta Stone, Iranian and Iraqi officials have asked for the Cyrus Cylinder, which contains an account of the fall of Babylon. And so on and on.

On at least one occasion, disputed artifacts have almost been prized loose. In 2004, three ancient items originally made by the Dja Dja Wurrung people of northwest Victoria were actually seized by court order while on loan to an exhibition in Australia. Though the BM eventually retrieved them, it was MacGregor recalls, “an intense moment.”

Aren’t such groups and nations entitled to have their treasures returned? MacGregor replied: “There are clearly two views about the role and purpose of cultural objects. You can see them as part of a worldwide narrative, or as indispensable constituents of local identity. They may, of course, be both. But that tends to be what the issue is about.”

Wider Access

But that, in his view, is the old question. The new question is about “widening access to objects rather than talking about exclusive ownership.”

In practice, that means more and more traveling exhibitions. So, taking the Rosetta Stone as an example, it might sometimes be seen in London and perhaps Cairo, but occasionally also in Shanghai or Rio de Janeiro.

Obviously, there are many potential problems, the most important of which is whether the objects are robust enough to travel. But that’s the new role of the BM: a global museum, available to all cultures and places. “I would hope to enable lots of different people around the world to use this collection to construct a new world history,” MacGregor said. “That’s the big challenge.”

It is indeed a huge new role. But it remains to be seen whether it will be enough to silence all those voices asking for the BM collection to be sent back whence it came.

(Martin Gayford is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)