The British Museum is fond of terms such as Cultural Diplomacy as a way of describing some of their current initiatives, but as I have commented before, this only ever seems to occur when it is on their terms & they are in a position to call the shots.

In the case of the Shah ‘Abbas exhibition, Cultural Diplomacy seems to take the form of leveraging your looting – lending back disputed artefacts in exchange for borrowing further artefacts.

From:
Time

The Art of Museum Diplomacy
By WILLIAM LEE ADAMS Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009

When western diplomats seek concessions from Iran, they typically dish out tough rhetoric and threaten sanctions. Neil MacGregor, the cherub-faced director of the British Museum, uses a more refined arsenal: cultural relics and priceless artifacts. In January, MacGregor traveled to Tehran to finalize the loan of treasures from eight of Iran’s best museums. In exchange, he promised to loan the National Museum of Iran the Cyrus Cylinder, a 2,500-year-old clay cylinder inscribed with decrees from the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great. Following a request by the Iranian Vice President’s office, he also vowed to raise international awareness of damage done to archaeological sites in Gaza during Israel’s recent military operation. The lofty maneuvering paid off: three weeks later, dozens of crates containing Persian rugs and 17th century mosque ornaments were winging their way to London.
Read the rest of this entry »

A summary of the key arguments / points on both sides of the Parthenon Marbles debate.

From:
The First Post

Should Britain return the Elgin Marbles?
FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 13, 2009

THE ARGUMENTS FOR

Cultural treasures from ancient civilisations belong in the places they come from. Museums in Sweden, Germany, America and the Vatican have already acknowledged this and returned items taken from the Acropolis. The British museum should follow suit and put an end to more than two centuries of bad feeling in Greece.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Financial Times has published various letters in response to their earlier article on what is required for the Parthenon Marbles to be returned.

From:
Financial Times

The real barrier to a compromise over Marbles
Published: December 6 2008 02:00 | Last updated: December 6 2008 02:00

From Prof John Kapranos Huntley.

Sir, It is refreshing to read a balanced commentary on the future of the Parthenon Marbles by someone who so clearly understands the conflicting feelings and aspirations that surround it (Peter Aspden, “A manifesto for the Marbles”, Life & Arts , November 29/30). A putative voice for reason and conciliation has been raised. What might drown it out is the underlying conflict over a matter the FT and its readership would hopefully go a long way to defend: property rights.

The Parthenon Marbles are not simply artefacts; they are fixtures attached to buildings on the Parthenon for more than 2,300 years until they were forcibly removed. They are not independent pieces of statuary or pottery to be crated around the “cultural” museums of the world.
Read the rest of this entry »

Bernard Tschumi, one of the two designers of the New Acropolis Museum (along with Michael Photiadis) is to give a talk this coming Tuesday at the RIBA in London on the New Acropolis Museum. Tickets must be booked in advance as space is limited. There is also a second talk for students on the morning of the day after.

From:
Hellenic Foundation for Culture

New Acropolis Museum: The London Preview
Events organized by the HFC in UK and
the Royal Institute of British Architects
2 & 3 December 2008, Jarvis Hall – RIBA,
London

The Hellenic Foundation for Culture and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) present the London preview of the New Acropolis Museum, scheduled to open in Spring 2009, on 2 & 3 December 2008, at RIBA’s Jarvis Hall in London. The events are organized under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Culture with the support of the Organisation for Construction of the New Acropolis Museum.
Read the rest of this entry »

The British Museum has in recent years made much of its global reputation, arguing that it represents the best place for artefacts such as the Elgin Marbles to be seen in the context of artefacts from other cultures. From these recent letters in The Times though, it would appear that not everyone is completely sold on the current approach taken by the Museum.

From:
The Times

October 27, 2008
British Museum gripe
Commercialisation of British Museum needs to be stopped

Sir, Passing the British Museum last Thursday, I decided to pop in during normal opening hours. What an awful shock. Tickets for the Hadrian exhibition had sold out, and when I tried to visit the Reading Room it was shut — because the Hadrian exhibition was in there. When I asked when the Reading Room would be open again I was told perhaps in 2012.

It turns out that this famous iconic heart of the British Museum, recently restored at public expense, has been hidden and refitted as exhibition space. Why? Because so much exhibition space has been handed over to shops and cafés.
Read the rest of this entry »

The British Museum continues to hang onto the Elgin Marbles, but many in Greece are now suggesting that the 2012 Olympics in London should be used a a deadline for return, with the Olympic flame being handed over in exchange for the Marbles.

From:
American Chronicle

Britain must rethink the case of Parthenon Marbles Restitution
Nicolas Mottas
October 26, 2008

It was in 1801 when the then British ambassador in Constantinople, Thomas Bruce (the known as Lord Elgin), obtained a firman from the Ottoman authorities taking permission to remove sculptures from the Athens’ Parthenon.

Two centuries later – in fact 207 years later – the British capital, London, is preparing to host the 30th Olympiad in 2012. The ancient masterpieces of the Parthenon still remain in the British Museum, around 2440km far from their original place, as long as the Greek demand for the Marbles restoration has been collided to the years-long denial of the Museum’s administration. However, two facts create a new dynamic in favour of the campaign for the restitution of the Parthenon sculptures: the construction of the New Acropolis Museum and the 2012 London Olympics.
Read the rest of this entry »

The British Museum regularly makes a virtue of the fact that the Elgin Marbles Can be seen “free of charge, seven days a week“. There are downsides to free museum admission though & in the end, there is a price to be paid for everything.

From:
The Times

June 1, 2008
Is there a price to pay for free art?
We love art now, especially when it’s free, but there is a price to pay for free art discovers our writer as he joins the crowds at London’s leading attractions
Bryan Appleyard

In Tate Modern, Simon Halberstam, a father of three, thinks for a moment, then says: “It’s better for them to stand in front of a urinal than stay at home with a Wii.” Marcel Duchamp’s ironic “ready-made” sculpture, Fountain, he’s saying, is superior as an educational tool to Nintendo’s enervating games console. And so Halberstam, with his friend Michael Rosehill and his two children, are spending the spectacularly wet bank holiday at the Tate.
Read the rest of this entry »

A collection of paintings by D H Lawrence have gone on display, 70 years after being banned. At one point, they were inherited by a Greek hotelier in Mexico, who offered to sell them back to Britain in return for the Parthenon Marbles.

From:
Guardian

Lawrence ‘obscenities’ finally get a showing
Maev Kennedy, arts and heritage correspondent
Saturday November 22, 2003

A collection of paintings went on display yesterday – more than 70 years after the images were banned – but there is no sell-by date on obscenity.

In June 1929 a squad of embarrassed policemen raided the Warren gallery in London, and seized 13 paintings by DH Lawrence. They were spared from being burned on condition that they were never exhibited in Britain again.
Read the rest of this entry »

A new exhibition about the benefits of reuniting the Parthenon Sculptures in Athens has gone on display at ICA in London.

From:
BBC News

Last Updated: Tuesday, 7 October, 2003, 12:07 GMT 13:07 UK
Marbles exhibition opens in London

A virtual exhibition, which shows how the Elgin Marbles would look if they were reunited, has opened in London.

Marbles Reunited shows those sculptures removed from Greece 200 years ago by Lord Elgin next to those which remained in Athens.
Read the rest of this entry »

Museums in the UK are coming out strongly in criticism of suggestions that they should return Aboriginal artefacts in their collections. It is thought that some of this unwillingness stems from their fears that such a move would weaken their case for the continuing retention of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum.

From:
Sydney Morning Herald

Is it altruism or the fear of losing their marbles?
December 28 2002

Powerful forces are working to convince the British Government that the place for Aboriginal remains is London’s museums, writes Peter Fray.

“The race is a very degraded one and … even the coarse traders and cattle-ranchers make no irregular unions with their women so the race remains pure.” – Dr Arthur Gedge, circa 1900.
Read the rest of this entry »

More coverage of the declaration on the importance of the Universal Museum – issued without the name of the British Museum included on it, but thought by many to have been masterminded by them. Many have been quick to notice the relevance of this declaration in trying to shore up the British Museums defences for their retention of the Elgin Marbles, against the powerful argument presented by the construction of the New Acropolis Museum in Athens.

From:
News Observer

Wednesday, December 11, 2002 3:26PM EST
World galleries back British Museum in dispute with Greece
By ROBERT BARR, ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON (AP) – Several of the world’s leading museums defended the British Museum’s right to keep ancient statues taken from the Parthenon 200 years ago, despite Greek demands for their return.

A letter signed by the directors of 18 museums, including the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said works acquired decades ago have become essential to the museums that house them. “Objects acquired in earlier times must be viewed in the light of different sensitivities and values, reflective of that earlier era,” the statement said.
Read the rest of this entry »