The Spectator has unexpectedly spoken out in favour of the return of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum to Greece. This is the second positive article in a year about the subject – from a source that historically has been against such action.

From:
Spectator

Thursday, 4th March 2010
Why we should give the Elgin Marbles back to Greece
Daniel Korski 10:45am

While we’re talking about countries on the brink, it’s worth taking a look at Greece – which has probably passed beyond it. The government has published its package of austerity measures – aiming to reduce its deficit to 8.7 percent of GDP by the end of 2010 – and the markets are deciding what they think. But, in the meantime, the country faces strikes; the Euro is taking a pummeling; there are fears that problems may spread to countries like Portugal and Spain; and Greek foreign policy – particularly with regard to Macedonia and the Balkans – is stalling. Nobody is through the woods yet.

All this mean that George Papandreou’s problems are also the EU’s problem. Sure, as one of Greece’s best known scholars Loukas Tsoukalis says, “there is no denying that the prime responsibility for dealing with the Greek problem lies with the Greeks themselves.” But answers to these problems will also have to come from Berlin, Paris and Frankfurt, home of the ECB. But London can play a role too.
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The New Acropolis Museum as a building may now be almost complete – however, it will not be complete as a museum until it is able to display all the surviving Parthenon Sculptures under its roof.

From:
Spectator

Acropolis now
Wednesday, 27th August 2008
Henry Sands says Athens’s new museum is missing its Marbles

We have come to understand that missing sections from museum displays of ancient sculpture are the inevitable result of parts breaking off and becoming lost to the world. But at the New Acropolis Museum in Athens we know exactly where to find the stones that would fill those accusatory gaps.

The empty spaces act as a poignant reminder to the viewer that the collection is not complete — and that it will remain incomplete as long as the Elgin Marbles sit in the Duveen Room of the British Museum, their home since 1816. Now that there is a place to show them off, there is new sense of optimism among the Greeks that they may finally be reunited with the Marbles they believe to be rightfully theirs.
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Most people would acknowledge that culture is often very much aligned with political borders. James Cuno however would disagree that this is the case.

Kwame Opoku’s response to Cuno’s interview helps to outline the many inaccuracies in Cuno’s contentions.

From:
Spectator

‘Culture knows no political borders’
Tiffany Jenkins
Wednesday, 16th July 2008

Tiffany Jenkins talks to James Cuno about looting, exporting and owning antiquities

James Cuno is a busy man. I pin him down between two projects: promoting the new Modern Art Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago, opening next year, where he is president and director, and the launch of his new book Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage (Princeton University Press, £14.95), which is provoking controversy on both sides of the Atlantic.

He was prompted to write it, he tells me, ‘as an intervention into the war, or should I say “discussion”, between museums, archaeologists and nation states, about who can acquire antiquities’.
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Following comments on the New Acropolis Museum, various people have suggested that Mary Beard may have changed her mind on the Parthenon Marbles and is stepping down off the fence on the issue.

According to this piece in the Spectator (hardly an unbiased source on the Elgin Marbles issue) the answer is that nothing has changed.

From:
The Spectator

An expert in Athens
Tuesday, 8th July 2008

Mary “Marbles” Beard travels to Greece to view the new Acropolis Museum, and pronounces herself well impressed. But has the trip prompted a change of heart about the fate of Lord Elgin’s famous souvenirs? Not quite.

Given my generally positive reaction, did I think I should get off the fence about the return (or not) of the Elgin Marbles? Well, no . . . It’s going to be one of the world’s great museums, but for me the issue has never been about whether the sculpture was well looked after and displayed in Greece. So this doesn’t change the argument. For me, it’s going to be perfectly possible to love this wonderful new showcase for the Acropolis collection — and still not be sure whether the Elgin marbles should be “repatriated”.