One of today's offerings from The Guardian: Museums and looted art: the ethical dilemma of preserving world cultures
Addressing the matter of looted art is a noble goal as the way Hitler had his staff ransack the world's art collections is common knowledge but less well-known is museums have been doing this for centuries. Any museum wants a diverse collection of material but how each one acquires it varies considerably.
There are two topics of concern as looting of antiquities is an amusement when Indiana Jones does it but stealing such treasures is a crime against some other culture of the world and, in many cases, there has been no attempt to return the antiquities or make reparations for whatever may have been damaged.
That covers the first topic as looting antiquities is bad. Got that.
However, what moves from bad to sucks outrageously is the focus of the article on American museums as they, seemingly, are the primary perpetrators. My purpose has nothing to do with defensiveness regarding America but rather with what is the actual state of things. America has acquired many antiquities while at the same time the British Museum has a great many antiquities it acquired from Greece and all over the world.
Greece has been trying for many years to get those antiquities returned but the British Museum will not send them back. Melina Mercouri, star in "Never On Sunday," became a Minister of Culture for Greece and it was a major cause with her to get these treasures returned but she never had success with it.
Yet, that same country has a problem with how American museums acquire their booty. The genesis of the article is unclear as it was written for The Guardian but it draws from some books and a New York Times article. Regardless of how much cut and paste was used to write the article, the oversight regarding the British Museum glares. For example, the Getty Museum is called out in multiple places but the British Museum is never even named.
This is some really twisted journo which could have been the good stuff but it took such a narrow focus it turned itself back into more of the same ol', same ol'. Museums have committed some major cultural transgressions but identifying or implying America as the sole perpetrator is neither accurate nor helpful toward resolving or making amends for these offenses.
Addressing the matter of looted art is a noble goal as the way Hitler had his staff ransack the world's art collections is common knowledge but less well-known is museums have been doing this for centuries. Any museum wants a diverse collection of material but how each one acquires it varies considerably.
There are two topics of concern as looting of antiquities is an amusement when Indiana Jones does it but stealing such treasures is a crime against some other culture of the world and, in many cases, there has been no attempt to return the antiquities or make reparations for whatever may have been damaged.
That covers the first topic as looting antiquities is bad. Got that.
However, what moves from bad to sucks outrageously is the focus of the article on American museums as they, seemingly, are the primary perpetrators. My purpose has nothing to do with defensiveness regarding America but rather with what is the actual state of things. America has acquired many antiquities while at the same time the British Museum has a great many antiquities it acquired from Greece and all over the world.
Greece has been trying for many years to get those antiquities returned but the British Museum will not send them back. Melina Mercouri, star in "Never On Sunday," became a Minister of Culture for Greece and it was a major cause with her to get these treasures returned but she never had success with it.
Yet, that same country has a problem with how American museums acquire their booty. The genesis of the article is unclear as it was written for The Guardian but it draws from some books and a New York Times article. Regardless of how much cut and paste was used to write the article, the oversight regarding the British Museum glares. For example, the Getty Museum is called out in multiple places but the British Museum is never even named.
This is some really twisted journo which could have been the good stuff but it took such a narrow focus it turned itself back into more of the same ol', same ol'. Museums have committed some major cultural transgressions but identifying or implying America as the sole perpetrator is neither accurate nor helpful toward resolving or making amends for these offenses.
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