Category: visual

“I found the article by Andrew Eaton in the Scotsman on the Turner Prize very poorly wrought. I, for one, am perfectly willing to admit anything into the category ‘art’ that comes into being to evoke response. But being art doesn’t necessarily imply that something has value…”

So what do other museums think of the declaration this week by some of the world’s major museums that they shouldn’t return ancient artifacts to their countries of origin? “The British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles was dismissive of the declaration by the museums, which included the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Hermitage in St Petersburg, and the Berlin Museum. ‘Such unilateral, absolute ‘declarations’ are not sustainable in the modern world,’ it insisted. ‘Declarations of this kind should be the outcome of discussion and consultation beyond the small circle of self-styled ‘universal’ museums’.”

So why did great world museums issue a statement on Repatriation of historic monuments? “The museums’ statement, which never mentioned the Parthenon Marbles, was meant as a collective defense of collections that were put together in another era, before countries like Greece became more protective of their cultural patrimony. The statement argued that museums, as the guardians of artifacts from civilizations around the world, had become international institutions with missions that transcended national boundaries.”

During World War II, the British worried about the safety of their art. So they devised places to hide it. One of the plans was to hide it in the rich country houses, but owners of the houses were less than helpful. “A forthcoming book discloses that their behaviour led them to be compared to collaborators with Hitler. The attitudes wrecked plans to save art treasures by holding them in such houses. Instead the works had to be stored at high public cost in specially built underground installations in Wales and Wiltshire.”

So attendance has soared at British museums that dropped their admission charges last year. But the increased visits aren’t coming from low-income people for whom the entry fees might have been a barrier. “Free admission is a welcome bonus for all those who already appreciate our museums’ riches, but it is not a very effective way of attracting anyone else. Instead, the extra visitors increase museum running costs for the museums, which they have to meet out of grants so limited that their custodianship of our heritage may be compromised.”

Conde Nast, the giant magazine publisher and owner of Vogue, has blocked British artist Graham Dolphin from showing a piece based on Vogue covers in a show at the Barbican Centre in London. The company said that “the reputation and goodwill built up in this title over many years as the world’s leading fashion authority, is the most valuable asset this company owns, and we are not prepared to allow anyone to exploit it in an unauthorised way…. It is our policy to follow up on every case of unauthorised usage whether it be commercial or artistic, with the assistance of our lawyers whenever necessary.”

The Parthenon Marbles have been attacked and degraded over 1600 years. But one has only to compare the pieces left at the Acropolis with those preserved in the British Museum to appreciate that Lord Elgin’s removal of the marbles to London has helped preserve them. In this context, the claim that the removal of the Elgin Marbles are is an “object lesson of greed, xenophobia and intransigence” is “in part incomprehensible and in part deeply offensive.”

How tiresome – another Turner Prize, another controversy – and why?. “We just can’t get past it. For some reason it seems far more pressing to ask whether something can actually be called art than to ask whether it’s good or bad. This barrier is more important and more damaging to art itself than it may sound. A lot of people – teachers, curators, critics, funding bodies – have to agree something is art before it can get nominated for an award such as the Turner Prize. Unless all these people are conspiring to make fools of us, that’s a pretty convincing consensus.”

Since London museums dropped their admission charges last year, attendance at museums is up 62 percent. This is a good thing, and something the government has pledged to continue. But the move has “cost the Government more than £70 million – the cash was given to the institutions over three years to make up for loss of revenue.” And the museums say it isn’t nearly enough – they need more compensation…

Over the past 10 years there has been a succession of new museum buildings that seem to want to compete with the art inside – as if the permanence of the structure trumps the objects that can be rearranged inside. Tadao Ando’s new Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is different – it “assumes that art remains a vital part of our existence. As an architect, his aim is to allow us to understand that relationship more clearly, to bring us into closer contact with both the art and ourselves. It is architecture for art’s sake, without condescension.”