My New Work on the Parthenon/Elgin Marbles Dispute

The New Acropolis Museum and the Parthenon

Apologies for the lack of posting in recent weeks. I've been furiously finishing up some writing before the new semester really gets into full swing. If you, gentle reader, will forgive the shameless self-promotion, I'll post a link to the work-in-progress titled "The Parthenon Sculptures and Cultural Justice". Here's the abstract:

From government and philosophy to art drama and culture, the ancient Athenians, as most everyone knows, gave future generations so much. Yet the pinnacle of their artistic achievement, the Parthenon, remains a damaged and incomplete work of art. 2012 marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the last removal of works of art from the Parthenon. That taking was ordered by an English diplomat known to history as Lord Elgin, and it reminds us that cultures create lasting monuments. But not equally. Cultures which remove the artistic achievements of other nations have increasingly been confronted with uncomfortable questions about how these objects were acquired. Nations of origin are increasingly deciding to press claims for repatriation of works taken long ago. They proceed through history mindful of the irresistible genius of their forebears have created and are unwilling to cease their calls for return. The majority of the surviving sculptures from the Parthenon in Greece now are currently on display in the British Museum in London. The Greek government and cultural heritage advocates, have been asking for reunification of these sculptures in the New Acropolis Museum in Athens. Greece has offered a number of concessions, but the British Museum and the British Government have repeatedly refused to seriously discuss reunification. Mounting pressure on the British Museum, and the inescapable fact that the Parthenon was an ancient unified work of art both mean that the Parthenon marbles will either eventually be returned to Greece or subject to an endless repatriation debate. Here I offer a series of principles which the Greeks and the British Museum can take to jointly create a just return. Because the way the British Museum and Greece resolve this argument will have much to say for the future of the management of our collective cultural heritage.

I hope to find a good placement for the piece this fall submission cycle. As always, I'd be very grateful for any comments, criticisms or suggestions (derek.fincham@gmail.com).

 

Kimmelman on Drawing the Borders of Culture

Michael Kimmelman has a piece discussing the Parthenon sculptures and how it has influenced other repatriation debates.  He seems to favor a cosmopolitan approach, and borrows a good deal from James Cuno without mentioning him by name.  After all the mention of Cuno in some circles often shuts off any reasoned discourse.  And though he seems to be frustrated with his conclusion—that the Parthenon sculptures taken by Elgin should remain in London—he manages to make some thoughtful observations.  His best argument may be comparing the Euphronios Krater to the Parthenon sculptures:

And in the end patrimony is about ownership, often of objects that as in the marbles’ case, come from bygone civilizations. What, in this context, does it really mean to own culture?

Italy recently celebrated the return of a national treasure after the Metropolitan Museum gave back a sixth-century B.C. Greek krater by the painter Euphronius that tomb robbers dug up outside Rome during the 1970s. Stolen property is stolen property. But how curious that an ancient Greek vase, which centuries after it was made came into the possession of an Etruscan collector (a kind of ancient Elgin) living on what is now the outskirts of Rome, and then ended up buried for thousands of years below what became modern Italy, is today Italian cultural patrimony. By that definition, Elgin’s loot is arguably British patrimony.

Thought-provoking stuff, well worth a read. 

1. Michael Kimmelman, Who Draws the Borders of Culture?, The New York Times, May 4, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/arts/09abroad.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all (last visited May 6, 2010).

Poggioli on the New Acropolis Museum

"Everyone understands what is missing".

So says Naya Charmalia, a member of the New Acropolis Museum exhibition team, in a piece today for All Things Considered by Sylvia Poggioli:

Acropolis Museum director Dimitrios Pandermalis says his aim is to reunify the entire composition close to its original setting.
"We have from the same figure, half of the body in Athens, half of the body in London. We have a body in London and a head in Athens. We have horses in London, and the tails of the horses are in Athens. It is a moral problem in art of divided monuments," he says.
British Museum officials concede that it could loan some of the sculptures, as long as Greece recognizes its ownership of the artifacts. It's a proposal Pandermalis rejects.
"They don't belong to the British, they don't belong to us. They belong to history. They are not pieces of trade," he says.
The campaign for the return of the sculptures is part of the international debate over ownership of cultural property.
For Greeks, the return of the Parthenon Marbles is an issue of national and cultural pride.
Maro Kakridi-Ferrari, professor in the philosophy department of Athens University, says the Parthenon — and what it symbolizes — were traumatized by the sculptures' removal.
"They are the material proof of what democracy has built in Athens of the Classical period," she says. "They are identified with the glory of ancient Greece, and they are part of the national identity."

Poggioli Sylvia, Greece Unveils Museum Meant For 'Stolen' Sculptures, NPR.