In 2013, UNESCO asked the British Museum to let it mediate a deal between it and the government of Greece, which has been calling for the return of the Elgin Marbles with ever-growing fervor for the past 30 years.
British Museum
Posted inNews
For #MuseumWeek, Institutions Share Their Secrets Online
What are museums hiding in their pasts and inside their collection storage vaults? Some of those secrets (or just lesser-known facts) are being shared by institutions around the world this Museum Week through the hashtag #secretsmw.
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UK Institutions Relying Less on Corporate Sponsorship
In January, many were surprised to find that BP’s controversial sponsorship of Tate Britain represented a relatively small slice of its overall funding.
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British Museum’s Display of Aboriginal Artifacts Prompts New Demands for Their Return
There are only a handful of bark art examples from the Dja Dja Wurrung in Australia, and they’re leagues away from their place of origin. A new exhibition of indigenous art of Australia at the British Museum, which holds these artifacts in their collections, will finally bring them back to the South Pacific. However, leaders there want them returned permanently.
Posted inArt
Let Them Eat Art: Queens Through the Ages
In her infamous speech at the British Museum last year, writer Hilary Mantel described Kate Middleton, future queen of England, as a “shop-window mannequin” whose sole purpose was to look pretty and give birth.
Posted inIn Brief
24-Hour Strike Affects UK Museums
An all-day strike yesterday saw operations at a number of UK museums stopped or decreased as nearly 250,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union walked off the job over caps on pay and pensions, the Guardian reported.
Posted inArt
A Coven of Art Convenes to Examine the Face of the Witch
Whether you imagine a witch as a monstrous Macbeth conjuror, or a more innocuous pointy-hatted character riding a broomstick, it’s likely the visuals of art have something to do with it.
Posted inOpinion
British Museum Wants Someone to Update Its Website for Free [UPDATED]
The British Museum is a flagship cultural institution with 2013 expenditures of £115.4 million (~$186.2 million). It is also, according to a current online listing, seeking free help from experienced coders in the guise, naturally, of an internship or “student placement” with its “Digital Team.”
Posted inArt
Crowdsourcing the Bronze Age in a New Platform for Archaeology
Some of the most significant records on human history remain inaccessible to a wide audience. A new open source crowdsourcing platform called MicroPasts is looking to involve online amateurs in collaborations with professional archaeologists to create digital records of archive collections.
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Indigenous Action Highlights British Museum’s Role in Colonialism
Last Friday, January 11, Idle No More London staged a UK solidarity action in London’s British Museum. Standing in solidarity with the Idle No More movement, which originated last November with the First Nations, Metis, and Inuit communities in Canada, members of Idle No More London chose the museum that is widely believed to be the largest repository of colonial artifacts in the world as the site for their protest action.
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British Museum Maintenance Workers Strike Against Privatization
Roughly 50 maintenance workers and cleaners at the British Museum staged a brief strike this past Monday, the AFP reports, protesting the museum’s plans to privatize maintenance work starting next April. The workers are represented by the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union and Unite, and both groups have expressed concern that their members’ pay and conditions will be affected by the plan to contract the work out to a single private company.
Posted inArt
Minotaurs and Mistresses: Picasso at the British Museum
CHICAGO — It’s on days like this that I wish I still lived in London. If you do, or you’re visiting between May and September, make sure the British Museum is on your to-do list: they are mounting a rare show devoted entirely to Picasso’s “Vollard” suite, a set of 100 etchings that Picasso made in the 1930s.