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Showing posts from January, 2007

Cultural Vandalism

Reading the European Museums Forum bulletin ( www.europeanmuseumforum.org ) Bury's decision to sell the Lowry painting resurfaced. Apparently the Director of the National Gallery, Charles Saumerez Smith described it as "an arbitrary act of cultural vandalism". Bollocks . The Taliban destroying the statues of buddha ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamyan ) is cultural vandalism; the US Army destroying ancient Persian archeology sites with a massive base in Iraq is cultural vandalism. Bury didn't burn the bloody painting. It sold it. If this was such a threat to the cultural heritage, why didn't the National Gallery buy it? Either they didn't have enough money - which was the same reason that Bury had to sell it - or it wasn't important enough to 'save' for the nation - which contradicts the claim that it was too important for Bury to sell.

Disposals, Local Authorities and Fine Art

I have been invited to speak at a Museums Libraries Archives North West (MLA) symposium on the issues around disposal of artworks today. The reason being Bury Art Gallery & Museum’s recent sale of its LS Lowry painting to balance the budget. The MLA’s response was to de-register the Museum from the national network. Since the curatorial practice has been directed to international partnership and local communities, this disconnection has virtually no direct effect on the museum. It’s a government target dropped but hey, I see today a leaked government memo admitting that they will fail to meet their cleanliness/anti-superbug target in the Health Service – so in the scale of things Bury museum isn’t killing anyone so that’s a good thing. Its difficult to know in advance whether Bury has been invited for a real dialogue about how to deal with the threat culture faces or whether it is a session for potshooting. I am treating it as the former. I plan to start in about 2002 when Hull