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RUSSIA TO LEND WORKS
In a dramatic turnaround, it seems that Russia has now decided to lend paintings from four federal museums for an upcoming exhibition on Russian art at London's Royal Academy. As Agence France-Presse reports, the announcement comes after the British government implemented a new law to protect the artworks from possible seizure on the part of descendents of families from which the works were seized during the 1917 October Revolution. Instead of an official statement, the announcement was made by a top government official on Moscow's Echo radio. "We are sure that our cultural treasures will be protected from third parties in Great Britain," said Anatoliy Vilkov, the deputy head of Russia's cultural-protection department. "If the museums resolve the technical problems," then the paintings in question will be sent directly to London from Düsseldorf, where they are now being exhibited.
ART IN THE AUSTRIAN PARLIAMENT—ENLIGHTMENT OR DEMOCRACY?
The Austrian parliament may soon become an exhibition site. As Der Standard and APA report, the plan was initiated by Gerald Matt, the director of the Kunsthalle Wien, and Stella Rollig, the director of Linz's Lentos Art Museum, who together will take over the artistic arrangement of the parliament for the next three years. Matt hopes to transform the staid parliament into "a site of merry enlightenment." Parliament members may have other plans. According to the national parliamentary president, Barbara Prammer, the 110,000 visitors who tour the building every year should be "interested in contemporary art as a constituent element of democracy." To be continued . . .
DANIEL BUREN TO DEMOLISH COLUMNS—OR PILLARS?
Daniel Buren's column installation at Paris's Palais Royal may soon become history. As AFP and Le Monde report, the sculptor intends to request the demolition of the columns if repairs are not immediately initiated by the French government. "It's a work that's 50 percent destroyed," Buren told the AFP. "It's a form of vandalism—but from the state." The stunted columns, which are intended to function as part of a fountain in the court of honor, have not been provided with water for the past eight years. Responding to Buren's comments, Michel Clément, the director of architecture and heritage at the French Ministry of Culture, said that the columns were due to be repaired but that the repairs would take place as part of a general restoration at the Palais Royal building to transpire between 2007 and 2011. Within this larger plan, Buren's work could look forward to an overhaul in 2009.
COPYRIGHT FOR PYRAMIDS?
Egypt may soon seek to protect its pyramids from fakes and copies. As the APA reports, the Egyptian government hopes to introduce a special form of copyright for the pyramids, as well as other ancient sites. According to the new legislation, which may soon become law, the Egyptian government would have the right to collect a tax on all copies of the pyramids, the Sphinx, and other sites. The new law, which is intended to have international jurisdiction, would allow the Egyptian state to collect funds for the upkeep of these sites. "Egypt alone has the right to reproduce its monuments from antiquity," said Zahi Hawass, the director of the antiquities administration. Hawass added that artists—both Egyptian and foreign—would continue to enjoy the privilege of "being inspired" by the country's cultural treasures for their own works. The only clause is that these artistic inspirations cannot result in "exact copies."
A cultural war seems to be on the horizon. After the announcement was made, the Egyptian newspaper El Wafd made a public request to Las Vegas's Luxor Hotel and Casino complex, which features duplicates of the Valley of the Kings, to give part of its profits back to the Egyptian city Luxor, where the original valley is located. "Thirty-five million tourists come every year to Las Vegas to see the reproduction of Luxor," the newspaper stated, according to the APA. "Only six million visit the real Luxor." According to Hawass, the Vegas hotel will not be required to pay royalties under the new law, despite the fact that its website advertises "the only pyramid shaped building in the world." Hawass claims that the hotel is not "an exact copy of the pyramids," nor does its interior share any similarities with those of the pharaohs' burial sites.
BANGLADESH CONFLICTS CANCEL PARIS SHOW
The Royal Academy's "From Russia" is not the only exhibition to suffer from international political conflicts. As the AFP reports, the show "Masterpieces from the Ganges Delta," which was due to open this month at Paris's Guimet Museum, has been canceled due to conflicts between Bangladeshi intellectuals and political rivals, according to a Guimet Museum official. Bangladeshi authorities put an immediate stop to the exhibition when two statues due to be shipped to Paris were stolen from the Dhaka airport last weekend. "The empty shipping case was quickly located near the airport," said Vincent Lefèvre, curator of the Guimet exhibition, in the AFP report. "It's a job that was extremely well organized. To succeed with such a theft in a cargo zone [at the airport], one needs to have a network in place."
The exhibition, which is the first of its size organized by Bangladesh with a foreign museum, was due to begin in October but was delayed twice—first for administrative reasons and then for political ones. "Certain polemics were raised by informed citizens and by those who used the exhibition to oppose the current government," Lefèvre told the AFP. According to Lefèvre, both Bangladeshi archaeologists and university professors opposed being excluded from the exhibition's organization. Intellectuals organized demonstrations and even a judicial battle to contest the shipment of archaeological treasures to France. Protesters claimed that many pieces lent to a French museum in the 1950s were never returned to the country. The issue went all the way to the Bangladeshi supreme court, which decided that the works in question could indeed leave the country—a process that led to €600,000 ($875,500) in costs, which have been assumed by the Guimet Museum. Now the 42 pieces that already safely arrived in France for the exhibition—from a total of 188 works—must be returned to Dhaka. The Bangladeshi authorities have questioned fifteen people in relation to the theft and intend to request the assistance of Interpol to recover the two stolen statues.
Jennifer Allen
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