Whose Culture?: The Promise of Museums and the Debate over Antiquities

233 Pages·2009·2.81 MB·English

by  James Cuno

Whose Culture ?
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The Promise of Museums and
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Whose Culture?

Whose Culture?
The Promise of museums and The
debaTe over anTiquiTies
James Cuno
EditEd by
Princeton University Press
Princeton and oxford
iii
Frontispiece James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), The Artist in His Studio,
1865/66. Oil on paper, mounted on panel (24 3/4 × 18 1/4 in.). The Art Institute of
Chicago, Friends of American Art Collection, 1912.141.
Copyright  2009 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton,

New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock,
Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
All Rights Reserved
Second printing, and first paperback printing, 2012

Paperback ISBN 978-0-691-15443-5
The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition of this book as follows
Whose culture? : the promise of museums and the debate over antiquities /
edited by James Cuno.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-13333-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Museums—Acquisitions—Moral and ethical aspects.
2. Museum exhibits—Moral and ethical aspects. 3. Cultural property—
Protection. 4. Cultural property—Repatriation. 5. Antiquities—Collection
and preservation—Moral and ethical aspects. 6. Antiquities—Collection and
preservation—Social aspects. 7. Excavations (Archaeology)—Moral and ethical
aspects. 8. Museums—Philosophy. I. Cuno, James B.
AM7.W47 2009
069′.51—dc22 2008024834
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Scala LF
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
press.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
I
n the present state of knowledge when we feel that there is a common link
which connects the civilized nations of all ages, a Museum cannot satisfy public
expectation, which contains only some more or less important specimens of
Greek, Etruscan, or Roman art. . . . Such [an encyclopedic] collection would be
the most convincing proof of the affinity of all civilized peoples, of the unity of
mankind. We should see that the first beginning of art is the same with all
nations; and though, from the peculiar circumstances of each, its development
was carried out in different ways and under different forms toward perfection,
yet we should be able to detect a close affinity and connexion between the
masterpieces of every national art, clearly showing that the beautiful is the
same in all ages and in all countries, and the imitative arts of all nations, so
soon as they break the thralldom of conventionality, which protected them in
their infancy, but hindered their further development, are the most noble
offspring of human genius, whether in Japan or Athens, whether on the Nile or
the Arno, on the Euphrates or the Tiber.
—F. Pulsky, “On the Progress and Decay of Art; and on the Arrangement of a
National Museum,” The Museum of Classical Antiquities 2 (1852)

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
introduction 1
James Cuno
part one the Value of Museums 37
to Shape the Citizens of “that Great City, the World” 39
Neil MacGregor
“And What do you Propose Should be done with
those Objects?” 55
Philippe de Montebello
Whose Culture is it? 71
Kwame Anthony Appiah
part two the Value of Antiquities 87
Antiquities and the importance—and Limitations—of
Archaeological Contexts 89
James C. Y. Watt
Archaeologists, Collectors, and Museums 107
Sir John Boardman
vii
viii
contents
Censoring Knowledge: the Case for the Publication of
Unprovenanced Cuneiform tablets 125
David I. Owen
part three Museums, Antiquities, and Cultural Property 143
Exhibiting indigenous Heritage in the Age of
Cultural Property 145
Michael F. Brown
Heritage and National treasures 165
Derek Gillman
the Nation and the Object 183
John Henry Merryman
Select Bibliography 205
Contributors 209
Index 213
Acknowledgments
I
n the sprIng of 2006, Timothy Potts, then director of the Kimbell Art
Museum (now director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Univer-
sity), and I organized a conference titled “Museums and the Collecting of
Antiquities: Past, Present, and Future.” It was offered under the auspices
of the Association of Art Museum Directors, open to the public, and held
in the Celeste Bartos Forum of the New York Public Library. The discus-
sion that day made it clear that a book was needed that would present the
point of view of museum directors, curators, and university-based scholars
regarding the value of the museum in the context of the current debate
over the acquisition of antiquities. This is that book.
The authors of the essays included herein argue, from different
points of view—directorial, curatorial, historical, legal, and philosophical—
that museums have value as repositories of objects dedicated to the dis-
semination of knowledge and the dissolution of ignorance, where the arti-
facts of one culture and one time are preserved and displayed next to
others without prejudice. This is the view of the encyclopedic museum,
the origins of which lay in the Enlightenment ideal of universal knowl-
edge. The encyclopedic museum encourages a broad understanding and
appreciation of the historical interrelatedness of the world’s diverse cul-
tures and promotes inquiry and tolerance. And in the process, it preserves
our common artistic legacy in the public domain for the benefit of the
curious public. This is the promise of museums.
This view has been challenged recently as outmoded: the view of a
past and misguided era of colonization, during which European nations
ix