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culture

two-year-olds… When they find
something interesting, sometimes
they write comments, which is
interesting. They tell their friends.

The British Museum, when I joined,
was a kind of nineteenth century
institution with suits and everybody
called by his surname, not by his first
name, very proper. Over the years
it’s moved gradually into the twenty-
first century, with the internet and
YouTube especially. People write
remarks like, “I never been to the
British Museum, but I think I’m
going to go now.” Or, “I didn’t realize
that the curators were alive.” And we
even get rude remarks.

Well, you know, people see the
institution not those who are behind it.
That is true. Actually, that can play
into the museum’s need to raise
money with sponsors. There’re all
sorts of things you can do with
sponsors, but the real sure-fire system
is to take them through a locked
door behind the scenes because they can see all the world together. We’re which is unthinking. There are two
turn into five-year-old children with a bit like the Louvre in Paris in this problems with this. One is that
their mouths open because it’s all so respect and the Met in New York and people seem to have a very unclear
wonderful to see. If I go to the Louvre St Petersburg and Berlin, the group idea of the difference between truth
and one of my colleagues takes me of really big museums. and lies, because there’s so much
through a locked door, it’s the same confusion.
thing, just captivating. I’m hoping we can create a sort of
network where we’re all in it together, There doesn’t seem to be any rigor
Do you have relations with other so that if somebody attacks one about everything. So, people become
museums? museum, we all come and defend indifferent. That’s one thing. And
We do. Especially now in the the attacked museum. then the other thing is that the
world where there’s a lot of trouble museum is to do with truth. It’s not
about what’s in museums from the I don’t think it’s legitimate to argue to do with the value of the object,
nineteenth century and all that that museums don’t have a function. it’s to do with truth and what we
send-it-back stuff. In my experience They have a big function. Once you know about things and what we
in Britain, most people think that start taking something out, whatever can explain about them, where all
the British Museum is absolutely it is, then somebody – the Chinese, people, all nations, are equal.
wonderful and should be left alone. the Japanese, the Hungarians
The politicians, who are in charge – anybody will say, “Well, if you’re It’s a kind of catholic view of the
of everything, see it’s a good way giving their thing back, what about achievements of humankind, of the
to get a public reaction. But in fact, ours?” And before you know it, you intellectual and artistic achievements,
ordinary people, if you ask them in have an MPB or something. which is a marvelous thing. It has
a conversation, they think it’s good to be saluted and we have to hold
because everything’s looked after I’m interested also in fighting what on to it because there are so many
so well, and it’s free to see, and you I regard as destructive criticism, terrible things undermining all this.

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