Sat Mar 23, 3:45 PM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - A lone protester on Saturday vandalized a London art exhibition featuring dozens of flayed human corpses, condemning the gallery for staging a "freak show." Martin Wynness, who described himself as a horrified parent, poured paint on the floor and threw a blanket over an exhibit featuring a baby in a womb. The "Body Worlds" show at the Atlantis Gallery is the brainchild of German self-styled professor Gunther von Hagens. It features about 30 corpses that have been flayed and then displayed in a variety of bizarre poses that have left some critics distinctly unimpressed. Wynness said he had acted out of concern for his children, but insisted he had not damaged any of the exhibits. "It's like a freak show in there," he told Sky News. "It's not scientific, it's horrendous." Wynness said the show was disrespectful toward the remains of those whose bodies were on display. He conceded that few of those who had turned up to view the show backed his action. "I think most people were horrified by what I had done," he said. Among the exhibits are "Rider on a Horse," in which both man and beast are more or less intact, but totally skinned and with their skulls cleaved in two. Von Hagens, who has been likened to Frankenstein, Nazi concentration camp doctors, or the murderous 19th century Edinburgh 'body snatchers' Burke and Hare, says the show aims to educate humans about the bodies they inhabit. Sunday Times art critic Waldemar Januszczak said: "It's certainly not art, and its educational value is limited. It's just a mass of hype going around sucking up money." A medical doctor from the former communist East Germany, von Hagens has been practicing "plastination" of corpses since the 1970s, when he pioneered the body-preserving technique. More than eight million people have already seen the show in Japan, Germany, Belgium and Austria.
Athens museum awaits disputed Elgin marble
Fri Mar 22, 6:12 AM ET Andy Dabilis USA TODAY
ATHENS, Greece -- In what is sure to throw light on a 200-year-old controversy, plans for a New Acropolis Museum -- primarily designed to house the famed Elgin marbles taken from the Parthenon and now in the British Museum -- have been unveiled, and a May groundbreaking has been scheduled. In the nearly 2,500 years since the Parthenon was erected atop the Acropolis to be the temple of Athena, Athens' patron goddess, this architectural icon has been plundered, bombarded, besieged, set afire, rocked by earthquakes, used as a Turkish mosque and a Christian church and hosted flags of the invaders of Greece. But to many Greeks, perhaps the worst desecration of all still exists: the pillaging of many of the Parthenon's most beautiful friezes 200 years ago by a British nobleman, Thomas Bruce, known as Lord Elgin. The Elgin marbles, referred to by the Greeks as the Parthenon marbles, have been in the British Museum since 1816, when the museum bought them from Elgin. Now, after years of protests and demands that they be returned to Greece, a new home is being built for them -- even though they may never be returned. The winning design for the $12 million New Acropolis Museum, featuring a third-story glass hall to display the contested marbles and to provide a view of the Parthenon looming high on the Acropolis several hundred yards away, was unveiled last month. It is the work of Bernard Tschumi, a Swiss-born architect and professor at Columbia University in New York, who bested 11 other finalists. The museum is expected to be finished just before the start of the 2004 Summer Olympic Games here -- in time for the international spotlight to focus on the dispute. Dimitrios Pandermalis, an archaeologist and president of the Organization for the New Acropolis Museum, says the building was designed to show off the missing marbles and answer British claims that they needed an indoor environment. He says most of the glass hall would be left empty, awaiting the return of the marbles, to put pressure on the British government. ''We'd like to create the possibility for the return,'' he says, adding that Greece has offered to fill the void at the British Museum if the marbles are returned with loans of other architectural and historic works. ''It's a new conception of cultural policy.'' Greek Minister of Culture Evangelos Venizelos said after the unveiling, ''The new museum is a material argument for the return of the marbles.'' But Robert Anderson, director of the British Museum, is unmoved by the argument that the new museum would be a better showcase than the current one, where the marbles now are seen by an estimated 5 million visitors a year. ''I don't think the issue is one of security. I believe the Greeks proudly look after their great artistic heritage, and that is not the point. The Parthenon sculptures here in London have been part of the British Museum,'' he says. The Greeks also have argued that Elgin stole the marbles, taking about 60% of them, although at the time he had permission from the Turks, who were engaging in their 400-year occupation of Greece. Anderson says Elgin saved them from further weathering and despoliation and had proper authority to take them. The artfully carved marbles, depicting gods, soldiers, animals and citizens in everyday life, sat atop the nearly 36-foot-high Doric columns as a decoration winding around the 200-foot- long, 90-foot-wide Parthenon. ''Lord Elgin took them because the building was in great danger . . . and quite a large portion of the sculptures had been thrown down'' by others removing or damaging them, Anderson says. Cries for their return have gone on for nearly as long as they have been outside Greece, from great British poets such as Lord Byron (who died in Greece helping the Greeks in their war of independence from Turks) and John Keats, to such modern-day celebrities as the late Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis (Zorba the Greek, The Last Temptation of Christ), French film director Jules Dassin and his late wife, Greek actress Melina Mercouri (who was the Greek Minister of Culture in the 1980s). Dassin, who attended the unveiling of the design, says, ''The fact the museum is here . . . will be very influential in England.'' A television poll several years ago showed 90% of British citizens favored the marbles' return, but the government has not relented. The hilltop Acropolis, seen by up to 10 million visitors a year, represents for the Greeks a hallmark of early Western civilization and the Golden Age of Pericles, who commissioned the building of the Parthenon in 447 B.C., when intellectuals and philosophers such as Socrates ruled. It has been described as the culmination of Greek architecture.
The museum will house other archaeological exhibits from the area around the Acropolis, including a view of ongoing excavations. The glass hall for the marbles will be nearly as big as the Parthenon itself, Pandermalis says.
Tschumi says that he did his design without paying attention to the raging political arguments. But he says he feels the marbles would be displayed best in the new museum. ''Looking at the friezes in the British Museum is not the same as looking at them in the Attican light.''
European Union Question On Axum Obelisk
Mar 22, 2002 (Addis Tribune/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- The British Member of the European Union, Richard Balfe, has tabled a question at the joint ACP-EU Parliamentary Assembly in Cape Town, South Africa, during the Fourth Session, which was held 18-21 March 2002, about the non-return of the Axum Obelisk and other loot taken by Fascist Italy and thus, far not returned. "Bearing in mind the tremendous amount of African art and cultural artifacts that have been removed from the continent of Africa, and, in particular, that Article 37 of the Italian Peace Treaty, which became effective in September 1947, specified that Italy should return within eighteen months all items taken from Ethiopia, and given that the Italo-Ethiopian Agreement of 1947 laid down that the Axum Oblelisk was removed on Mussolini's personal orders in 1937, will the Commission , working with the European Parliament and the ACP, raise with the Italian Foreign Ministry the matter of the Return of the Obelisk and ask him to indicate when the promised return can in fact be expected?," asked Balfe. "Could the Commission also ask the Ministry to make a statement on the return of other articles taken from Ethiopia and, in particular, when the Ethiopian pre-war National Archives, currently incorporated in Italian state archives, and the pre-war Ethiopian aeroplane 'Tsehai', currently held in the Italian Aviation Museum, will be returned?" Balfe further asked "Could the Commission also ask the Ministry to make a statement on the return of other articles taken from Ethiopia and, in particular, when the Ethiopian pre-war National Archives, currently incorporated in Italian state archives, and the pre-war Ethiopian aeroplane 'Tsehai', currently held in the Italian Aviation Museum, will be returned?" Balfe further asked
Copyright Addis Tribune. Distributed by All Africa Global Media(AllAfrica.com) The Art Newspaper.com
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