Good times in WA and less good times in the UK

The announcement in May of the redevelopment of the WA Museum is good news, but has been a long term in coming. It had a false start along the way in 2008, when under Dawn Casey's directorship the Museum's relocation to the old Swan River powerstation was announced. Although the monies were about the same for the latter project, about half was going to be eaten up by site remediation. And it seems to be generally agreed in Perth that the powerstation was not a good site being off the tourist track and difficult to access.

So the new plan sounds a whole lot better way to spend the not inconsiderable sum of $428.3 million.  

What the good citizens of WA will get for their money is 23,000 m2 of museum, including various refurbished heritage buildings with 8,500 m2 of public spaces, themed around Being Western Australian, Discovering Western Australia and Exploring Our World, and 1,000m2 of temporary exhibition space.

As Australian museum projects go it dwarfs anything we have seen of late, which admittedly has tended to be new wings ($50m at MCA in 2012,  $45m at the Australian Museum in in 2008), is almost 4 times the cost of GOMA (2006) in Brisbane, is twice the cost of the National Museum (2001) and significantly more than the Melbourne Museum (1998). The challenge will be for the director, Alec Coles, to hold onto the funds over various budget cycles. There is no doubt that Coles is a smart political operator and much of the credit for getting this over the line is due to him, but Bill Bleathman, the able director of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, saw the promise of a similar sum whittled away to a paltry $30m for their current redevelopment.

From the largesse of WA’s booming mining driven economy to the other end of the spectrum, and it's interesting to see what happens to museums in an economy that is really being hit hard, namely the UK. The raw facts are that 42% of UK Museums Association member institutions have cut staff in the past year according to their most recent survey, and a quarter have had to close all or part of their sites. Bear in mind that this is what happened in 2011, after at least 2 years prior to that of a similar picture. But the good news is that out of adversity in true British fashion there are good things evolving (and it's not just the lift to the spirits that the Olympics is bringing).  The survey is peppered with comments such as " Challenge does foster resourcefulness", 'There is a more pragmatic approach to service delivery", ' the sector will emerge more radical and responsive to the social needs of the public', and 'being more entrepreneurial has to be good for museums and galleries in the long term'.  Add to this increasing visitor numbers, and 36% of members saying the quality of their services will increase over the coming year ( up from 13% the previous) and it all sounds positively rosy. To top it all, UK public support for the return of the Elgin marbles to Greece is on the decline, because there is real concern that Greece's dire financial state would mean they will be unable to properly care for them. Not sure that view is going to hold water in the long term, but for now it will keep the British Museum’s 6 million annual visitors (and rising) happy. 

Julian Bickersteth

Managing Director

internationalconservationservices

Museums post GFC

Much current museum talk is focused on where the sector is at in the post GFC world. Quite whether we are yet in a post GFC world is a matter of debate. In the US the sector was hit hard early on, due to their reliance on endowment revenue, whereas in the UK and Europe, government subsidies cushioned museums from having to make the extensive cut backs their US colleagues were making. In the UK however, despite some protection of the national museums from government austerity measures, the current situation is pretty gloomy for the foreseeable future, just as the US museum sector begins to show some signs of recovery.
What all commentators agree is that the post GFC museum world is going to be different, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Museum veterans comment that out of adversity museum leaders have an opportunity to frame a new vision for the future.

And as often is the case with such debates, some of the most interesting discussion is amongst the side issues.

Looking at three of these:

1) The shrinking pool of museum quality art and artefacts. With the substantial proliferation of new museums particularly in the Middle East and China, I have been wondering where their contents are going to come from - there is after all a finite amount of historic artistic material. Colleagues that attended the ICOM General Assembly in Shanghai in December commented on this issue, given the rate of new museums the Chinese are building, along with the slightly easier problem to solve of how to find professional staff for them.

For mature museums this is not much of a problem, and indeed one of the sources of these art and artefacts will in the future be the vast storehouses of the major museums of Europe and the US, witness the satellites the Guggenheim has created, and the Louvre and the British Museum are establishing in Abu Dhabi. For a fascinating New York Times article on this.The money being spent on the buildings alone is extraordinary with $800 million on the Frank Gehry designed branch of the Guggenheim 12 times the size of its New York flagship, and $500 million on the Louvre Abu Dhabi, on top of which the government will be paying France $1.3 billion to borrow art.

So my view is that we are moving into a period of more sharing of collections rather than a shortage of artworks to go round.

2) The contested status of many historic objects. This is an interesting issue highlighted by the media attention given to repatriation of indigenous material, the return of Nazi artworks illegally taken, the highly publicised return of Getty treasures illegally exported from Italy and of course the status of the Elgin marbles.

Again my view is that all of these events are ultimately good for the museum sector, emphasising that we hold public collections purely as custodians of the past to hand onto future generations, the exact location of which is not materially significant, so long as they remain publically accessible.

3) The game changing effects of technology. Certainly the game has changed - I like the analogy that we have moved in the museum sector from the age of travertine to the age of terabytes, i.e. that the focus is now on investing in digital infrastructure rather than famous architect designed museum buildings. Given the costs of that infrastructure both in capital and in maintenance, it may not be much cheaper.

But when you see how those who embraced the process early are now benefiting, e.g the Tate who had all their 60,000 collection on line by 2006, the opportunities are very considerable in terms of networking, cross referencing and in depth research.

So indeed it is a different world we face post GFC, but one ripe with new opportunities.

Julian Bickersteth
Managing Director
internationalconservationservices

The trials of repatriation of national treasures

The recent decision of British Museum director, Neil Macgregor, to ‘delay’ the loan of the Cyrus Cylinder to Iran is an interesting one. On the face of it, this is due to the recent dramatic discovery in the BM’s stores of fragments of the same inscription. The Cyrus Cylinder is a clay cylinder dating from 539bc inscribed with a decree from the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great, and discovered in 1879 during an excavation in Babylon (now in Iraq) sponsored by the BM. The new pieces apparently assist with the reading of passages in the Cylinder that are either missing or are obscure, and therefore help to improve understanding of the cylinder, showing the declaration on it is much more than a standard Babylonian building inscription, and probably an imperial decree that was distributed around the Persian Empire. The BM has some 130,000 cuneiform tablets from Mespotamia, so you could say it is not surprising that it has taken this long to find one that cross references.

But the Iranians have been hassling for the loan of the cylinder for some time, threatening to cut off ties with the BM if they do not get it. This press release from Iran has itself shown what strong and complicated views there on the subject from the unreprintable to WHO ON EARTH DO THE IRANIAN GOVT AND PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE? THIS STONE BELONS TO IRAQ, BABYLON IS IN IRAQ NOT IRAN and Are you people kidding me? The British Museum is home to nothing but stolen treasures that remind us all of their horrible history of war crimes, colonization, and the fact that the world would be a much better place if they just stayed put on their island.

That was last October and all seemed to be resolved with a date for the loan finalised in December 2009, until the latest find of comparative material justified more time required for research purposes. The reaction from Iran has now become much stronger with a full scale diplomatic row, and potential downgrading of diplomatic relations. Despite the ongoing protestations from Macgregor that the BM is still committed to the loan happening later in the year, one cannot help suspect that he is seriously concerned that the Cylinder will never be returned once loaned.

Of course the Elgin marble returnees are making merry of his predicament. Websites such as Elginism (‘an act of cultural vandalism’), Marbles Reunited and The International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures (headed by our own ex-ABC director David Hill) show just how much public pressure there is on the BM to repatriate parts of their collection.

I have written elsewhere that I believe the Elgin marbles should now be returned, as their legal acquisition was dubious, their care by the BM initially deplorable, their value to Greek culture immense and their ongoing preservation now assured in the new Acropolis Museum. But what a predicament it is, that you would not wish on any museum director, whose ultimate charge is the preservation and maintenance of their institutions collections not their dispersement to other organisations, however justifiable the reasons. And the demands are going to become greater not lesser as the Cyrus Cylinder has shown – it is not even listed in the BM’s hundred most important objects.

I was reminded of the same issue last week when in Hanoi to discuss the new National History Museum of Vietnam. Housed in a vast and fine new building (yet to be built) the Museum is planned to become the definitive statement about the history of Vietnam. That will surely mean there is demand for objects of their ancient Viet culture to be returned from museums across the world.