#JLF 2016: Midnight at the Museum

you thank you thank you sorry but it is from the Jaipur festival so you know they clearly want me to shut this session down immediately but in a spirit of subversion and transgression we will continue with these two very controversial people I mean you have been set up quite nicely Jim and we hope that midnight in the museum will now lead to some lights being turned on let me start with you Jim do you do you believe that the national idea is the cramping and the most the the cramping and limiting idea that functions now in relation to the museum exchange is this as restrictive as it seems and or should at some level we respect the national voice in the National will in relation to antiquities their present location and their repatriation well first of all I should I should say that my views are only controversial among people who disagree with me they're perfectly reasonable among people who agree with me but I think one needs to separate out the nation from the state yeah so the state has the authority to identify which cultural objects are important to their view of the nation and not others and they can protect than those that they claim to be important to the nation as they see the nation to be and then not the other ones so there is a power that the state has on behalf of the nation because it represents the nation as it were in this entity and that's what I'm much more concerned with the nation to me is a flexible organic developing entity that will evolve over time that has some relationship to the past that that past of the territorial space in which the nation occupies but you can be you can the nation can can exist around the world right I mean you can be of the nation of India in Brooklyn as much as you can be in Jaipur so that we have I want to distinguish that and I want to be very skeptical about the state and the state apparatus of the state's role in all of this because the state has an interest in it's keeping its own view of the nation in place because it affirms the strength and power of the state so anyway so your question was whether this is the most important question to be asked you know I think the most important question to be asked is twofold how do we best preserve the past and for whom do we preserve the past for the circumscribed few in the territorial extent of the state and nation or is it a broader public than that Irving I'm going to talk to you in a minute but you might want clarification on something in most democratic state in democratic nations where there are regular there's work fully working bureaucracy there are regular elections there is education cultural education as well as a pedagogical education that thing which becomes the state is also can also be is often an outgrowth of the nation and the national voice so so that's my first question you know it's not as if there is this complete distinction and nobody in the nation would also say you know except in very problematic political conditions we bear no connection to the state at all that's that's one issue the second issue is would you listen more sympathetically to the repatriation of Antiquities for instance if whatever you consider to be the nation not the state and even a bi-national nation even a nation with the diasporic population the Indians in Bloomington Indiana as well as the Indians in Bangalore were all to come together and say we see ourselves that as far as one is part of the information now can you please ship these things back to us the back well let me just a couple of things one is the back to us is extremely interesting because some of the us living but they might want it to come to India but that's different but that's a different question than what you asked because yes if it back to us yeah yes is all right thank you peep let me correct ship it back to the mother nation now but my question is really on both sides you know what is how would the nation articulate its best in the nation are taking it through which yes what about using the Institute but I want to say that the nation can rise the nation the state aren't coterminous right the nation can rise up against the state of coordination and should Donald Trump for example become president the United States I think you might find a reaction among the nation that's different than the reaction see he'll be in charge of the state apparatus he won't be in charge of the nation so at anyway how do I measure and how would I expect the nation in its totality it to rise up in agreement about something such as the return of of cultural heritage to a place in that places is only occupied by a portion of the nation I wanted to distinguish two things one is the political call for the repatriation and remember the repatriation is a loaded term it's it's comes from having the from being used in the return of prisoners of war as if things are being held against their will as if objects have will in themselves and they're being held against and they're they're being imprisoned and the idea is to return to their home country as if they have a home these are things that are mute in the sense that they are physical matter this physical matter these are not these are not things that it can express a view as to the question being asked to this these are not prisoners who want to be returned to their to their homeland so I think there's a distinction between repatriation and the return of objects based on an illegal export of these objects from a place because the state has laws and laws are in place and those laws are and anything that was taken since those laws were established if it's against the law to do so ought to be returned because that's illegal they have a legal status but just because someone says I think it ought to be returned there's no reason why it should be returned in just a simple path there's a lot to come back to and discuss and unpack on that you know of course you're right that if Trump comes you noticed a baby comes president we will repatriate to some other country of the mind you know your irrespective of where it is but there are there are times when the two work together it's not as if they don't work together but still let's let's and I take the point about repatriation and the question of return sometimes but objects are representing those who don't believe in returning objects also speak for they represent the object that object never speaks in its own voice Irby well I look at this in a much different point of view firstly if we had a general rule of repatriation one of the things that would happen is that every oil painting by Turner would come back to and quite frankly we have more Turner's already in London than we can put up with and it will be a disaster and if you had this conception that things are suppose what if you had the conception that things all had to go back to their country of origin and you really apply this as a blanket scheme the consequences would be absurd so my view of this is derived from the fact that I work in one of the biggest museums of the world we have the collection that goes back to the 18th century of unimaginable riches and we get it in the neck from lots of people most of whom you don't know the circumstances under which things were acquired you don't know why we keep them or what we're doing with them but the fact is I think there is a valid distinction to be made between the historical collections which have been in position for a long time on the one hand and what we do in the future did this work I'm not this microphone maybe it's the wrong flavor another microphone come on this way hello good evening I just like to start again from the beginning of my speech I would just like to stipulate this principle in my mind there is a difference between the historical situation on the one hand and what we do afterwards most of the material in the main museums of the world has not been there from Ray pine and theft but under circumstances which at the time were lawful and you cannot undo history so it seems to me in order to avoid an awful lot of noise and hysteria and flapping about that the real attention should be focused not on what we should repatriate from before we should just accept the situation but we should really pull our resources intellectual and material to protect the situation in the world as it is now and to prevent things being in a position where they need to be repatriated because they were unlawfully captured these two alternatives seem to me to be distinct and it blurs matters if you don't keep them separate also I should tell you that all the staff of the British Museum are fully trained killers and we have we have muskets from the 18th century permanently primed so that if anybody tries to come up the front steps with any nonsense about we want something back we just shoot them down and this is the only way forward well are these the people or is this not they know Jim do you accept this distinction between the historical collections you know the past and how you would like to look in the future do you believe again and you know the idea of the universal museums museums where how do you make this new hole with the same distinction well let me try to answer it in a way that I can make that I can which is to say that we need to be very careful when we talk about the land of origin of such things because you know in the state and the nation aren't as we said but coincident and they they overlap in different places and in different times in history so the current state has a border around it but such things as you know that might be determined to have come from that state or from that nation may be on another side of the territory in another state so it gets a little complicated on those terms and one has to be very careful I still think the most important thing is the things are - one is how do we best best take care of these things and preserve them and I am of the opinion that the distribution of risk is to their advantage in other words if they are in many places rather than in a single place the chance that they're going to be damaged or destroyed in the totality is much much less calamity can happen anywhere in the world but it's not gonna happen everywhere I mean at the same time but if it could happen in one place it could happen in New York City as it had 9/11 that happened in New York City and if things were all collected in one place they could are greater risk that if they're distributed in many different places but the second is what do we want of the world don't we want as Tagore wanted in 1917 in his great essay on nationalism to embrace the world and to be proud of the fact that he can claim an association with anything and everything in the world because we want we want to rise beyond our territorial borders into a condition of regard for Humanity that embraces humanity not the simple nation Jim that is moving and true and I remember an excellent piece who wrote published in the Indian papers or we published in the Indian papers after the Palmeiro at attacks you know talking about the preservation of those or the destruction of those of those monuments and that whole heritage so can i well two things one I'm very much with you and I'd like you to just elaborate what forms of protection do we now have at an international level yeah that's very complicated and I find it very distressing because we've effectively the international community have outsourced the protection of the world's cultural hatred I consistently the world's cultural heritage to the state and sometimes the state which has authority over everything within its territorial borders as recognized by UNESCO and by the United Nations is no longer functioning as a responsible entity in an authority and in fact it's a failed state and Syria is such an example and Palmyra is the perfect case it's lies to be it's happens to be occupied by the by the ISIS by a by ISIL and so the state has no authority over that any longer because it's been usurped by a terrorist thuggish group here so I think that the current regime is putting at risk I think all world's cultural heritage the immovable culture has removable cultural heritage can move about the world and be protected but those things that are built you know temples churches are a tree Arvest and secondary building ivories and libraries and Maas in Mali at risk yeah Irving how do you think that we can have a the protection of these things beyond the relatively inefficient instruments of protection that we have at the moment what would you suggest as being a system of protection so that in fact people will in time be able to go back and see these pieces which are in situ we are now talking about it works in situ or which are in danger what should we be doing it's a complete illusion to think we can do anything about it and in Britain for example all we can do is to prevent things coming into our country through the border that's the only thing we can do otherwise we just have to wait until the cancerous trouble has been excited by the surgery of fate and the world becomes normal again but we cannot actually do anything about what's going on in the Middle East to protect material after all look what happened before when they sacked the Museum in Baghdad when yeah there's every opportunity to intervene and they didn't it's a hopeless problem but I I thought you were talking about the question of repatriation of stuff which is so-called outside its country of origin and this is something which does whip up a great deal for his theory and distressful waste of emotion when I don't myself think it's such a complicated thing as I say what we should do wrestling CLE is to do nothing to stimulate the trade in illegal act illegally excavation and the illegal movement of objects we can do that we do do that for example in London we work with the border police we work with the customs we work with the auction houses half the dealers in London who used to merrily sell things for money which came out of Iraq fluently have all closed down and all disappeared and it's become socially unacceptable to have on your mantelpiece a piece of antiquity so in terms of social pressure it's a bit like smoking people feel abashed if they buy cigarettes you know in in a public way be rude tuk tuk you shouldn't be doing that this is the way to deal with it to make the whole matter socially unacceptable and that seems to me to be rational it's a consequence of Education of film making of documentary making of an exhibition so that people understand this crucial matter that if objects are ripped out of the soil by somebody for commercial reasons divorced from their sort of the place of origin and sold on the market never mind about the question of national identity thereby being injured which is a bit difficult to defend in my view but the fact is that knowledge suffers because the context is lost and what we can tell in the pathetic way we try to reconstruct antiquity is wasted it's flushed down the loo and this is a tragedy and it's not only a question of big black and white emotional principles there is also this other matter that it's a tremendous tragedy when all this stuff is in the hands of pirates who don't care anything and we shouldn't do anything to encourage it so I think an embargo on anything to be imported in embargo on collecting is a good start to the problem but it's an illusion to think that we can sit about and concentrate and people who are about to swing a mallet at a sculpture think better of it because they are driven by forces completely beyond our trouble thank you so much everything you might be want to say just I have been I agree with Irving entirely on this with what with an addition to it no I think you were ok and and and the thing that I would also add to it is that there that you know with that reasonable native states and they're there in museums the instruments which they invested with with the preservation of works of art that are claimed by that by the state for the nation on the application well you know will was it will not acquire things thought to have been illegally removed from one state or another there will however be private individuals even within those states but certainly private individuals and museums outside the states not responsible I mean it's trying to stop the illicit trade in antiquities is like trying to stop illicit trade in alcohol during the during the Prohibition era or it's all rind to stop rain from dripping through a roof it's gonna happen somewhere so at risk is not just the destruction of the archaeological record that is from which but the thing itself these objects which have other kinds of information that would be helpful or us to understand the evolution of humanity of humankind and we don't now allow for something the British Museum has I think one object that at least it's been said in the press from Syria which is it's holding as it were in safe harbor until it can be safely returned we don't allow in the United States I just have to put I just have to clarify things here let me just finish the sentence this is the true what he said the director would shoot me the situation is there is a law case going on and this object is evidence and it's held by us for safekeeping until that's more less what I said yeah and and so and and but what I was trying to get to yeah is that we're not in the United States and in many many different countries it's not it's not possible to take into safekeeping during the time of Christ works works of antiquity works of art of any portable works of art of any kind that after stability has been restored these things can be returned in fact in the United States because of our disastrous invasion of Iraq we are obliged to return things to Iraq to put them in harm's way the United Nations has not taken up the safe harbor it has an equivalence of this when refugee camps exist where people who can't be returned or cannot on their own free will go to go back to their homes in their nations or their states are held in safekeeping as were in refugee camps we don't allow that now so we don't we just we we just we put them back into harm's way on this and I think that that's something that we need to address from the situation where there is a war we've been talking about conditions of crisis and bi and violence at the moment how would you argue the point in countries where there isn't a protection in times of peace because there isn't the funding there aren't the resources there isn't the training how do you look on that issue so that there are these great works which suffer but they are in location they are in particular national museums and yet you see that they are not getting the kind of protection conservation whatever that they need but there is no pressure you know to put them in safekeeping what's the solution there do you think there should be a large redistribution both of knowledge and resources coming from you know wealthier institutions and wealthier countries to help these countries to stead set up appropriate training and indeed appropriate technologies and appropriately let's think more positively about this what can be done is it a question of redistribution of knowledge technique skill and money well I think it's worth pointing out that and the universe is full of forces especially developed to eat books pictures ivory all the things which here are in museums are on secure hands at the moment in the West are vulnerable to the same forces everything in the museum is vulnerable to doom this is a fact books objects carpets everything is a special thing created by nature to eat it before you can stop them and we in the museum in London have a constant battle all the time to keep up with this type of movement I'm sure in America it's the same and in many parts of the world the scale is much bigger its vast in India for example there are collections all over India where this is a daily problem and we have knowledge we have expertise and in some cases there is even funding but the general picture that you describe is the kind of global difficulty and even in the best museums of the world sometimes people open the drawer after 20 years and he discovered that there's dust where once there was an object it's not necessarily the noisy places that are the best for conservation this is a really difficult matter but it's something to cut not connecting with this repatriation who should keep food in their hand can I just add one thing to the recap create an issue it's very easy to fall into the assumption that every object in this arena is iconic beautiful famous and important in the course these are the ones that the press jump all over but the big bulk of Antiquities which move which get pillaged which gets old are not of this caliber they are on the whole to do with daily life they are often not complete and sometimes they are a sort of thing that will drive a specialist into a paroxysm of excitement where any normal person would throw them in the rubbish because they didn't look like anything at all so there's a whole spectrum of material of which the iconic material at the top gets all the attention I think this is an important thing because when you look at it as a whole you realize that it's only a handful mental stuff which actually is contentious which people argue about thieves do yeah to your question about just a transfer of knowledge and transfer of resources and technology I think any of us who believe that we have an obligation to preserve the past I have an obligation to preserve the past wherever it happens to be and so if that means a transfer from let's say north to south or east to west of this knowledge and technology and resources the answer is yes it absolutely has to be that way if we believe in the value of an encyclopedic Museum like the British Museum where then we believe it ought to be everywhere that is that if it promotes curiosity about difference in the world tolerance of difference in the world or respect for the historical developments of difference in the world then it ought to be everywhere if there's a value in that we should promote it and how do you promote it you promote it by building trust among among partners the Getty for example is working in a project developing expertise and networks of exchange of expertise in the preservation of in conservation of mosaics both in situ mosaics and mosaics that are in museums in North Africa and in the Middle East it's also doing the Getty is also working in the Middle East and developing the same kind of expertise and and relationships of expertise among conservative conservatives of photography because there's great photographic collections in the Middle East so certainly we've got to do that but that's gonna be we have to rebuild trust I mean that's a post-colonial condition right distrust so we have to rebuild trust rebuild trust by trance transferring that knowledge that expertise those resources in support of what if we believe that the institution's we built are to the benefit of all to come to them then we think that ought to be the case everywhere in the world they exist we don't yet exist let me ask you about the about an issue that that stands behind much of what we've been talking about take the nation away for a moment and take the state out of the equation what about the connection between the question how do we best think the connection between cultural identity and cultural heritage how do you know what mediates this relationship how important is it and in what ways do objects somehow make that connection allow that to happen so I have two thoughts about this then I'll quickly turn it over to Irving one is that the more we look at works of art the more we realized that they are moments in time and in that time and over the course of the time for which they are moments we have seen a transformation a transition a transmutation of culture we're seeing can't they they are markers in in the transfer of knowledge and expertise and resources just the kind that we were talking about earlier so they're never without that I mean they they bear the trace of relationships so I think that's important to say these are not these don't simply represent a nation as if a nation were circumscribed and static they're dynamic these are moments in a dynamic development of culture that continues to develop to this day and so we need to look at these things as that I think not rather as as I said somehow indelibly naturally enclosing encapsulating a fixed concept of nation and identity the identities themselves are constantly in flux you know your identity is a perfect example because you've you were born and raised and first educated and in Mumbai I think and then educated and Great Britain and England and then edgy and then have worked in the United States for such a long time your account your identity is the complex identity and it it's not stopped be its complexity right it's going to be there's going to change over the course time so I think we have to be very careful when we talk about national identity it is not fixed it's not indelible it doesn't permanently distinguish one set of people from another set of people it is just a moment I'm constantly in evolution Irving can I ask you on the same theme yes of course identity is a continually mobile but in the situations in which we've been talking you know where works are in day or often identities get very fixed they may be artificially fixed they may be fixed by the state they may be fixed by religion they may be fixed by some sense of dishonor or you may leave so there are moments where these things get very rigid and then we have real and then we have real problems I want to ask you about something when I have seen as one sees through the media the destruction of Bamiyan or Palmyra the destruction of these objects which as you said Jim have no inherent will or agency they have a profound effect on us but they can't you know they don't have their own will or agency when I've seen that destruction I have to be I have been moved beyond often the statistic that 50 people were shot or killed I deplore that and I'm arguing in a way against myself but somehow let me be provocative and say when you see somebody taking a hacking knife and just cutting off something which is you know thousand years old there's a sense of violation there is a profound sense of violation and it's not because you sit at that point and say oh my god the history of the world is being destroyed which it is you know of course it is but there's a visceral immediate emotional violation and I was somebody is asked me to write something about this now I was trying to think of analogies and I thought in a way an object it's like an old person or a child they can't really flee they just have to take it you know they have to stand there and take it this is me trying to understand my emotional reaction and not my you know philosophical or concer just physically in the physical that an object is in a sense has that same kind of innocent in mobility that a child or an old person has that's just my response can you help me with this can you elaborate on why I feel violated it's not as I say because I have the whole you know the history of the object in my mind at all at the at first what is it that is so violating about seeing these objects being destroyed I think your term viscera is correct I mean the simplest way to conceive of this is watching somebody burning books because people who burn books fly in the face of basic humanity and this isn't something which is an offense to humanitarian ideas shared by all normal people I don't think if you feel this sensation you need to seek medical help it seems to me to be a rational response you know I'm in a funny position here because I work in which Museum which is the best Museum in the world and it was described by it the best directory in the world Saints as a museum of the world for the world so we are told this by all used to be told this by our director every morning until we started to believe it and rather liberating metal because implicit in this is that the museum as we have it is a kind of temple to the achievement of humanity I mean we lost the British Library went up the road that was a big mistake when I become director we'll get it back again so the whole idea would be under one roof to celebrate and to document as far as possible the whole achievement of humanity now if you have this as your starting point and business about state and cultural identity of food clean and thoroughly irrelevant because they are all to do with politics which is a temporary ephemeral issue we are not interested in ephemeral issues we are interested in permanent truths and the whole point of this collection is to put together in such a way that everybody can see as much as we can of the great achievement of mankind as a curator from the British Museum I'm liberated from your anxiety about whether state and nation are the same as far as I'm concerned they can do what they like both entities because a museum is something totally different now there's something else I want to say while I've got this microphone we have quite a lot of Indian sculpture in the museum okay I've never met anybody who really really found that an offensive matter except once in Pondicherry where I went to a conference which was a very friendly and wonderful occasion with lots of international communication between observing carving your seat belt everything was fine until the last morning when we were going to have a press fit on our chairs and all these journalists are there is sweet beautiful girl with flowers and everything looked at me she said you she said it in front of everybody like this you stole all our Indian sculpture what have you got to say for yourself like that in front of everybody okay this is the sort of thing theaters don't look forward to so something came into my mind which I still think was useful and I said to her look England is full of people who were born in this part of the world I will never come back here and secondly it is full of people who will never ever go to India and all these people can see goddesses they can see sculpture they can see painting from India for themselves and I said what you've got to do is conceive of the stuff which you did not have to be repatriated like animals in the zoo there's one Rhino in the London Zoo it's a pretty bum deal for that Rhino because he hasn't got loads of female rhinos he doesn't get fresh vegetables by his own teeth he has to put everybody in the world can see you know I think I sort of see what you mean but I want to come back to you having Hervey having said what he has with to one look my first question what is this thing that we feel which is not which is not even cognitive and it may be historical but it is just immediately the other question something it racist now of course there are lots of England I was one of them in Britain I went to the British Museum I worked the British Library every day I walked through a museum now of course the fact is that there are millions of Indians who will never be able to see those great works and that when we talk about a great world museum catering to humanity right and this being the best in where I'm willing to go along with much of that but the fact is that much of humanity will not be able to visit these great works that are that are in collections elsewhere they may be able to get digital images but they will not experience them so well let me respond to the second point and get back to the first point which i think is in the more poignant of the two as you say because I do think that the the reason one wants to distribute works of art around the world is because people are distributed around the world one wants to give everybody access to different things in the world to understand as I said earlier and greater appreciate and tolerate difference in the world so to have everything in one place of one kind deprives most of the world from access to that truth about the world that it is made of differences and so we want to encourage that and and we want to acknowledge that just as people move about the world works of art ought to move about the world but the first thing and the more important thing the more poignant thing I think is I share with you that visceral sense that when things get attacked in this story that are particularly things that are of ancient manufacturer I I feel like we've left them down and the people who made them and all the people who admire them since the time they were made until the time they were destroyed and the fact that Palmyra gets destroyed the fact that the Bamiyan Buddhas get destroyed on our watch for thousands of years they survived all manner of risk and on our watch they're gone and gone forever those that have been totally destroyed I think that's a terrible thing and I know that sometimes it's been it's been asked are you preferring things over people I mean you raised that yourself and about some things I think there's a false dichotomy because I think people made those things and people admired those things for hundreds and thousands of years and for all of those people we've inherited them we've not only inherited them we've been heritability to perpetuate their safekeeping and we have on our watch to watch them disappear and I think that's a terrible thing and also what you remind me of is that those people who who kill objects kill people absolutely and I think there's a very close connection that but explain one thing to me and then I want to talk about technology now in the global in the global context museums and technology in the new technology I'm absolutely with you both when you say that you know having everything in one place would restrict access so the distribution is a great thing but isn't there a mail distribution isn't you know if you take the Met you take the British Museum you take some of the Getty or you take some of the new museums in the Gulf which are buying up almost everything they now can of the of the Islamic you know the great Islamic works with distribution comes mail distribution and that is a problem and maybe there now there's nothing one can do there are legal issues there's nothing one can do is there being said you know there historical collections you can't just pick them up and send them somewhere but how do we overcome yes so I'll give this during a quick a moment but I want to insist that the problem of malla distribution is that and I'll use Indiana's example it's not that Indian things are outside of India on a bit of return to India is that there aren't enough of other things in the world in India you know so that so exactly so that's where I think that's got that's got that's where the amount distribution has to be addressed not to read the return of Indian things to India but there the bringing of non Indian things to India in greater numbers so that the benefit of seeing difference in the world is is experienced here in India to the same extent that is experienced in in London the British Museum so so I would just turn it away from a concept that Mal distribution can be risking to be addressed by by moving all such things Indian or all such things African whatever but to make sure that different things get end up all over the world I agree you see also Jim that if Empire for the long histories of empire and of several empires have actually created these concentrations in specific bases London New York Washington Berlin etc etc now it's difficult to think of a historical move that will now could bring you know great Renaissance painting to the Prince of Wales Museum you can't even begin to imagine it that's all I'm saying that I'm saying this is a really there's a historical precedent and there is a principle agree and therefore I think the mail distribution will I you know your aspirations are fantastic but I think the mail distribution will continue but I think and that's where I think it's useful because nobody is going to send you know great you know as I say Renaissance or Elizabethan furniture to Bombay but how do we use new technologies to create that effect of diversity that I think is very quickly amended which is we have harnessed the benefits of new technologies to transport things safely from one place to another as never before things move around the globe more quickly than ever before for temporary exhibitions there it would you see them in Shanghai you see the Beijing River you might see them so there is a way to address that need I think but most of all what we want most to do is to inspire and curiosity about difference in the world and then address that yeah well but it has to be addressed loans there are the practical steps which we not only could take what we do take but firstly many institutions in the world now digitize their collections with state-of-the-art colour photographs which are zoomable and magical and in many cases rather easier to work with in the original object and these resources are genuinely freely available to anybody who wants them and the consequence of that is that most people can get all they ever need from that resource I'm the last person to say that the computer is the answer to the world's problems but very specifically if you want to see all the paintings of Rembrandt you see all the paintings of Rembrandt marvelously in your own sitting room on your own screen and this has one very strong advantage that it does undermine the kind of problem that you're asking about this is one thing the second thing is and it comes into play for example in really contentious matters like for example the newest chess pieces which are in London which they say should be returned to stop and where they come from and all that kind of nonsense also we are on God but and one way around this problem is that it is possible to generate energy are rather replicas with laser devices laser printing of such a quality that nobody short of an expert can ever tell the difference now I'm not suggesting that there should be any fraudulent activity but what it does mean that for problem contentious material a complete set of replicas can be produced which no one could tell apart from the original now this is an interesting matter because if we're talking about the great unwashed public they are not the sort of people who are in the business of telling these things apart and actually they would rather see that than nothing at all in many cases so it seems to me that there's a kind of medicine with digital digital resources and high quality replicas which can be distributed very readily and therefore take some of the sting out of the inherited problem which you are discussing beyond the historical male distribution which I don't think in be corrected over that but this can actually help and that was the purpose of my question Jim and then I want to open up to the order okay I do think the replica reproduction can assist in the distributing information about the thing it doesn't distribute the thing and I do think there's value in the thing itself because it not only in the the way the thing was made that can be entirely reproduce can closely reproduce not entirely reproduce but the knowledge that thing itself was made at one point in time by some people it's you know many many years ago let's call it thousands of years ago not hundreds of years ago and and that people have have conspired to protect that thing for as I said earlier for all this time and there's a magic in that because that's puts us in line with our with our predecessors and in accepting responsibility for those things if we can we can simply say that a reproduction is the equivalent of the original we have no just no basis for protecting the original because they we have the reproduction infinitely we prove reproducible so while I think that we can convey and we should information about our collections freely and widely in the highest quality manner we can't say that those things replace the object I still think there was an important distinction I'm gonna take four questions and I make the brief yeah three maybe so getting straight to the question my question to the panel is that thinking solely aesthetically what are your views on restoring say hypothetically a statue that was defaced by Isis would you say that that was restoring it to its original beauty or would you rather keep the imperfection as a symbol of history for generations to come thank you I've quick response and and I'm inclined to your latter point and I have an example of that when the the Reichstag and in Germany was restored recently Andrea preoccupied by the legislature of Germany they kept the graffiti of the Russian soldiers that had occupied it so that the legislators who go to take their seats in the Reichstag have to pass this graffiti this graffiti which I understand I don't know Russian is very very nasty stuff and they need to know what it was that caused that graffiti and that was the absence of democracy they gave it up to it to a dictator and they paid the price so they are reminded that everything they walked by so I think there's something valuable about retaining that the history on the other hand we have a long long convention of restoring works of art and but making clear that that parts of it that our have been added to it that in the restoration process that have been reconstructed are clearly visible as reconstructions we don't want to confuse them that the visitor the viewer to think that there is no reconstruction that has occurred but rather we discolor them differently or whatever it might say well I think that's a really good question I think automatically the odd dramatic case is invaluable but don't forget this the wall the graffiti on the walls will need conservation and it will be very expensive it'll have to be retouched on a regular basis by a professional conservative right question here I've got three more questions your question here question yeah this lady is standing there and the question to the gentleman at the back and I have to make one more because I believe in redistribution I have to question this gentleman here thank you that's so privilege of sitting the first row you get noticed and you can get a ask a question I think the panel members mentioned distinction in nation and state what happens when the state decides one day that they want back things which the nation wants from another nation which is once a state and this is not a syllogism but a good example would be the British Empire having a lot of stuff from this part of the world suppose one day parts of the Empire say we want things package 1 hours because as a cultural thing how do you handle that may I just say you know this is a question that this is an issue that has really to mind you I may be wrong being present continually in this in this conversation and I think if you just think back on the conversation that the three of us have been having you will get a sense of the difficulties and the temptations opposing that question so with great respect I would like to say that I think we've already handled that question and and happy to talk to you afterwards about it yes now yes this lady here there are only two more questions to go so yep my question is slightly different because it doesn't really have to do with the pass your question there we don't care whether it's different not just ask the question okay how about rocks new rocks which are millions of years old need to be conserved or preserved because Hyderabad all the rocks that are completely associated with the cultural heritage of Hyderabad the last 20 years have complete disappeared I borrow idle burg Hyderabad Hyderabad yeah I mean I feel miserably you know shattered yeah this has been the development in Hyderabad this wonderful rock formations you cannot be see them in Banjara Hills and other places they've been destroyed yeah so I guess my questions I don't know anything about this so it is my question that they're being destroyed because of mining or because of concrete buildings in various things yeah IIT development I see yeah I do think it's irresponsible to disregard the the the history of the place as one when you know it develops and that's why there are there are typically I'm surprised there are no constraints there but typically there aren't constraints on development and I would encourage constraints on development this figure actually Jim if you see what's happened in Hyderabad I'd like to go welcome yes I have one question for you you've made a very good case for keeping your collections together because of the aspect of preservation of these objects but do you not think that a lot of things in your museums have lost but their validity by taking it being taken out of their original locations the authenticity of the piece say for instance a hieroglyph from Egypt is lost when it is taken off attempt out of the temple it could be replaced it could be taken back to its original location where it would have greater validity as an object do you agree with that I do think that's a compelling question to be asked I think however that there's a there are simple answers to that question which is to say that you know the the the the art the thing itself tells stories of many different kinds of which a original location is one such story it doesn't address the authenticity of it it does address the original Constitution of its location but not this authenticity so I think that given that is no longer there and it's not going to be returned to a condition that was often originate will be authentic but not original that there is a greater argument for its distribution than for its repatriation or its authentic authentic wherever in the world it is what we have in museums and what's come to us from archaeology is but a fraction of what is still in the ground and if the world's countries that make all the fuss about this stopped having wars and they excavated their sites they would have more material than they could possibly even cope with of the same quality the same standard normal beautiful iconic it's all there to be connected and it's worth remembering if we don't have all their walls we never will have all their words the final quest altered by custody and ownership so that for example Indian government could keep things it places like the British Museum and have the ownership of it yes well and we actually have an official state policy that the museum can act as a custodian for material which is floating in the world either because of war or theft where the issue is to be resolved and some of this stuff we keep we look after with no expectation that it will go back to its country it's so called of origin for a very long time but we do this and sometimes we exhibited and publish it but we do that we act as a custodian and it's always clarified on paper Jaipur isn't a museum except metaphorically and my guests here today are not museum objects they spend a lot of time in museums but they bring with them this kind of redistribution of knowledge of talent of opinion they come from different places Jaipur brings people together so it may almost be the kind of ideal Museum of the human of human culture and human ideas in human language

Channel: Jaipur Literature Festival

Views: 20,720

Rating: 4.6638656 out of 5

Keywords: ZeeJLF, JLF, Jaipur Literature Festival, Jaipur Lit Fest, James Cuno, Irving Finkel, Homi K. Bhabha, Getty Foundation

Id: JmlI1xVply8

Length: 54min 2sec (3242 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 24 2016