Posted on: October 23, 2024 by Alexander Herman
In What have we here? the artist Hew Locke has taken a flashlight to the British Museum’s collection; he has also taken a chisel to its somewhat staid reputation. The artist now occupies the central exhibition space at the museum, just behind the newly reopened library with its grand Victorian dome. Locke had been given […]
Posted on: March 25, 2024 by Charlotte Woodhead
The “legislative prison walls” of the British Museum Act In 2022, the then UK Prime Minister (the antepenultimate Prime Minister of recent times) responded to calls for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece by saying that it is for the trustees to decide. However, even if the trustees considered it appropriate to return […]
Posted on: December 21, 2023 by Alexander Herman
What can be said about art law in 2023? Of course, developments in our sector are often linked to trends in the wider world. This year saw the sad continuation of the war in Ukraine and an unprecedented conflict between Israel and Hamas that erupted after the terrorist attacks of 7 October. Azerbaijan has fully […]
Posted on: October 18, 2023 by Ephraim Tan
The dispute over the Parthenon (or Elgin) Marbles is known to many. Yet, the issues in dispute have often been clouded by rhetoric and the parties’ entrenched positions. What are the legalities which surround the Marbles’ removal from Athens in the first years of the 19th century? What is the ethical situation of their continued […]
Posted on: February 15, 2023 by Stephanie Drawdy
What connection exists between the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Benin Bronzes? This is the query that now entangles the seemingly straightforward return of Benin Bronzes to their original home of modern-day Edo State in southern Nigeria. The person raising this compelling point, Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, filed a class action suit and moved for emergency action in late […]
Posted on: November 26, 2022 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper
The latest issue of Art Antiquity and Law has now been published and hard copies are being sent to subscribers and members, with the digital version available online to subscribers who have chosen this option. This issue contains a thought-provoking piece by Alexander Herman in which he points out that the recent Charities Act 2022 […]
Posted on: April 21, 2020 by Charlotte Dunn
As discussed in two previous IAL blog posts (here and here), the current outbreak of Coronavirus has had a substantial impact on the art world. One of the more positive sides to the story is how the present restrictions in movement have encouraged museums and galleries to scale up their presence online, giving individuals the […]
Posted on: March 3, 2020 by Charlotte Dunn
Alexander Herman, IAL’s Assistant Director, was interviewed last month by The Art Newspaper for its weekly podcast to address the ongoing debate over ‘Who owns the Parthenon Marbles?’. In the interview, Alex discusses the recently leaked draft EU document which has raised speculation over whether the marbles could be drawn into deliberations about the future […]
Posted on: October 29, 2019 by Alexander Herman
The past month has been a busy one at the IAL. Not only did we run our annual Diploma in Law and Collections Management in London and a Saturday Study Forum, but we also provided a series of in-house training sessions in the UK and Qatar. We began developing these sessions over the last year […]
Posted on: October 18, 2019 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes
As London is once more taken over by climate change protests, a recent news story from the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) serves as yet another (very timely) reminder that the arts and cultural sector can no longer remain isolated from the climate change debate, as we have previously discussed here. Just days before Extinction Rebellion’s […]