Monuments Men: Is Art Worth Dying For?
Art / Cultural Heritage / International

Monuments Men: Is Art Worth Dying For?

Art exposes the best and most fragile qualities of man in the very moment of war. The nexus to choose between humanity and visceral destruction beyond death, ruination. Leaders and individuals have the choice to save art, steal art or simply shatter art beyond identity.

Robert Edsel, author of Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation’s Treasurers from the Nazis and Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History (George Cluny film of the same name) is the clarion in the dark recognizing and honoring the men and women who served in the Allied forces during World War II to preserve and protect European cultural treasurers.
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Ingenuity: Cards to Protect Cultural Heritage in War, Conflict & Galleries
Antiquity / Art / Innovation / International / Leaders & People

Ingenuity: Cards to Protect Cultural Heritage in War, Conflict & Galleries

One of the many paradoxes of war is destruction with simultaneous protection of civilians and cultural heritage. We know the political figures and weapons of war and see photographs in the press of anonymous bloody lifeless corpses twisted in the wreckage of urban settings. How can one possibly think of cultural heritage with so much human suffering. Yet, cultural monuments are targeted, pillaged, looted, destroyed all too often.

Cultural heritage is for the survivors, the future, world knowledge and ultimately, a record of human accomplishments.

World Heritage Day is April 18th. What will you do to help protect cultural heritage? Continue reading

Parthenon Marbles: Who Owns the Patrimony of Human Kind with Dr. Gary Vikan
Antiquity / Art / Greece / Leaders & People

Parthenon Marbles: Who Owns the Patrimony of Human Kind with Dr. Gary Vikan

When least expected, an answer comes forward that goes beyond a country’s claim, international law and suggests there is a global sense of decency when addressing cultural heritage and patrimony. Dr. Gary Vikan, during one of his last public lectures as the director of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland and completely not related to the topic of his lecture on his upcoming book on the Shroud of Turin, was asked, “Should the Elgin Marbles be returned?” Continue reading