Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Not even catalogued? Was it their busy schedule of not robbing the world blind anymore that got in the way?

In part it's because of the scale of the looting. There's about 8 million items, 4.5 million have been catalogued, 80,000 are on display. The rest are in the basements and storage where they can be accessed by experts for research etc - but full cataloguing has not been a priority. To be a cynic, arguably not having a fully catalogued collection makes calls for repatriation more difficult. They can't repatriate what they don't know.

The obects that have gone missing are slightly weird. They don't appear to be from the looting stage - they're all post-war acquisitions either of European artifacts from other European collections (although we could dig into that) such as Roman coins, German coins, an early 20th century ring, or from British finds like an Iron age hoard. But some of these were acquired as recently as in the 2000s. While I get they've got a massive backlog on the catalogue - I'd expect them to be cataloguing new acquisitions as they go and maybe it taking time to catalogue the backlog rather than just buying new shit and then throwing it onto the hoard

[Tamas]

Wow, I had not idea of those scales.

[Sheilbh]

Wow, I had not idea of those scales.

Not just an issue with the British Museum either though it's at the extreme end. But the National Gallery and IWM all have huge proportions of their collection in storage. The V&A also has vast amounts in storage - to tie together that with decentralisation, the world's largest collection on the art of photography was transferred from a the National Media Museum in Bradford to the V&A and now mainly sits in storage - but crucially London storage so experts who want to work with it don't have to go to Yorkshire anymore

I'd add the increasing trend of the National Trust to not have so many objects on display, they have (madly) previously justified this by reference to diversity efforts - but I've got a whole conspiracy theory about the National Trust

But agree a lot with this thread from Bendor Grosvenor:

Dr. Bendor Grosvenor 🇺🇦
@arthistorynews
20m
The British Museum has been badly let down by (it seems) one individual who abused their colleagues' trust. Management moved slowly to investigate, and Hartwig Fisher has honourably taken responsibility. But a broader issue remains; museums like the BM have too much stuff. 1/
I don't mean, so much stuff that museums should get rid of it, or shouldn't keep acquiring new items. I mean, too much relative to what they're able to display. We see often that institutions 'have 90+% of their collection in storage'. 2/
And sometimes the answer is, 'build more storage'. But the answer should also be; get more on display. Because when a museum has too much in storage - behind closed doors - it can end up with items being uncatalogued, poorly kept, and vulnerable to theft, damage and loss. 3/
How did we get here?
Funding is certainly an issue. Too few curators, with too little time to work on their collections, which means static displays.
A fashion for sparser displays. (That's largely on us, the visitors.)
Risk aversion and stricter conservation rules. E.g., that items must be kept at a certain temperature and humidity (despite happily existing for centuries in, say, old damp churches). This reduces where objects can be displayed or loaned to. So storage becomes the solution. 5/
And many other factors. All of which has led to a kind of institutional contraction, a rise in the reliance on storage, and too few staff responsible for too much stuff. Mix that with a rogue individual, and you end up with the situation the British Museum now finds itself in. 6/
That's why our major museums need to refocus on getting items out of storage. Spread their collections liberally around the nation, to smaller institutions, schools, hospitals, and so on. Yes, there will be risks. But as we've seen, storage is not risk free either. 7/
Funders will need to get behind such a policy of course. But in an era of static and even, for domestic audiences, declining visitor numbers, getting art out to the people is more important than ever. Museums have too much stuff - let's put it to good use.
(End)

[Zanza]

Fits with previous posts here:

[garbon]

Fits with previous posts here:

Like the prior post today with that graphic?

[mongers]

Not even catalogued? Was it their busy schedule of not robbing the world blind anymore that got in the way?

Having said that, I'd not have had the means to tour the world to see all the stuff I am glad to have seen in the British Museum, so I don't want to speak up against it too much.

No museum will ever have near perfect records of their items, generally a combination of poor/cheap IT systems/databases of various ages and things being put away/ stored by staff who eventually leave/retire and then those mental records of collection peculiarities disappears with them.

Most museums have very little in the way of security, maybe simple 4key passcode door locks, that everyone knows the numbers for.  The museum where I sometimes work, I could have stolen/borrowed any number of finds and most would not be noticed for years.

[Admiral Yi]

A buddy of mine mentioned the exorbitant cost of building bridges in the US and I scoffed at the time.

I wonder what the explanation is.

[mongers]

Not even catalogued? Was it their busy schedule of not robbing the world blind anymore that got in the way?

In part it's because of the scale of the looting. There's about 8 million items, 4.5 million have been catalogued, 80,000 are on display. The rest are in the basements and storage where they can be accessed by experts for research etc - but full cataloguing has not been a priority. To be a cynic, arguably not having a fully catalogued collection makes calls for repatriation more difficult. They can't repatriate what they don't know.

The obects that have gone missing are slightly weird. They don't appear to be from the looting stage - they're all post-war acquisitions either of European artifacts from other European collections (although we could dig into that) such as Roman coins, German coins, an early 20th century ring, or from British finds like an Iron age hoard. But some of these were acquired as recently as in the 2000s. While I get they've got a massive backlog on the catalogue - I'd expect them to be cataloguing new acquisitions as they go and maybe it taking time to catalogue the backlog rather than just buying new shit and then throwing it onto the hoard

It's not that surprising, relatively new acquisitions will have a more obvious monetary value attached to them, so ones that are worth a good amount, will be highlighted to light-fingers, whether they then sell them or or just keep them as valuable 'keepsakes'

[Josquius]

Not even catalogued? Was it their busy schedule of not robbing the world blind anymore that got in the way?

Having said that, I'd not have had the means to tour the world to see all the stuff I am glad to have seen in the British Museum, so I don't want to speak up against it too much.

No museum will ever have near perfect records of their items, generally a combination of poor/cheap IT systems/databases of various ages and things being put away/ stored by staff who eventually leave/retire and then those mental records of collection peculiarities disappears with them.

Most museums have very little in the way of security, maybe simple 4key passcode door locks, that everyone knows the numbers for.  The museum where I sometimes work, I could have stolen/borrowed any number of finds and most would not be noticed for years.

Yeah, museums in general are a mess.
But the British museum is one you would expect to have it's shit together.

[Zanza]

Fits with previous posts here:

Like the prior post today with that graphic?

[mongers]

On the subject of museum thefts, had this in my inbox a couple of days ago.

Our statement on theft from museums
23 August 2023

The recent theft of a substantial number of items from the British Museum has focused attention on the security of our collections and has led to speculation that theft by members of staff is a widespread but hidden problem in museums.

The Museums Association is a UK-wide membership body representing over 10,000 people who work in museums and galleries and over 1,500 institutions. We can categorically say that theft from collections by people who work in museums is, fortunately, incredibly rare.

Theft by members of public – as in any other sector – does happen, but 'inside jobs' are extremely unusual. Stealing from the collection goes against our ethical code, which clearly states that museums workers should act in the public interest, take care of collections, and act with integrity.

Museums should have clear procedures in place, including whistleblowing polices, so that they can safeguard collections and be alert to any attempts, internal or external, to steal from them. Unfortunately the systemic underfunding of the sector over the past ten years has undermined some of these procedures. Restructures and redundancies have led to a loss of expertise and a weakening of the normal systems of checks and balances that take place within institutions.

Looking to the future we would like to see investment in museums – in the people who work in them and in collections and buildings – so that we can continue to safeguard and share collections with communities across the UK.

And a the website page about this:
https://www.museumsassociation.org/our-statement-on-theft-from-museums/#msdynttrid=dRidS7Sv0W8FfmallK25yJV5EUDQ8tT5-gseWLkzkXA

Which is unfortunately illustrated by this image, which speaks to Shelf's point about too empty galleries and makes one ask "so where are all the exhibits, stolen?" :

[Sheilbh]

I think on that it is taste and fashion. We are in an age with that aesthetic - previous timems have absolutely loved to cram their objects and art. Probably also a fairly big dose of academic curatorial theory behind it. But it'll cycle out into busy walls and displays again at some point.

While it's like this though I think especially with, say, the National Gallery or the V&A - I would look into getting their collection out of storage and out into the country. Sending it to regional galleries, council buildings, hospitals, maybe touring schools and community centres/village halls. Obviously there's some stuff that needs to be preserved in an incredibly careful way - but it still feels better than having it in storage. I think it would also just be a good thing for people to have more opportunities encounter art or history - and we already have the objects.

[Josquius]

You've all heard of the London ULEZ fuss going on and how out of Uxbridge the Tories have cottoned onto this sort of thing as a populist drum to avoid losing quite so badly.
It seems I was quite ignorant about just what it meant. Read this this morning.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-66618564

Key piece.

Petrol cars generally meet the standards if they were first registered after 2005, while diesel cars generally have to be newer than September 2015.

And...Fucking hell. Thats even laxer than I thought.
I already supported it. But with this... The shit eaters continue to insist its hurting the poor to play a false populist game? I wager odds are good there's a lot more rich people with cars older than 2005 than poor people. When cars get that old you're getting into passion vehicle territory rather than money saving.

It's been said a million times before but this country's problem with misinformation and a general lack of facts really needs sorting out.

[Tamas]

Yeah knowing that my 2006 2L engine was exempt made me wonder what's the fuss about. But to be fair, if you are poor and held off replacing your pre-2005 car until the pandemic, odds are you still own that old one.

For example, my 2006 Avensis I bought for £2,500 in 2016. The same model in 2023 still goes for around that price (a nearly 20 years old model!). The cars equivalent to my purchase (10-years old Avensis) this year are being sold for £4000+

Also I suspect there must be a lot of sole traders with diesel vans and cars way older than 2015.

I am with Sheilbh on this one. The policy is necessary but it does seem to fit to the pattern of all "climate" regulations being done from a very middle class and up point of view. You need several thousand pounds to get yourself out of a punitive policy? Just deal with it, what's the problem?! You fly budget airlines? Just stop, peasant! You have a 2006 Avensis? Here's a ridiculously high tax to make you drop it. You bought a brand new giant-ass SUV that barely fits on medieval British streets but has some batteries added so it can be called a hybrid? Here's a tax break! You can afford to maintain a pre-1970 car as a hobby and make people driving behind you gag from the vile fumes it is discharging? No car tax for you!

[Josquius]

I'm surprised you have a car that old considering you care a bit more about such things than me. Its not like I'm always looking at number plates, but I do this more than is normal (one of the beauties of having a toddler) and its rare that I see anything from the noughties these days.

Diesels are an iffy point for sure. I do wonder there given for a period it was being pushed that Diesels were the more environmental option whether we could learn from the missold ppi situation and have a generous trade in scheme there. Or hell. Maybe they're already doing this.

I get the point on poorer people being hit by these things more. I can't see an obvious way out of many of them really without going down a silly populist deliberately hurt the middle class just for the sake of spite path. Which is of course something the powers that be would love to see support build for- the more the working and middle class can be at each other's throats the better it is for them.
Ideal world in the future I would like to see a situation where cars are basically something you only own if its your passion or your job or by default you're wealthy enough to not have to think about it. I guess like so much it all comes back around to inequality.
The problem isn't climate change policies falling on the poor- its other policies keeping the poor so very poor.