Links While You Clink: Italy Unveils Trophies, Greece Unveils New Museum, Barnes Case Delayed, Afghan and Russian Shows On, Guggenheim Partly Unveiled

---There is a certain irony to the exhibition that opened Friday at Italy's Quirinal presidential palace, proudly showing off recently repatriated antiquities as precious museum pieces worthy of admiration as beautiful, isolated objects. Isn't the whole point of Italy's campaign to emphasize that these objects have been robbed of much of their power because they were stripped of their archaeological context? A more powerful presentation that might have helped bolster Italy's case would have examined what we know and can surmise about the objects' histories, and what questions we may never be able to answer because they were looted.

---The New Acropolis Museum in Athens on Saturday publicly opened its entrance which displays, under a glass floor, the remains of cobblestone roads, dwellings, baths and the foundations of workshops that were uncovered during excavation for the museum. Meanwhile, the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and UNESCO are organizing an International Conference on The Return of Cultural Objects to their Country of Origin, to be held at the new museum on Mar. 21-22. I've been invited to participate on one of the panels, "Museum and Cultural Context." (Now I've just got to find out what they mean by this.)

---In the never-ending saga of the Barnes Foundation's attempt to move to Philadelphia from Merion, PA, Judge Stanley Ott of Montgomery County Orphans' Court has now granted the Friends of the Barnes' new lawyer, Eric Spade, a 60-day extension to file arguments supporting the Friends' contention that the Barnes should not be allowed to move and that they should be granted legal standing to challenge that move in court. Briefs had been due on Dec. 31. The Philadelphia Inquirer has the story. Maybe if the Friends keep changing lawyers, they can keep the Barnes in legal limbo indefinitely.

---Apparently the National Gallery in Washington hasn't found anything "unconscionable" about the $1-million deal struck by National Geographic Society and the government of Afghanistan for a proposed tour of that country's Bactrian hoard and other antiquities. The U-word appeared last June in a NY Times story detailing outsiders' objections to the compensation for Afghanistan. The tour is set to open at the Washington museum May 25, closing there Sept. 7. According the the museum's press release, "plans are being finalized for the exhibition to travel to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Metropolitan Museum."

Carol Vogel of the Times reports:

Terry D. Garcia, the executive vice president of the National Geographic Society's mission programs, said: "One million is not a small sum. The price was negotiated by the Afghan government. This is not a commercial exhibition."

Maybe American museums exacting tribute from sister institutions for megabucks rental shows should learn something from the Afghans.

---The on again-off again Russian museums' show, planned for London's Royal Academy, appears to be on again (although the Jan. 26 scheduled opening is still reportedly in doubt). The NY Times reports that Great Britain will "move up, to early January from late February, the effective date of a provision in legislation that bars the seizure of art lent on a government-to-government basis." But what about other international shows, with works loaned by museums or individuals, not governments? Don't they deserve immunity-from-seizure protection too?

---This came in on Friday from the Guggenheim:

Beginning today, a restored segment of the Frank Lloyd Wright Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will be visible to the public from Fifth Avenue and 89th Street, where scaffolding has been removed from the building. In November, the New York Landmarks Commission approved painting the museum light gray matching Tnemec BF72 Platinum color. A custom-coating system, designed specifically for the Guggenheim Museum, has been applied to the section that is now revealed....

The restoration work is projected to be complete and the scaffolding to come down by early summer 2008.

Is another movie being shot then?