Buddhist Art of Tibet: In Milarepa’s Footsteps is a cringe-worthy display of “spiritual colonialism.”
Erin L. Thompson
Erin L. Thompson, a professor of art crime at John Jay College (City University of New York), is the author of Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of American Monuments (Norton, 2022).
Posted inArt
Artists’ Doomed, Inspiring Resistance to Hitler
The stories of the Red Orchestra show the power of joy, creativity, and love in the fight against the compliance, fear, and silence upon which fascism still depends.
Posted inOpinion
Cambodia’s Stolen Treasures Must Be Returned to Where They Belong
And no, Cambodia doesn’t need the Metropolitan Museum’s help in preserving its cultural heritage.
Posted inArt
The Surprising Mix of Tradition and Innovation in Nepal’s Contemporary Art Scene
The work of many of Nepal’s contemporary artists suggests that the distinctions between labels like ancient and modern, or foreign and Nepali, will blur if you shift your point of view.
Posted inArt
Surrounded by Wealth, an Artist’s Comment on Education Loses Its Edge
Within the well-patrolled boundaries of Madison Square Park, it’s hard not to see Hugh Hayden’s Brier Patch as just another amenity, offering a pleasant opportunity for virtue signaling.
Posted inOpinion
How the Met Museum Justifies Looting
The African Origins exhibition ignores the fact that approximately 160 objects from Benin are held by the museum under ongoing demands for their repatriation.
Posted inArt
Returned to Nepal by the FBI, a Sculpture Becomes a God Again
Last week, I flew to Nepal and witnessed a ceremony to replace a looted Lakshmi-Narayan sculpture to its original location.
Posted inOpinion
What Do We Do with the Work of Immoral Artists?
Where should we “draw the line” between sacrificing great art and supporting artists who are predators and bigots?
Posted inFilm
Decolonizing the (Sitcom) Museum
What does Rutherford Falls, a new TV series that prominently features two small town museums, tell us about the way people see the contentious stories on display in history and art institutions?
Posted inOpinion
The Lax Compliance of Museums with AAM Guidelines for Ancient Art
The most astounding result of our research was discovering how few museums had complied with the American Alliance of Museums’ simplest requirement: having a public collections policy.
Posted inOpinion
Stumbling Towards Repatriation
We need to make it clear to our museums that we do not want to walk around in galleries of stolen artworks.
Posted inArt
Sorry/Not Sorry: How Viewers Express Judgment by Touching the Art
Anyone who deliberately damages art in a museum is regarded as under a delusion, either due to mental illness or a failure to perceive the nature of what they’re doing. But in reality, people touch art all of the time.