Nefertiti defamed?

And just as the putative discovery of her mummy is being reported, Nefertiti's famed bust is also in the news:

The director of Berlin's Egyptian Museum has denied claims that a video installation featuring the bust of Queen Nefertiti has defamed Egypt's history. The German museum allowed Hungarian artists temporarily fuse [seems to be a clumsy translation of "attach" - D.] a 3,300 year-old bust of the Egyptian queen to a bronze statue of a semi-naked woman for a video installation.

The installation will be part of a Hungarian contribution to the Bienalle [bad proofing at the BBC - D.] arts exhibition in Venice, which is linked via a 24-hour online video connection to the Berlin museum. Egyptian Culture Minister Faruq Hosni said it had defamed Egyptian heritage and called for the bust to be returned to Egypt.

Regardless of the merits of the video installation, risking a delicate and important artifact for an unnecessary and irrelevant purpose is very dubious ethics. There is broad consensus that museums' core duties consist of preservation, education, and display. Creating new artworks out of old is not a comfortable fit.

Posted by David on June 10, 2003 5:28 PM