Ethiopian Shield Pillaged by British to Be Repatriated, Israeli Bombs Land Near Lebanese Roman Temples: Morning Links for October 8, 2024

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The Headlines

MAQDALA SHIELD REPATRIATION. A 19th-century Maqdala shield pillaged in Ethiopia during the 1868 Battle of Maqdala will be repatriated in November, and displayed at the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa, reports The Art Newspaper. The Ethiopian government identified the shield as a British army-looted treasure after seeing it come up in an auction, and requested it be restituted from the UK. After a short loan for an exhibit at Ohio’s Toledo Museum of Art ending this month, that is precisely what will happen. The shield “is a symbol of Ethiopia’s history and resilience,” said Ermias Sahle Selassi, grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie and founder of the Royal Ethiopian Trust that negotiated the restitution. During the same 1868 battle, the British army helped themselves to other Ethiopian treasures which remain in UK museums, including ceremonial objects considered holy and weapons, though some have been returned in recent years.

LEBANON HERITAGE SITES AT RISK. Lebanon’s culture minister has warned that Israeli bombings threaten a Unesco World Heritage Site in the town of Baalbek, which houses two of the world’s largest and best-preserved Roman temples. Mohammad Mortada said Israel’s airstrikes near Baalbek came close to hitting the ancient ruins over the weekend, though he confirmed to The New Arab that the site was unharmed. He spoke after images on social media showed smoke rising near the ancient Jupiter Temple, located about 1,700 feet away from where the Israeli strike hit. Mortada wants the UN and its Security Council “to demand Israel to respect international laws and not harm our heritage.” 

The Digest

The historic, 19th-century Biltmore Estate in North Carolina’s Buncombe County, once home to the Vanderbilts and a major local attraction, was slammed by Hurricane Helene last week. It sustained significant flooding in its low-lying areas, including its farm. Some of the estate’s animals were lost but the “vast majority” survived. The site remains closed as crews assess further damage from last week. [NPR]

On Thursday, Marina Abramovic, 77, will open her first solo exhibition in China, and her largest to date, at Shanghai’s Modern Art Museum. “I was always dreaming how I can have a show here,” she said. The show titled Transforming Energy is unlike her previous work because Abramovic said it is “absolutely fully interactive” and “very radical.” It also includes videos and photos from her 1988 legendary conceptual piece in which she walked thousands of miles along the Great Wall of China to meet German artist Ulay, her partner of many years, who was walking from the other end of the wall. [France 24]

It will soon be possible to get a much closer look at Rome’s Trevi Fountain, thanks to a new elevated walkway that will be set up for five weeks, while the monument is cleaned ahead of the 2025 Catholic Jubilee year. The platform will extend over the 17th century baroque fountain, so that it faces opposite the fountain’s statue of Oceanus, the Greek god of the sea, and his shell chariot. [The Times]

On October 11, Tacita Dean will open her first major US museum survey at the Menil Collection in Houston, titled “Tacita Dean: Blind Folly.” It will include her monumental blackboard drawings, and will focus on her drawings, many of which are rarely shown, while also engaging her long held fascination with the artist Cy Twombly’s practice. [The New York Times]

The Kicker

CAILLEBOTE GENDER DEBATE. Early reviews are in, and they are mixed for the Musée d’Orsay’s major Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) exhibition in collaboration with the Getty Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago, opening today in Paris. French criticism for the show, titled “Caillebote – Painting Men,” centers around its examination of the Impressionist painter’s sexual orientation and habit of mostly painting men. Not all agree with the evidence backing this. Le Figaro’s art critic Eric Biétry-Rivierre leads the way by suggesting the French curators at the Musée were “under the influence of their American, coproducing partners,” whom he says projected contemporary gender theory onto the artist’s life and practice. “The paintings are in front of us. Let’s look at them, rather than conjecture,” he writes. While some Caillebotte paintings of men can be seen as intimate, even erotic as critics at TV5 Monde point out, curators contend there is no information affirming he was homosexual, despite exhibition labels “sometimes suggesting” as much, adds Biétry-Rivierre. “The American curators argue that Caillebotte was the great ancestor and revealer of the ‘male gaze,’ which is tantamount to placing our era onto his, to over-interpret or orient an art that is, precisely, [an art] of uncertainty,” he insists. We’ll have to check it out for ourselves.