“Disrespectful” and “inappropriate” was Greece’s angry comment to the high class charity dinner of the British Museum hosted in the hall of the Parthenon Marbles last Saturday.
“Such actions are offensive to cultural goods and endanger the exhibits themselves” Greece’s Culture Minister, Lina Mendoni, commented on a charity dinner hosted by the British Museum in the Duveen Gallery where the stolen Parthenon Marbles are exhibited.
“Repeatedly and over time, the Ministry of Culture has condemned the dinners, receptions and fashion shows organized in the spaces of the Museums, in which monuments and works of art are exhibited. Such actions are offensive to cultural goods and endanger the exhibits themselves. This is exactly what the Administration of the British Museum did last Saturday, using once again the Parthenon Sculptures as decorative elements for the dinner it organized. The safety, integrity and ethics of the monuments should be the main concern of the British Museum, which once again demonstrates provocative indifference,” the culture Minister said in a statement.
Prior to Mendoni, it was Prime Minister’s wife Mareva Grabowski-Mitsotaki who posted on social media:
“At a time when a public debate has begun on the reunification of the monument, the Museum’s decision to hold the event in this is hall is not only deeply inappropriate but also profoundly disrespectful.”
The fundraising event was attended by some 800 VIP personalities of the British society like were Mayor Sadiq Khan, former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (who has opposed the return of the Sculptures to Greece) to rock legend Mick Jagger, Naomi Campbell and well-known actors such as Kristin Scott Thomas and Sacha Baron Cohen, who paid 2,000 BP each.
It is not the first time Greece get angry about actions of the British Museum in the hall with the Parthenon Marbles. In February 2024 it was a fashion-show that had Athens fume and protest. However, the British Museum paid little attention.