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- [00:02]
Stephen Dubner
Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Intuit QuickBooks. Do you own a business that's ready to thrive? Intuit QuickBooks is an all in one business solution that can help with those day to day tasks like invoicing and expenses. Manage and grow your business all in one place. Intuit QuickBooks your way to money get 90% off for 3 months limited time only. Terms and conditions apply. Money Movement services are provided by Intuit Payments Inc. Licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by US Bank. With the US Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card, you earn an unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. Unlimited 2% cash back every purchase. That's earning more smartly. Visit usbank.com smartlycard to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is U.S. bank National Association. Pursuant to a license from Visa USA Inc. Some restrictions may apply. Okay, I'm going to keep my voice down for a minute because we're in a museum in London.
- [01:16]
Nicholas Cullinan
Obviously the British Museum is an inherently British institution. It's the first institution to actually be called British.
- [01:23]
Stephen Dubner
That is Nicholas Cullinan. He became director of the British Museum in 2024.
- [01:29]
Nicholas Cullinan
Hans Sloane, our founder, of course, who offered an extraordinary collection of 80,000 objects to the nation, did it in a very deliberate way. He said he wanted it to be for the benefit of all persons, but he also stipulated that it was to be offered first to the City of London because it had the most international audience. And then he left a list in descending order of other cities it should be offered to. If that didn't happen, based on how many people from different parts of the world would have access to his collection. So second was St. Petersburg, and then I think it was Paris, Berlin and Madrid. There's a lovely idea about museums being either windows or mirrors. For example, the National Portrait Gallery could be thought of as a mirror. It's a mirror of Britishness, you know, history of the nation through portraits. The British Museum from the very beginning was clearly a window museum. It's about opening windows into other worlds, other cultures, other epochs.
- [02:25]
Stephen Dubner
Can you define Britishness?
- [02:28]
Nicholas Cullinan
Probably the word sorry. Sorry is our first response to a lot of things. If someone bumps into you, you apologize. I think sorry is a very British thing.
- [02:44]
Stephen Dubner
It is true that Britain has spent much of its recent past apologizing, apologizing for its centuries of imperial conquest, apologizing for the slave trade, apologizing even for having launched the Industrial Revolution and the environmental damage that came with it. But the British Museum has not been a big apologizer, even though some people see it as essentially a trophy case for the nation's colonizing past. A couple years ago, we published a series called Stealing Art Is Easy, Giving It Back Is Hard. We looked at how museums around the world have been returning art and antiquities to their places of origin, especially if they had been taken by force. The British Museum, with 8 million items in its collection, stands at the center of this complicated issue. For years, the Greek government has been asking the British Museum to return a collection of pieces known as the Parthenon sculptures, also called the Elgin Marbles. Nigeria, meanwhile, wants the British Museum to return a collection known as the Benin Bronzes, which were seized by British troops in a 19th century raid. When we were reporting that series, we couldn't get anyone from the British Museum to speak with us. And when we visited the museum with an outside expert who was going to give us a tour of the Benin Bronzes, we had our recording equipment confiscated by museum security. Soon after that series was published, there was even more controversy at the British Museum. A senior curator in the Greek and Roman department was found to have been stealing coins and other artifacts from the museum and selling them on ebay. That led to the resignation of the museum's director, Hartwig Fisher. But now there is a new director in town. He has fresh goals for the museum and a fresh way of dealing with the old problems.
- [04:36]
Nicholas Cullinan
I'm not really a big fan of binary thinking. Right, Wrong. Yes. No, Yours, mine. Win, lose. I don't think that gets you very far. I'm not afraid of the past and the collection of the British Museum. It's a story of many things, you know, people doing wonderful things and terrible things to each other. But it's definitely a story around Britain as well.
- [04:59]
Stephen Dubner
Many British people feel that the story of their country has become a mess. There's the Brexit hangover, the shaky public finances, the arguments over immigration, and over what it means to be British today on Freakonomics Radio. Could it be that the British Museum, of all places, is taking the lead in rewriting that story? This is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything. With your host, Stephen Dubner. Nicholas Cullinan, unlike many people who run high end cultural institutions, does not come from privilege. His father grew up in Manchester, England.
- [05:59]
Nicholas Cullinan
My dad really wanted to be an architect, but he left school age 14 because he was dyslexic, which wasn't a word that was used, especially coming from a working class background in the 1930s and 40s.
- [06:11]
Stephen Dubner
Instead he became a construction worker.
- [06:13]
Nicholas Cullinan
My parents got married. My mom was from Rochdale and my dad had an aunt just outside New Haven.
- [06:20]
Stephen Dubner
That's New Haven, Connecticut, in America, I.
- [06:23]
Nicholas Cullinan
Think they moved in 1959 for a better life, more opportunity. And then of course, they got busy with babies.
- [06:30]
Stephen Dubner
First came three girls and then Nicholas. One construction project their father worked on was the Yale University Art Gallery building designed by Louis Kahn. But When Nicholas was 4, the family moved back to England.
- [06:44]
Nicholas Cullinan
We left America. My parents basically quit their job. So there was a real sense of jeopardy around it. And we were in a little hotel on Gower street around the corner, around.
- [06:53]
Stephen Dubner
The corner from the British Museum.
- [06:55]
Nicholas Cullinan
I remember being in the hotel. It's one of my earliest memories. And realizing that my parents and my sister were quite freaked out.
- [07:01]
Stephen Dubner
Cullinan is telling this story as we walk through the museum. We are near the Egyptian Galleries and their famous mummy displays.
- [07:10]
Nicholas Cullinan
Anyway, my mom brought me here to kind of probably distract herself and cheer me up. And I remember going to see the mummies. And that memory has come back so strongly to me.
- [07:20]
Stephen Dubner
The family settled up north in West Yorkshire. Nick and his sisters were homeschooled and a big part of that education was museum going. He moved to London for university at the Courtauld Institute, which is one of the world's top art institutes and a breeding ground for future museum leaders. He got his undergraduate degree there in 2002, stayed on for his MA and then his PhD. Ever since, he has been on the rise. Very good jobs with very good museums in the UK and the us. Most recently he was director of the National Portrait Gallery in London, where he modernized the collection and oversaw a $50 million renovation. That may be one reason the British Museum was impressed enough to hire him, since they are planning a big renovation of their own. But there are many other reasons to be impressed with the Cullinan. For instance, at age 47, he still carries the energy of a striver.
- [08:19]
Nicholas Cullinan
If you look back at my career, it seems in a way quite seamless, but it wasn't the case at all. It was always a question of survival, of getting a good enough degree to get funding to do an MA, of getting a good enough MA to get fundings to a PhD.
- [08:31]
Stephen Dubner
You were working nights and weekends at.
- [08:33]
Nicholas Cullinan
Boots and things like that. Yeah, like multiple part time jobs. I worked seven days a week from the age of like 14, I mean studying and then working Saturday and Sunday and often nights as well, until almost my 30s basically. So maybe that explains the work ethic.
- [08:49]
Stephen Dubner
Since you've worked at American museums, including the Metropolitan Museum and the Guggenheim and at several museums in London, what do you see as the fundamental differences between us and British museums? Or maybe we should narrow it to New York City and London museums. Anything from audience to collections to finances, et cetera.
- [09:10]
Nicholas Cullinan
The first thing I would say is I'm always jealous of the resources of American museums. And it's not just about how big your endowment is. It's what they actually do with those resources and the research it enables. I suppose one fundamental difference, which maybe sounds small, is the board structure in the UK for national museums, those trustee appointments are public appointments. They're basically rubber stamped by the Prime Minister. People are appointed not necessarily for how much they can help to give or get for the museum. In American museums at the Met, for example, a lot of those trustees are, of course, major donors to the museum, which is wonderful. I'm jealous. But that small fact has, I think, quite big ramifications on how the organizations are run.
- [09:55]
Stephen Dubner
What are some ramifications? I mean, I jump immediately to the scandalous part of the story, which is how closely a provenance may be investigated to understand if a piece is legitimate and so on. Because I could imagine that if you've got a private donor who's on the board, who's got a collection that they'd like to see in the Met either today or someday, that they may be interested in not having that provenance examined as carefully as a public institution might. That said, the British Museum, in my view, is famous for not having had much to say in the past about provenance and repatriation, which we'll get into as well. So what do you mean when you.
- [10:30]
Nicholas Cullinan
Say that in terms of my own job, I have many different constituencies that I need to balance. I have a fantastic and very supportive board, but that board are not going to, for example, pay for a new wing. I mean, some of them will help or contribute, and therefore there's a lot of other people I need to speak to and relationships I need to maintain. I know other American museum directors who say to me, I pretty much confine my fundraising to my board. British museums are public and they're owned by the nation. We're responsible to every British taxpayer. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport is our main sponsor and we're very grateful for their support. All major museums in the uk, it used to be that the majority of your funding came from that body that is increasingly flipping where now actually a lot of museums, the majority of their funding comes from outside so, basically, ticket sales, fundraising, exhibitions, et cetera, et cetera.
- [11:25]
Stephen Dubner
Corporate sponsorship, all those things.
- [11:27]
Nicholas Cullinan
And they're all important. But the reality is that government support is increasingly constrained. I mean, not just because people don't want to support museums. It's because the financial picture always seems to get tighter. No matter what the situation is, whether it's the financial crisis of 2008 or Brexit or when the Ukraine war started, there's always something. What you have is British museums looking more to the American model. One of the big lessons I've learned from working in American museums, or even just being a bit more American, is not being afraid to ask for money, not being afraid to be enthusiastic.
- [12:01]
Stephen Dubner
In the US as I'm sure you well know, the Trump administration has been firing or, you know, defenestrating in various ways, the leaders of institutions like yours. There's the Kennedy center for the Performing Arts, the Librarian of Congress. What goes through your mind when you read those stories?
- [12:20]
Nicholas Cullinan
You always need some healthy separation between a government and some of the organizations they oversee. So to give you an example, I'm essentially a civil servant. I was appointed by the prime minister, but actually my appointment is made by the trustees of the museum. We are answerable to government, but we are not political appointees.
- [12:38]
Stephen Dubner
Well, that's what we used to say in the US Too, until quite recently.
- [12:42]
Nicholas Cullinan
I think that principle is very important. And when that begins to be eroded, that is a matter of concern.
- [12:48]
Stephen Dubner
Well, let me ask you a blunter question. Are you concerned at all that the leaders of British cultural institutions may face a similar fate?
- [12:55]
Nicholas Cullinan
I think it would be complacent for anyone or any country to think, oh, it couldn't happen here. When you look around the world, there is a common theme, which is increasing nationalism. Whatever you think, we all need to be listening to the fact that many, many people around the world feel disenfranchised, feel that globalization hasn't worked for them. The dial could shift for any of us at any point. Democracy is increasingly not something that we can all take for granted. It would be very naive to think that we don't all live in very challenging circumstances.
- [13:36]
Stephen Dubner
Cullinan can be careful with his words, but ultimately, you always know where he stands. He is, as he said, an enthusiast, and he exudes the confidence of someone who sees his goals clearly and believes those goals are the right ones.
- [13:52]
Nicholas Cullinan
That's probably one thing that I bring to the table, which is maybe a sense of boldness, he says, in a very tentative way. I was going to say, I guess it's about having a big picture and a sense of just panning back and how do we do something that will be an important chapter in the institution's history.
- [14:11]
Stephen Dubner
The next chapter in the history of the British Museum, the Cullinan chapter, will include a renovation of what's called the Western Range.
- [14:20]
Nicholas Cullinan
The Western Range refers to everything west of the Great court that we've just passed through, including the Egyptian galleries that we're just walking into. Assyria, which we'll come onto in Greece and Rome.
- [14:30]
Stephen Dubner
There's a big rock in the case behind us. What might that be?
- [14:33]
Nicholas Cullinan
This is the Rosetta Stone, which is obviously an incredible thing to be in front of and to be the custodian of is probably the object that is most visited. So obviously we do audience research and we know what people come to see. I mean, many people come to the British Museum not to see anything in particular, just to see the British Museum and then to discover things. But some of the most visited things are the Rosetta Stone, the Egyptian collection in which it sits, of course, the Parthenon sculptures, and then it goes from there. There's some of our most beautiful galleries. Not all of them are currently beautiful. Some of them were redone in the 1970s, but perhaps they haven't aged so well.
- [15:10]
Stephen Dubner
Also, the roof is leaking.
- [15:13]
Nicholas Cullinan
Architecture is some of our most important and magnificent galleries. And of course the collections it houses are some of the most important things too. That doesn't sit so much with having a leaking roof. I think it's amazing how often museum transformations begin through very pragmatic and even banal reasons. But what that turns into is a complete holistic transformation, and not just a bricks and mortar, but often of the ethos of the museum. We could show this collection in a much more compelling way. We could refresh the interpretation, we could reach new audiences. We could make visiting the museum a more pleasant experience. We're just beginning this process now.
- [15:53]
Stephen Dubner
The museum held a competition to choose an architect for this big job. The winner was lina Gatma, a 44 year old Lebanese architect based in Paris.
- [16:03]
Nicholas Cullinan
She was probably the youngest architect, but that wasn't the reason we chose her. She had an incredible fit with the museum and its collection and a real genuine passion for it. And she talked about how growing up in Beirut, in a city that was often in the process of ruination or rebuilding from ruins, her desire to see architecture as a force to rebuild and to bring people together. She actually wanted to be an archaeologist when she was younger.
- [16:30]
Stephen Dubner
Talk to me about the scope and timeline and budget of this master plan, this renovation. I'm especially curious about what you see as the major challenges or complications.
- [16:41]
Nicholas Cullinan
So Lina and her team, their first job is to begin sketching out the initial ideas, obviously working closely with the team at the British Museum. Once we have those, we will then cost it and understand what ballpark we're talking about. But we already know the scale of work that's required here is 35% of the galleries of the British Museum. It's significant. It's hundreds of millions. The question is just, is it past 500?
- [17:07]
Stephen Dubner
A rough estimate I've read is in the neighborhood of a billion pounds. Or a billion dollars, perhaps.
- [17:12]
Nicholas Cullinan
Yeah, I mean, that figure is bandied about a lot. But it was something that was bandied about a few years ago and it stuck because it's a nice round number. It's a very eye catching number. This is what you do with old projects, especially with architecture. There's the wonderful period of infinite possibility and ideas. And you start by thinking all the things you could do. And then of course, there's this process of that butting up against the reality of your resources. Whether it's a massive rebuild or an exhibition or an essay. It's not about the scale, it's about the process. If you start any of those projects with, well, here's the resource I have, so what can I do? Within those parameters, you end up with something inherently disappointing. You need to start from an expanded field of possibilities.
- [17:49]
Stephen Dubner
You've talked about how important it is for any museum to be able to sum up its purpose in one sentence. So give me your sentence on the British Museum, especially as you think about this renovation.
- [18:00]
Nicholas Cullinan
When I started at the National Portrait Gallery 10 years ago, we didn't have that sentence. It's just a useful elevator pitch, especially to donors, when you're saying you need to support this. And the reason is because x the British Museum, we're actually coming at it from the other side because I think we've got the best of those sentences that was done under Neil McGregor, my predecessor. This phrase about the British Museum being a museum of the world, for the world, it's so good, it's infuriatingly good because it captures a lot. And obviously no one sentence can encompass all the complexity of what we do and who we are and who we reach and the whole history and the good and the bad. But that goes quite far to sketching out the parameters.
- [18:43]
Stephen Dubner
So considering how much you like that sentence, will it need to change based on the renovation?
- [18:48]
Nicholas Cullinan
I think, Neil, even in that sentence, a museum of the world for the world, was rightly very collection focused. And I am too. One slight shift of emphasis is I'm probably also thinking about people quite a bit. The phrase that I keep coming back to is this phrase that Hans Sloane used in his original will, which is all persons. That this is a museum which should benefit all persons. And maybe all persons is slightly odd strap line for most people. Cause it sounds quaint. But I keep coming back to that and I keep thinking, okay, what does that mean now in a digital age, in a global age? This was Hans Sloane's original intention, which is that he wanted his collection to reach as many people as possible. That it should be free, that everyone should have access, it should be for the benefit of everyone.
- [19:34]
Stephen Dubner
But that's all physical access. You have to come to London to see it or be in London to see it.
- [19:38]
Nicholas Cullinan
Yeah, because that's what was available at the time. But if he were living now, I'm sure he would be thinking about how to use digital technology, how to have international partnership. Three centuries ago, he was visionary enough to invent something. Basically were the first public national museum in the world.
- [19:56]
Stephen Dubner
If I'm on your board, I might say that is a lovely notion, Nick, and I love that you are trying to expand that notion into the present day, when the virtual world has complemented the analog world so intensely. So why do we need to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on a renovation, when in fact there is a way to make our collection and our ideas available to everyone all the time without them coming here?
- [20:21]
Nicholas Cullinan
Because you need both. It's not a binary choice or a zero sum game. As Mary Beard, one of my trustees, said, we're in the business of knowledge transfer, which is true, but of course, that's led by the collection that we hold, which is objects. It's the fact that more and more people want to come to visit the museum to see those objects in the flesh in person.
- [20:43]
Stephen Dubner
I assume that you're just getting into the rather large fundraising process for your Western Range renovation. I'd love to hear your pitch, especially since this will rely on private donors. So let's say I'm a billionaire. Maybe I'm even an expat oligarch who's now living in London. Why should I contribute to this new master plan of yours for the British Museum?
- [21:09]
Nicholas Cullinan
I probably want to start by asking you this hypothetical billionaire. Your experience with the museum. Most people I talk to visited the museum when they were young, and it left a big mark on them. And therefore, what it did for you. And if you believe that it could do maybe the same thing or more for other people, essentially, the positive potential for this extraordinary collection, which, I mean, let's be clear, it's arguably the greatest museum collection in the world, complexity and controversy included. It is an incredible, incredible institution. The work it does, the research that it generates, the people it reaches, these are all inherently good things.
- [21:44]
Stephen Dubner
And let's say I'm a little bit of an empiricist and I say that's all well and good, Nick, but what's the best evidence you can offer that cultural institutions help cause a society to thrive, rather than cultural institutions being byproducts of a society that's already thriving and has enough money to spend on culture? In other words, what's your best evidence for the ROI on culture spending?
- [22:06]
Nicholas Cullinan
The honest answer would be just walking through the museum every day. I mean, even just going to the canteen to get my lunch. I was on the front desk last week. It's just seeing the people from all around the world that come into the museum, seeing the multi generational visitors, including families, school groups especially. I mean, it's really amazing when you see 20, 30 school children from the UK or from abroad just having their horizons opened. I don't need facts and figures. You walk around the museum and you see it happening every moment of the day.
- [22:38]
Stephen Dubner
I am generally skeptical of people who say they don't need facts and figures. Still, I have been finding Nicholas Cullinan's reasoning to be persuasive so far. Or maybe it's just that his enthusiasm is contagious. Coming up after the break, is the British Museum ready to give back some of its most treasured loot? I'm Stephen Dubner. This is Freakonomics Radio. We'll be right back. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by ebay. Picture this. You're halfway through a DIY car fix, tools scattered everywhere, and you realize you're missing a part. It's okay, because whatever it is, it's on ebay. Brakes, headlights, cold air intakes. Whatever you need. Guaranteed to fit. No more crossing your fingers and hoping you ordered the right thing. All the parts you need at prices you will love. Guaranteed to fit every time. Ebay. Things people love. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Square. Your favorite neighborhood spots run on Square. Did you know Square can help you turn your small business idea into a huge success? Even that genius idea for moving with monkeys, the pop up workout class taught by, yes, real monkeys. Square isn't just a point of sale for local businesses anymore. What began as a little white card reader is now a behind the scenes powerhouse, helping you manage finances, schedule your team and cover cash flow gaps. When they come up with Square, you could keep things at moving with monkeys running smoothly even if one of your instructors won't stop flinging bananas at the clients. And whether you're expanding to new cities or growing your loyal following of primate loving fitness buffs, Square is with you every step of the the way. Square helps you tackle today's to do's and dream big for tomorrow. Go to square.com go freakonomics to learn more. That's S Q U-A-R-E.com G O Freakonomics square. Meet you there. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Amica Insurance. At Amica, you will receive coverage with compassion. When you choose Amica, they'll take the time to explain your options for auto, home and life insurance. You can feel confident knowing that they'll protect what matters most to you. Amica will provide you with peace of mind. Go to ameca.com and get a quote today. We're speaking today with Nicholas Cullinan, who became director of the British Museum in the summer of 2024. We first spoke in person at the museum in London and then a few days later in a studio interview when I was back in New York. We'll pick up now with some conversation from that studio interview. This is the most cliched question ever, but I still find it a useful question. When you go to a museum and you could take home one object and keep it, what's your keeper? From the British Museum?
- [25:46]
Nicholas Cullinan
In my final interview for the role of director last year, one of the final questions was to talk about an object. And the object I talked about was the Portland Vase, an amazing Roman glass cameo vase that we have with a.
- [25:59]
Stephen Dubner
Great history, we should say, oh, with a great history.
- [26:01]
Nicholas Cullinan
And that's also kind of why I chose it, because I'm a big fan of Susan Sontag's novel the Volcano Lover, which is essentially a romantic novel around Lord Hamilton, who was the British ambassador to Naples. And the Portland vase makes quite a few important appearances in the book. Lord Hamilton sold it to the Duchess of Portland and then her heirs put it on deposit at the British Museum. And in, I think it was 1845, a drunken visitor came in and smashed it into basically a thousand pieces for no reason, no reason whatsoever. It was then painstakingly put back together by restorers, which is extraordinary. And then 100 years later, in 1945, just after the Second World War, just as the world was putting itself back together. And the British Museum, too, because it was bombed and, you know, there were whole galleries that had to be rebuilt, we actually acquired it. It was bought by the nation and since then also been restored a second time. I found it very moving that things survive at all, first of all, is kind of a miracle if you think about it. It's already been destroyed one time and it's managed to be pieced back together.
- [27:03]
Stephen Dubner
It was pieced back together because it was destroyed within the confines of a museum.
- [27:07]
Nicholas Cullinan
Yeah, but it could have been destroyed before that. It could never have been found. It could still be in the ground. It could be in a private collection and no one would know about it. Just the fact that things are in museums at all is incredible when you actually think about it.
- [27:17]
Stephen Dubner
Well, you're making a rather compelling argument, which comes at a different issue, which is the notion of repatriation. One of the primary arguments there is that museums, while they may be charged with possessing and showing materials that have been obtained in a variety of ways that are not so above board, a word you use is looted, which no previous director of the British Museum that I'm aware of has ever used. And when people call for repatriation, one argument against that is that if these objects had not been kept in museums in the past and continue to be kept in museums, then they might disappear into either a private holding or who knows where. I wonder if you might want to spend a little time talking about that in a moment, as it pertains to works that the British Museum currently holds, whether it's Elgin Marbles, whether it's Benin Bronzes, et cetera, how that factors into your general thinking about repatriation. And I realized that was a large side door we just walked through, but I know you can handle it.
- [28:11]
Nicholas Cullinan
No, it's really interesting. I'll begin by saying, as you might have gathered, I'm not really a big fan of bidery thinking. You know, it only satisfies one party, and that's not a way of fustigating about the past. Yes, as you said, some of the things that are in the collection, specifically the bed and bronzes, also the ascente gold regalia, which is currently on loan back to the Royal palace in Ghana. Those things were looted because we were at war with each other. I think most people now would deplore that. But that's a historical fact that you can't get around. It's not about politics. We're just talking in a factual sense about what happened.
- [28:48]
Stephen Dubner
As logical as it sounds now, when you explain it that way, why did previous directors of the British Museum not engage in that kind of language? They wouldn't use those words.
- [28:56]
Nicholas Cullinan
I don't want to speak for my predecessors. And just to be clear, I'm not talking about the majority of the British Museum collection. I'm not even talking about a significant percentage. We have 13 life cases of claims for objects that are contested.
- [29:10]
Stephen Dubner
Claims meaning requests from the requests either.
- [29:13]
Nicholas Cullinan
For things to be repatriated or for dialogue or discussion. One of those is the Parthenon sculptures. We have 900 Benin Bronzes. That's one case I'm talking about. But 900 objects within that. The basic issue is there's an act of Parliament from 1963 that expressly forbids the British Museum from deaccessioning its collection. And actually, this goes back to your earlier question about maybe the differences between British and American museums. A lot of American museums, it's regular practice to deaccession from the collection. I'm not going to name names because it's not really for me to talk about museums that don't work in. There's not a press release issued. It's often kept fairly quiet also, and I've seen it lots of small things where you've got better versions, and so you quietly deaccession to small auction houses to not create a lot of press focus. So it's pretty standard practice. And there's an argument for being able to do that, I understand, which is to keep your collection manageable. In Britain, decessioning is basically forbidden. What that means is that often you end up with collections where they become very large. But there's a principle that these things have been acquired for the nation, they're owned by the people of Britain, and therefore it's not the museum's right to sell them.
- [30:25]
Stephen Dubner
One thing that's always frustrated me about that argument, and we encountered this repeatedly when we did this series a couple years ago called Stealing Art Is Easy. Giving It Back is Hard. I don't know if you agree with that sentiment or not.
- [30:38]
Nicholas Cullinan
Well, you know what? I would say sharing it is even easier.
- [30:41]
Stephen Dubner
I love that sentiment and I love that path that you're on with the British Museum. But the reason it's always been a frustrating argument to encounter is it just seemed like a ridiculous fig leaf to me. These are just laws passed by members of Parliament. There's still a Parliament which has the ability to pass new laws. I don't understand why that's Clung to as if it's some natural physical law.
- [31:05]
Nicholas Cullinan
I'm not. I'm not clinging to it. It's important to state it because otherwise people might be under the misapprehension that it's our choice or it's our decision. Basically, it would take an act of Parliament. I don't want to make trying to get an act of Parliament past my sole focus. It would take years. And you would also have a legal challenge.
- [31:23]
Stephen Dubner
From whom?
- [31:24]
Nicholas Cullinan
Oh, well, from a member of the public that will decide this is not the right thing. If I decided tomorrow, I wanted to.
- [31:30]
Stephen Dubner
Do something radical like send all your Benin bronzes back to somewhere. Although that's complicated too.
- [31:36]
Nicholas Cullinan
I'll be taken to court for sure. I mean, there's no question. So people need to factor that into the process too. And that's not me using that as an excuse. There isn't a legal framework for us to just do this in a straightforward way. I could spend my entire directorship trying to fight this and get nowhere. You have to also think really carefully about the ramifications. Thinking back to when the pandemic began, the big anxiety was that lots of small museums across the UK would be forced to sell, like, the One Star painting they had. There was huge anxiety that this was going to trigger a wave of disposals. So I think a saner way around it is to begin collaborating now, which we already do, but to actually do.
- [32:16]
Stephen Dubner
Even more of that, including, I guess back when you were at the National Portrait Gallery, your co purchase of the Joshua Reynolds painting called Portrait of Mai, is that right?
- [32:26]
Nicholas Cullinan
Yeah, that's right. And that was very innovative. When we did that two years ago, I learned that this portrait of Mai by Reynolds, which is one of the probably Reynolds most important portraits, was going to be sold. It hung in Castle Howard for most of the last 200 years, and then it's been basically in a Bank vault for 20 years. The value is 50 million. I knew that was probably impossible for the National Portrait Gallery to be able to raise 50 million. I also knew that the Getty really wanted to acquire this work. And the Getty is the richest museum in the world. And it made sense to me. Rather than have this fruitless competition where I knew eventually we would lose to actually work together.
- [33:05]
Stephen Dubner
Did you end up paying for roughly half of that £50 million?
- [33:08]
Nicholas Cullinan
We paid for half. We split it 50, 50 from the British side. Lots of people said, this is a terrible idea, it's not gonna work, there's no precedent. I said to them, listen, do you want 50% or 100% of nothing, because that's your option, basically. Now everyone's very happy. And it's been on the walls of the National Portrait Gallery for two years. And then it will go to Los Angeles in time for the Olympics. The compromise of my spending half its time next to where it was painted in Reynolds studio, and it's spending half its time facing the Pacific, which is where Mike comes from. And Los Angeles has the biggest community from the Pacific region outside those islands. I think that's kind of appropriate anyway. So that's a long winded way of saying that you have to invent new models rather than battling one piece of legislation. I would rather work with the framework I have and use that to benefit as many people as possible. Yes, I think it would be wonderful to be able to show the Bennet bronzes, for example, in the New Museum moa, the New Museum in Benin City that we collaborate with very actively. We've been working with them on a joint archaeological excavation that we fund. But I also know that there's people I've talked to who are of Nigerian origin that say, I'm torn because part of me would love to see the Benin bronzes go back, but the only reason I had access to my source culture was by going to see them in the British Museum. And therefore there is an argument for both.
- [34:26]
Stephen Dubner
So let's talk a bit more about the circumstances of the British museums. Benin bronzes specifically. I spoke with David from, who wrote a piece about this situation for the Atlantic a few years ago. He said, as the piece I wrote predicted, the whole thing has fallen apart, meaning repatriation of the bronze. It's not from the British Museum, but from other museums, especially in Germany. He said the driver behind that was the German authorities. They sent back a lot which have vanished. They were delivered to the Nigerian Federal state. Some are known to have gone to the Oba, but what happened to them is totally unknown. You've talked about the plans for the museum to open and that you're involved in that. But what do you say to someone who is concerned about repatriation not having the desired effect of having a second place of display, but rather going back into a private collection or being sold off? That's the kind of panicky version of the story. So what are you shooting for?
- [35:20]
Nicholas Cullinan
We only lend things, whether on public display somewhere else, around either the country or around the world. I'm a museum person. I'm always excited when there's other museums to work with, new museums to work with. When there's new museums being born. I think it's incumbent on established organizations and other museums to do whatever they can appropriately to support. Let's not be paternalistic. A lot of museums have their own collections, their own program, their own curatorial expertise. They may or may not want your help or your collaboration. So it has to be a two way street. Just to give you an example of that, the Getty, they fund this incredible project we do at the CSMVS Museum in Mumbai, which we've been working on for 14 years now, where that museum, which is essentially focused on Indian heritage. We lend things from our collection, but also for the first time they've curated a show which is now on display at the British Museum, which is fantastic. And so I think all of these relationships need to be reciprocal in two ways.
- [36:17]
Stephen Dubner
Does this apply to the Elgin Marbles as well? What's the plan there?
- [36:20]
Nicholas Cullinan
I wish I could give you some amazing world exclusive, but I can only talk about what's in the public domain.
- [36:26]
Stephen Dubner
That means there is a world exclusive to be given. You're just not talking to me.
- [36:30]
Nicholas Cullinan
No, I'm telling. It's actually funny how people always think there's some big mystery or secret. And actually, so it's well known that there's an ongoing discussion, I think both parties, the British Museum and Greece. And it is quite funny that it's a museum dealing with a nation. It's not the British government and the Greek government talking. It's the British Museum and the Greek government talking. I think both parties would love to see progress again. Basically it all comes down to a piece of legislation. I'm sure that Greece would like to have them all back now, but it's not within our gift to do that. So the question is, okay, can we find a way where we could lend a proportion and Greece would send us some wonderful things and we can build this partnership and that's the conversation that's taking place. Where that will end up, I don't know. I'm very hopeful. I'm always trying to find ways to collaborate and to pioneer, I suppose, and to invent new things.
- [37:21]
Stephen Dubner
Here's one idea I've always thought is cute. I don't know if it's practical at all, but let's say you've got a contested object or set of objects like the Elgin Marbles, Benin bronze. There are others, just the British Museum or the British Government, I guess, sponsoring, paying for a daily or weekly or monthly flight of tourists from that place. Come see it, spend a day at the British Museum. A kind of handheld curated experience of, yes, we're keeping these things. Parliament says we have to, but we also recognize that they are your heritage. And so we'd like to run this exchange program. You like that idea?
- [37:55]
Nicholas Cullinan
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think.
- [37:59]
Stephen Dubner
Yes. He says, not meaning it at all.
- [38:01]
Nicholas Cullinan
No, no, it's definitely not a bad idea. It's definitely innovative and it sounds ambitious and is trying to break through maybe a barrier. But what I would say is even getting people to the British Museum in London only gets you so far. And of course, the great thing is we're free. We've always been free. That was again, Hans Sloane's original stipulation. The fact that anyone in the world who is in London can visit the British Museum and see all these things for free is incredible. We had 6.5 million visitors last year. If you think about the number of people that have come and seen these objects over time, almost 275 years, that's kind of incredible. Then of course, it's also beholden on you to get beyond the museum. Whether that's virtually digitally, whether that's sharing the collection around the UK with the most generous lender of all the major British national museums outside London, about 2,000 objects. To give you an example, 6.5 million visitors last year came to the British museum in Bloomsbury. 8 million visitors outside London saw something from our collection. We have partnership galleries across the UK and then up to 2,000 works are on loan all around the globe at any one time. It's a truly global network and what's interesting is people just don't know that because it's not an obvious headline.
- [39:17]
Stephen Dubner
Coming up after the the break, we will get to the more obvious headlines about the British Museum in more challenging moments.
- [39:24]
Nicholas Cullinan
I do like to think about Andy Warhol's great line, which is. Don't read your reviews, weigh them.
- [39:28]
Stephen Dubner
I'm Stephen Dubner, this is Freakonomics Radio. We'll be right back. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by netsuite. It's an interesting time for business. Tariff and trade policy policies are dynamic and your business needs to adapt in real time. You need total visibility from global shipments to tariff impacts to real time cash flow. That's Netsuite by Oracle, your AI powered business management suite. Trusted by over 41,000 businesses. NetSuite is the number one Cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory and HR into one source of truth giving, giving you the control you need to make quick decisions, get real time forecasting with actionable data and automate everyday tasks. With AI so your teams stay strategic. Netsuite helps you know what's stuck, what it's costing you, and how to pivot fast. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, download the free ebook Navigating Global 3 Insights for Leaders at netsuite.com that's netsuite.com Freak Freakonomics radio is sponsored by WhatsApp. On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages. So the calls with your mom, chats about the latest work, drama, late night voice messages, and all those photos and videos of your dog. Every personal message stays private because no one, not even WhatsApp, can see or hear your personal messages. WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Whole Foods Market. Whole Foods Market has great everyday prices on quality grilling favorites. Their House Brand365 buy Whole Foods Market has everything you need for delicious summer fun. Meats for the grill like no antibiotics ever, chicken and sustainable wild caught salmon burgers. Or great everyday prices on classic summer sides like organic salad kits, tortilla chips and zesty salsas. There are so many ways to save on summer grilling favorites at Whole Foods Market. In April of 1902, a man calling himself Jacob Richter wrote a letter to the director of the British Museum. It said, I beg to apply for a ticket of admission to the reading room of the British Museum. I came from Russia in order to study the land question. This land question had to do with whether private ownership of land should be allowed, and Jacob Richter was a pseudonym for Vladimir Lenin. Here's what Lenin said later about the British Museum's library. It is a remarkable institution, especially that exceptional reference section.
- [42:28]
Nicholas Cullinan
It's an incredible space. Clearly it was modeled on the Pantheon. But the amazing thing is this beautiful ceiling we're looking at is made of papier mache because anything heavier would probably collapse in on itself. It's an incredible piece of architecture and of Victorian engineering.
- [42:45]
Stephen Dubner
That again is Nicholas Cullinan, the director of British Museum. He and I are standing in the middle of the round Reading Room, which was completed in 1857. It is a massive expanse with that domed ceiling with very tall bookshelves lining the circumference and rows of wooden desks laid out like spokes on a wheel.
- [43:07]
Nicholas Cullinan
The round Reading room was really the brainchild of an extraordinary former director of the British Museum, Antonio Panizzi. This quote I think is incredible, which I will read out for the benefit of people listening. He said, I want a poor student to have the same means of indulging his learned curiosity, of following his rational pursuits, of consulting the same authorities, of fathoming the most intricate inquiry as the richest man in the kingdom. And I think that's still relevant to what we do.
- [43:35]
Stephen Dubner
Cullinan walks us over to an old ledger where Jacob Richter and others signed.
- [43:40]
Nicholas Cullinan
In Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf. You see here Sylvia Pankhurst. Karl Marx, who pretty much spent every day for 30 years sat here writing Das Kapital. When Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union and visited Britain for the first time in 1984, he came and looked at the round reading room and the desks where both Lenin and Marx had sat and said, if people don't like Communism, they can blame the British Museum. And I can't think of many museums that are held responsible or accountable for an entire sociopolitical order.
- [44:16]
Stephen Dubner
So, Nick, the headlines of the past few years for the British Museum have been, according to my reading, at least, overwhelmingly bad. And so I wanted to ask you, as you were offered this job, first of all, I'm curious whether you were at all conflicted. I mean, it's an amazing job, so I'm assuming you are eager to take it. But the outstanding issues are substantial. There is the controversies over repatriation, as we've discussed. There's some strong protest and activism, particularly over reliance on corporate sponsorship of petroleum firms and so on. You had Peter Higgs, a curator in your Greek and Roman department, who was allegedly stealing objects from within the museum and selling them on ebay. And I've read, although I'd love you to tell me if this is wrong, that the British Museum was alerted to this and did not pursue it. And then additionally, when we were reporting out our piece on repatriation a few years ago, we couldn't even get the communications department to field our questions, much less an official. And we had our recording equipment seized. When we showed up to try to record this time, the director of the museum, that's. You met us quite warmly. We had an off the record chat with coffee. Lovely. We had a walkthrough of the museum. Lovely. And now you're sitting down for the studio interview. So can you just talk about the degree to which either your appointment as director or a general shift, why that's.
- [45:42]
Nicholas Cullinan
Happened to go back to the beginning. No, I didn't think twice. A museum obviously has to think very much about new cycles, but is also in the business of perpetuity and forever, rather than just getting through each day's news cycle, you take it very seriously. And you take it with a little bit of a pinch of salt as well. Not saying, oh, I don't care, but, okay, this is today. But then there's many, many more days to come. And the question is, each day, can you make improvement and keep moving it forward?
- [46:09]
Stephen Dubner
In other words, it comes with the territory to some degree.
- [46:11]
Nicholas Cullinan
To some degree, yeah. I'm not saying, oh, therefore it doesn't.
- [46:13]
Stephen Dubner
Matter, or, yeah, drunk museum goers smashing the Portland vase.
- [46:16]
Nicholas Cullinan
Exactly. There will always be a crisis. The question for me is, is the British Museum an institution that is worth sticking with? Basically, that's what we're saying. I mean, if you really want to push the argument, maybe its most vocal critics are saying it shouldn't exist, it has no right to exist. And I think a lot of people around the world, including the 6.5 million people that visit us annually, the people like myself that visited when they were a child would disagree with that and would say, of course, there are things that need to change, or there are things that are complex and need to be addressed. But the museum definitely does a lot more good than harm. My larger point is, do you want to carry on being angry about the past, or do you want to do something to try and create a more equitable future? Do you care more about the problem or the solution? I mean, it's very easy to get angry. You know, all of us get angry about problems every day. But ultimately, is that where you want to expend your energy? Even if that's your motivation? At a certain point, surely you need to switch and say, okay, but then how are we going to make this better?
- [47:15]
Stephen Dubner
What you just said resonates with me. I think it will resonate with just about everyone who hears it. But in a world where short termism and injustice collection is running rampant, how do you try to turn the tide, even if only within your own institution?
- [47:33]
Nicholas Cullinan
I mean, it's a really good question. I happen to love encyclopedic museums. I love them from being a visitor as a child to having worked in them. I'm lucky enough to have worked for two of them, the British Museum and the Met. I think they do something extraordinary. And of course, it can be complex in how that's achieved, but it's about bringing people and cultures together. Personally, I think we need more of that, not less of that. And that doesn't mean that you shouldn't look at certain cases or think, okay, should the Parthenon sculptures be in London or Athens? But the bigger point is the idea of a world in which Everyone and everything has to return back to its point of origin and never the twain shall meet. And people and objects and ideas don't move around the world and can't contaminate each other and create new realities is deeply depressing to me.
- [48:20]
Stephen Dubner
Yeah. I mean, I feel like you're whispering this lovely notion into a massive fan that is blowing in the opposite direction, of course.
- [48:29]
Nicholas Cullinan
But that's all the more reason why it's important. Those 6.5 million visitors, we give them very strong evidence or reality of how everything is connected. I want that to carry on reaching more and more people, because I think it's more and more important. It's not less important, it's not less relevant.
- [48:46]
Stephen Dubner
One critique of the British Museum, this goes back to the idea of the museum as a trophy case for the nation's colonial exploits, is that it publicly displays only a tiny fraction of their 8 million objects. The rest are in storerooms. I asked if we could see some.
- [49:03]
Nicholas Cullinan
We are now in essentially the basement of the British Museum, although we're actually at floor level.
- [49:09]
Stephen Dubner
And this looks very much like a basement.
- [49:12]
Nicholas Cullinan
This looks like a basement, but, wow.
- [49:16]
Stephen Dubner
This is like Raiders of the Lost Ark.
- [49:17]
Nicholas Cullinan
I know, it's quite astonishing. So where we are now is. This is the sepulchral basement, which is part of the original smirk building. So these are lions from Halicarnassus. We have quite a few on display upstairs, but a lot more things not currently on display. I'm very keen to get as much of the collection on view as possible.
- [49:39]
Stephen Dubner
So do you have any sense of the ratio of work on display to work owned?
- [49:44]
Nicholas Cullinan
Yes, and it doesn't sound good, but we'll talk about it. So about 1% of the collection is on view. The British Museum's collection is one of the largest and most comprehensive collections in the world, spanning 2 million years of human history across all cultures. The Louvre at several hundred thousand objects. The Met is more than 2 million. They also have more display space. So we have this kind of unique problem, which is not just the biggest collection, but actually a smaller space in which to show it. There's whole parts of the collection that currently we're not able to show. For example, the Caribbean, which is really important.
- [50:17]
Stephen Dubner
You have very little, if any, here.
- [50:18]
Nicholas Cullinan
Yeah, we have very little on display. And, of course, that's a very important part of our collection. Also because of Hans Sloane. Hans Sloane spent time in the Caribbean, spent time on plantations, which is a very complex thing. His wife owned plantations. But what was interesting about Sloane was he actually talked to and learned from and actually acquired objects and information from enslaved people.
- [50:39]
Stephen Dubner
He was a physician.
- [50:40]
Nicholas Cullinan
He was. Yeah. He spent time learning from them, talking to them, and understanding histories from them from the very beginning.
- [50:46]
Stephen Dubner
So that's really interesting to me because it kind of fits with what seems to be your mission of being transparent and embracing what the past actually was.
- [50:56]
Nicholas Cullinan
Yeah. And then obviously, trying to do the best with that history and that past. The history of the British Museum is essentially just the history of Britain. And then beyond that, in the collection and in our history, it's just the history of the world, which is of, you know, wonderful things, creation, innovation, democracy and terrible things, conquest and brutality. And that's the history of the world. I think if you're really confident you can own up to mistakes or misdeeds on a personal level, on a national level, on a historical level, I think cultures and countries that are truly confident are confident because they know themselves in all of their glory and with all of their flaws.
- [51:38]
Stephen Dubner
I know it was a big year for amateur metal detectorists in the uk.
- [51:42]
Nicholas Cullinan
Yes.
- [51:43]
Stephen Dubner
And that there's something called An Annual Report from the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which is about as British as it gets, in my view, which is managed by you, the British Museum. I'm curious to know if there are objects in the museum that have been discovered by amateurs.
- [51:58]
Nicholas Cullinan
It's an amazing scheme and it's pretty unique in the world. So basically, we administer the national scheme whereby detectorists or people that are metal detecting, if they find something significant that could be considered treasure, they declare it and then it goes through a process which we oversee, where it's decided what to do with that. Essentially, the law is that it belongs half to the finder and then half to the landowner. Basically, over the years, this scheme has turned amateur detectorists into archaeologists. And it doesn't just benefit the British Museum, it actually benefits museums all across the uk, because often that's where the find ends up. It's really about making sure that whatever finds are made are shown in the best possible context, which is often a more local context.
- [52:47]
Stephen Dubner
Do you know of any significant or noteworthy or just beautiful objects that have been found this way?
- [52:51]
Nicholas Cullinan
Oh, my God. There is many, and I'm dying to. There's one that we're about to launch a public appeal for because it is incredible. Watch this space. Watch this space. I'm not going to go into detail, but basically there was an incredible find made in 2019 by someone who had just begun metal detecting and found the most incredible thing from 1521, probably in September. We're going to launch a public appeal to acquire this object because it is amazing.
- [53:21]
Stephen Dubner
I did a bit of digging myself online when I got home. The object that has Cullen the in so excited is a heart shaped gold pendant on a gold chain found in the West Midlands by a man in his 30s who owns a cafe. The pendant is decorated with the initials H and K as in Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, his first wife. So yes, an amazing object, but even better, it is a very British object that was found on British soil. So it's hard to imagine that some other country will ever come asking to have it back. I'd like to thank Nicholas Cullinan for the tour and the good conversation. Let us know what you think of this episode. Our email is radioeeconomics.com Coming up next time on the show. As I'm sure you've heard, there's been a bit of a panic about the falling birth rate in the US and elsewhere.
- [54:21]
Nicholas Cullinan
If you think for example of economic.
- [54:23]
Stephen Dubner
Growth, it depends on population growth. It is true that some families are still having a lot of kids. The most polite version is something like.
- [54:31]
Nicholas Cullinan
Why, you know, why would you do this?
- [54:33]
Stephen Dubner
But the overall trend is down and governments are trying baby incentives. It was a decade long experiment that really was considered unsuccessful. We kick off a three part series on the human life cycle. First birth, then the Middle Ages and then the sunset years. Part one is next time on the show. Until then, take care of yourself and if you can, someone else too. Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio. This episode was produced by Morgan Levy with help from Zach Lipinski in London and Field recording by Rob Double. It was mixed by Jasmine Klinger with help from Jeremy Johnston. The Freakonomics Radio Network staff also includes Alina Coleman, Augusta Chapman, Dalvin Abuaji, Eleanor Osborne, Ellen Frankman, Elsa Hernandez, Gabriel Roth, Greg Rippon, Sarah Lilly and Teo Jacobs. Our theme song is Mr. Fortune by the Hitchhikers and our composer is Luis Germany. As always, thanks for listening.
- [55:41]
Nicholas Cullinan
We had something called a charrette, which was a new word in my vocabulary. It's not a cheese or a board game.
- [55:47]
Stephen Dubner
I thought it was maybe a singer from the 1960s.
- [55:50]
Nicholas Cullinan
It's a girl band. It's like Blah Blah and the Charrettes.
- [55:58]
Stephen Dubner
The Freakonomics Radio Network the hidden inside of everything.
- [56:05]
Nicholas Cullinan
Stitcher.
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Stephen Dubner
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Nicholas Cullinan
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Stephen Dubner
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