The gigantic poster advertising the exhibition "Archaic Colors" at the new Acropolis Museum, Athens.
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The gigantic poster advertising the exhibition "The Parthenon Riders" at the new Acropolis Museum, Athens.
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For several months, a hot topic of conversation was the intention of the arrogant directors of the new Acropolis Museum to demolish two aristocratic prominent buildings on the one and only Dionyssiou Areopagitou pedestrian street facing the Acropolis itself. Their reasoning was that the two buildings were obstructing the Acropolis view to the customers who were seated at the Museum cafe. The fact that the two buildings were there several decades ahead of the pompous museum escaped their attention, as well as the fact that a public building -in a democracy that is- should respect the urban environment that encompasses it rather than antagonize it. Petitions were signed, heated arguments among city planners, beaurocrats, local residents and public servants took place, and finally, the two historic buildings were saved, much to the dismay of the Acropolis Museum directors.
But then, another blatant violation of Greek law became the status quo, for the museum. Although, in preparation for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games, Athens prohibited all signs, lit or not, advertisements or else, from each and every building in and around the city, the Museum decided to use the side wall of one of the two "obstructing" buildings as a billboard. A billboard visible from several hundred yards away to the person who walks up Areopagitou Street towards the Acropolis. First, it was the gigantic poster promoting the exhibition "Archaic Colors." Currently it is the one promoting the exhibition "The Parthenon Riders".
Nobody, and certainly not the author of this humble post, has anything against the museum that houses the most important art collection in the whole wide world. However, setting the standards by which the everyday citizen, the law-abiding person, lives by should be and still is up to the State itself. The blatant disregard of such guidelines and laws simply sets free every violator and teaches the young that there are two sets of standards, those of the rulers and those of the peasants. Especially when this building houses the masterpieces symbolic of democracy!
I expect the new Greek Minister for Culture to take the necessary steps and set the Acropolis Museum directors to their true and real task: humbly administering the most important museum in the world!
But then, another blatant violation of Greek law became the status quo, for the museum. Although, in preparation for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games, Athens prohibited all signs, lit or not, advertisements or else, from each and every building in and around the city, the Museum decided to use the side wall of one of the two "obstructing" buildings as a billboard. A billboard visible from several hundred yards away to the person who walks up Areopagitou Street towards the Acropolis. First, it was the gigantic poster promoting the exhibition "Archaic Colors." Currently it is the one promoting the exhibition "The Parthenon Riders".
Nobody, and certainly not the author of this humble post, has anything against the museum that houses the most important art collection in the whole wide world. However, setting the standards by which the everyday citizen, the law-abiding person, lives by should be and still is up to the State itself. The blatant disregard of such guidelines and laws simply sets free every violator and teaches the young that there are two sets of standards, those of the rulers and those of the peasants. Especially when this building houses the masterpieces symbolic of democracy!
I expect the new Greek Minister for Culture to take the necessary steps and set the Acropolis Museum directors to their true and real task: humbly administering the most important museum in the world!