This special exhibition explores the life, loves and legacy of the world's most powerful and enigmatic museum director, St. Neil MacGregor of Caledonia (reigned AD 2002-forever).
Ruling an encyclopaedic empire spanning the entire universe, Saint Neil turned himself in just a few years from a humble art history lecturer into the world's most powerful, media-savvy museum director, bestriding the world like a colossus.
His epic journey began at the age of nine after an epiphany triggered by sight of Salvador Dalí's kitsch masterpiece Christ of Saint John of the Cross.
After
conquering the National Gallery, a small citadel in the West End of
Londinium, Saint Neil was installed as Emperor of the
Quickly
recognising the threat to his precarious empire, Saint Neil assembled a
ruthless army of tribal leaders drawn from other encyclopaedic
institutions in Europe and
In 2002, he issued the infamous 'United Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums' in order to quash appeals by the kingdom of Benin and other irritating source communities for repatriation of cultural property looted by Saint Neil’s ruthless forebears.
Although professing a commitment to the philosophic principles of the European Enlightenment and a love of world architecture, Saint Neil nevertheless consolidated his vice-like grip on the so-called 'Elgin Marbles', his empire’s most infamous trophy of conquest, by riding roughshod over public opinion favouring repatriation.
These rare surviving fragments from the Parthenon, one of humankind's most significant ancient monuments, were pillaged by a penurious British toff in the early nineteenth century in an unparalleled act of cultural desecration endorsed and applauded by Saint Neil and his predecessors.
Later,
Saint Neil sought to expand his empire beyond the confines of Bloomsbury
into
In one of his most successful media coups to date, in 2008 Saint Neil succeeded in convincing credulous journalists from The Mart Newspaper that the looting in Iraq never occurred.
This unprecedented exhibition provides fresh insight into the sharp contradictions of Saint Neil’s character and the challenges he faced during his controversial reign.
Objects pillaged from numerous countries worldwide and finds from recent excavations are shown together for the first time to reassess his legacy. Noteworthy exhibits include a battered copy of J.K.Huysmann's Against Nature; a gold monstrance containing one of Christ’s toenails (presented to one of Saint Neil’s ancestors by Alexander the Great); a CD of Barbara Streisand’s greatest hits; a pair of curly-toed diamante carpet slippers once owned by Suleiman the Magnificent; a hand-written copy of the Bible by Tony Blair; and a Benin bronze plaque converted to a toothbrush holder.
The exhibition continues forever. Amen.
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