I’m glad James Purnell has announced he’ll act to reassure the Russian authorities who’ve threatened to cancel the planned loan of a number of works of art which its intended will be shown in the Royal Academy’s From Russia exhibition starting in a few weeks. It’s easy to think this little row is caused by the dispute about Andrei Lugovoi – and that does of course overshadow Anglo-Russian relations just now, which have broken out into a sort of Kulturkampf, with the proposed suspension of the British Council. But this specifically cultural row has a history of its own.

Since this happened in 2005 the Russians have worried that their cultural assets might be the target of civil enforcement proceedings in the west, and Britain, having no legislation guaranteeing immunity from seizure, was concerned about the possible refusal of foreign authorities to lend works to British galleries. That led to Part 6 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 which is intended to solve the problem, and which James Purnell will now commence. To be fair to the Russians, the FT story I linked to above indicates they will send the paintings as soon as that legislation is in.

But what I don’t understand is, why wasn’t the legislation commenced earlier? Admittedly regulations needed to be drafted, the consent of devolved administrations obtained, galleries geared up to follow guidelines and so on – but Royal http://www.gooakley.com/ assent was in July, and surely DCMS ministers knew this exhibition, including paintings from Russia which is especially sensitive, was due in January. I can’t understand what the delay’s been for – and perhaps neither could the Russians.

2017-03-20T10:35:23+00:00Tags: , |