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Clooney calls for Mona Lisa’s return to Italy

Actor George Clooney has lined up against the French government in an ongoing art row. The Hollywood star has waded into the battle for the Mona Lisa, saying the Louvre Museum in Paris should return it to its native Florence.

Published: 14 February 2014 14:41 CET

Clooney calls for Mona Lisa's return to Italy

George Clooney has called for the Mona Lisa's return to Italy. Photos: Wikimedia Commons

The comments were made during a promotional tour for Clooney’s new film, The Monuments Men, in Milan, according to a report in Hollywood Reporter, and is likely to reignite the spat over the world’s most famous painting between the two nations.

George Clooney is sometimes referred to in Italy as the 'treasure of Laglio', the small town on Lake Como where he owns a villa.

France has fiercely guarded Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterpiece, which has been hanging in the Louvre museum in Paris since 1797.

It was bought by France's King Francis I shortly after its completion in the 16th century.

The painting returned to Italy just once since then, and that was only because it was stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, a former employee of the Louvre who reportedly believed the portrait should be in an Italian museum, in 1911.

It wasn’t tracked down until 1913, when it was found in Peruggia’s home in Florence.

Italy has made several failed bids for its return, most recently last year when it sought to borrow the painting as part of an exhibition marking the centenary of its recovery following the theft. More than 150,000 Italians signed a petition to bring the painting to the Uffizi museum.

But France refused, saying that lending the work would present “many technical difficulties”.

READ MORE HERE: France rejects Italian plea to borrow Mona Lisa

Acclaimed as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world", the Mona Lisa is estimated to have been painted between 1503 and 1506.

The portrait is believed to be of Lisa Gheradini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a wealthy silk merchant from Florence.

Clooney also caused a stir last week when he called on Britain to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece.

by Angela Giuffrida

A version of this story first appeared on The Local Italy

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African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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