Neil MacGregor saved the British Museum. It’s time to reinvent it again

With his radical, subversive instincts, MacGregor redefined what a global art collection can and should be. Who will – who can – fill the gap he leaves?

It is hard to remember how irrelevant the British Museum seemed before Neil MacGregor saved it. There was something dowdy and confused about this treasury of world art. Its collections were splendid – at least when the room you wanted to see happened to be open on the day you went. But its exhibitions were often dull or silly – there was even one that looked at Agatha Christie and archaeology. Such desperate attempts to popularise the past revealed a museum whose experts had no idea how to communicate their knowledge.

Related: British Museum director Neil MacGregor to step down

Continue reading...