Thread by @artcrimeprof

Of the 64 museum security incidents in the past year reported in the annual review of museum security issues during @ProtectMuseums #NCCPP2020, only two had political motivations.

In one of these, involving damage to a museum near the Wisconsin statehouse during a BLM protest, it seems like the museum itself wasn't a target (the damage focused on the street front gift shop).

The other was Mwazulu Diyabanza's protest, attempting to remove an artifact from the Quai Branly Museum: nytimes.com/2020/09/21/art… Actually, he did this at two other museums in the last year, so the survey was undercounting: nltimes.nl/2020/09/11/act…

The survey also missed this protest against holding of Benin Bronzes, which resulted in an arrest: theartnewspaper.com/news/london-mu…

Even with these added incidents, it is striking to me that in a year of protests in the public space about art, there have been so few security reports about protests inside museums. Is that because protests have generally proceeded without incident, or are they not happening?

By contrast, a common type of museum theft last year was not motivated by the artistic quality of what was stolen, but the value of its raw material, like diamonds or the, at current prices, $4 million worth of gold in Maurizio Cattelan's "America": npr.org/2019/09/14/760…