- Greece condemned the British Museum for hosting its fundraising gala, the Pink Ball, alongside the Parthenon Marbles as “offensive.”
- This latest criticism from Greece follows a 2024 controversy when the museum hosted an Erdem fashion show in the same gallery.
- The £2,000-a-ticket gala also sparked outrage from climate activists, who protested the event.
When Nicholas Cullinan was appointed director of the British Museum in the summer of 2024, he spoke of his hope to build a healthy long-term partnership with the Greek government over the future of the Parthenon Marbles. Little more than a year on, the Greek Ministry of Culture has publicly criticized the museum for hosting a fundraising gala in the room that houses the Marbles.
On October 18, the British Museum held the Pink Ball, a £2,000-a-ticket ($2,700) event attended by 800 A-list guests, including Mick Jagger, Naomi Campbell, Alexa Chung, and Tracy Emin. The Pink Ball, which has drawn comparisons to New York’s Met Gala, was organized by Cullinan and Isha Ambani, an arts patron and daughter of Asia’s richest man, in a bid to create a new revenue stream for the museum.
It’s also generated backlash, with Greek authorities accusing the British Museum of disrespecting the nation’s cultural heritage. Lina Mendoni, the Greek minister of culture, accused the museum of using the Parthenon Marbles as “decorative elements” for its dinner and called the move “offensive.”
“The Ministry of Culture has repeatedly and consistently condemned dinners, receptions, and fashion shows organized in museum spaces where monuments and works of art are exhibited,” Mendoni said in a statement. “The safety, integrity, and ethics of the monuments should be the main concern of the British Museum, which, once again, demonstrates provocative indifference.”
The British Museum declined a request for comment.

Isha Ambani, co-chair of the Inaugural British Museum Ball 2025, alongside George Osborne, Nita Ambani and Dr Nicholas Cullinan. Photo: Alan Chapman/Dave Benett/Getty Images.
The incident echoes the controversy stirred in February last year when the museum allowed the British fashion label Erdem to debut its Autumn/Winter collection in front of the Parthenon Marbles. In response to the image of models strutting past the Greek sculptures, Mendoni said it showed “zero respect for the masterpieces of Pheidias.”
The Greeks were not alone in their distaste for the Pink Ball. The British Museum also saw pushback from climate activists. As George Osborne, a former Conservative member of Parliament and the chair of trustees, delivered a speech, he was interrupted by a climate protester who took to the stage holding a sign that “drop BP now.” It referenced the British Museum’s ongoing commercial relationship with British Petroleum, which was renewed in a decade long £50 million ($67 million) partnership in 2023.
The organizer, Energy Embargo for Palestine, called for the museum to cut its ties to BP, commit to receive no future funding from fossil fuel companies, rename the BP lecture theatre, and establish an ethics committee to oversee future finding activities. It followed on from criticism leveled at the museum in the run up to the Pink Ball due to the involvement of Ambani, whose family runs Reliance Industries, the Indian oil, gas, and petrochemical conglomerate. A spokesperson for the environmental campaign group Culture Unstained had called the event a “billionaire gala for climate criminals.”
The gala is a response to the U.K. government continuing to cut public funding for museums, forcing the country’s cultural institutions to seek out new sources of revenue. Ticket sales for the event are estimated to have raised around £1.6 million ($2.2 million), with a silent auction and further donations putting that figure higher.
Some of the money will go towards the British Museum’s international partnerships, which widen access to the collection by supporting the presentation of prized objects at new locations across the world.