Federal Case: Californians' Comments Make Bad Situation Worse

Given the indications in public affidavits, revealed last week in the LA Times, that the feds are probably building a case for criminal indictments and charges of tax fraud related to last week's four-museum early morning raid by federal agents, recent comments made to reporters by the Bowers Museum's director, Peter Keller, and by alleged artifacts smuggler Robert Olson seem ill advised at best, damaging at worst.

I'm all for museum transparency and for responsiveness to journalists' inquiries. I think that officials of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (here) and the unraided Berkeley Art Museum (here) did well by pledging complete cooperation with the investigation and, in LACMA's case, indicating a willingness to relinquish objects if "ownership claims are substantiated."

But what was Peter Keller thinking when he voluntarily publicized his Santa Ana museum's lax acquisition practices in comments to Laura Bleiberg of the Orange County Register, published Thursday, and in similar comments, published Saturday, to Edward Wyatt of the NY Times?

Wyatt wrote:

The museum has never required proof that artifacts it accepts have been obtained legally, Mr. Keller said. Donors are required to sign a statement saying that they are the rightful owners of an artifact and that it is in the United States legally, he said, but they are not asked to provide documentation.

Mr. Keller said it was a "very difficult thing to prove" where an artifact has come from or how long it has been in the United States. "I don't know how you prove it," he said.

Perhaps he can find some guidance in the Association of Art Museum Directors' detailed 2004 guidelines on "acquisitions of archaeological materials and ancient art," which "complement and elaborate on AAMD's 2001 'Professional Practices in Art Museums.'" (AAMD's website does not list the Bowers' director as a member of that organization.)

Since Keller told Wyatt that "his researchers had been unable to find evidence of the Thai antiquity law forbidding their [artifacts'] export, passed in 1961," let me help by referring him and his researchers to pages 143-144 of Bonnie Burnham's "The Protection of Cultural Property: Handbook of National Legislations" (1974), published by the International Council of Museums, which also mentions Thailand's 1972 act to prevent illicit excavation in several protected sites, including Ban Chiang---the source of many of the objects now under investigation. (Bonnie, it's time to do a new edition!)

Notwithstanding its Thai travails, the Bowers has a major Asian loan show to look forward to: The popular exhibition of Terra Cotta Warriors from China, now at the British Museum, is scheduled to open in Santa Ana on May 18. And on view right now is a show of the British Museum's Egyptian mummies and funerary objects.

The Orange County Register also published a revelatory interview conducted by Doug Irving with Robert Olson, described as "the smuggler" in the search warrant affidavits.

Olson told Irving:

I bought from people who, evidently, were breaking the law....If it wasn't for people illegally digging up stuff, there wouldn't be museums.

What can I say?

And this report, by Jeanette Steele of the San Diego Union-Tribune, quoting Rob Sidner, director of the Mingei International Museum, raises major due-diligence questions about that institution:

Sidner...denies that he and his staff knew anything was amiss with objects they have been collecting since 1998, although he acknowledges that they probably should have.

Assuming that the individuals interviewed for these articles said anything resembling their published quotes, I think they've made the task of defending their actions a good deal harder. There's a reason why lawyers advise clients not to discuss publicly the details of ongoing investigations.

If you want to do your own due diligence, you can read the entire texts of these affidavits...and weep:

---The LA Times has posted online the full search warrant affidavits for LACMA, Bowers, and the Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena.

---The NY Times has posted the affidavits for the Silk Roads Gallery, Los Angeles (run by Jonathan Markell) and the Mingei.

---The Orange County Register has the Olson affidavit.