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Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Cultural Heritage

Theft Alert: Looting At Egypt’s Malawi Museum, Minya

Violence in Egypt has spread to museums again, and this time it looks more serious than the thefts from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo many months back.

newsegypteA new report called a recent episode “the biggest theft to hit an Egyptian museum in living memory.” Among the losses are “a prized 3,500-year-old limestone statue, ancient beaded jewelry and more than 1,000 other artifacts.” There was human loss, too: “The museum’s ticket agent was killed during the storming of the building, according to the Antiquities Ministry.”

MinyaMuseumLootingHere’s more:

The scale of the looting of the Malawi Museum in the southern Nile River city of Minya laid bare the security vacuum that has taken hold in cities outside Cairo, where police have all but disappeared from the streets. It also exposed how bruised and battered the violence has left Egypt.

For days after vandals ransacked the building Wednesday, there were no police or soldiers in sight as groups of teenage boys burned mummies and broke limestone sculptures too heavy for the thieves to carry away. The security situation remained precarious Monday as gunmen atop nearby buildings fired on a police station near the museum.

Among the stolen antiquities was a statue of the daughter of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled during the 18th dynasty. Archaeologist Monica Hanna described it as a “masterpiece”. Other looted items included gold and bronze Greco-Roman coins, pottery and bronze-detailed sculptures of animals sacred to Thoth, a deity often represented with the head of an ibis or a baboon.

The source is an Associated Press story dated yesterday and published by Auction Central News. “Wednesday,” however, must refer to 8/14 — I think.

This museum “was a testament to the Amarna Period, named after its location in southern Egypt that was once the royal residence of Nefertiti. The area is located on the banks of the Nile River in the province of Minya, some 190 miles (300 kilometers) south of Cairo.”

The article relates some heroics by an archaeologist named Monica Hanna, who under sniper fire, managed — with a guard — to save five sarcoghaghi, two mummies, and other items. But:

The Egypt Heritage Task Force, a group of Egyptian archaeologists who use social media to try to raise awareness about illegal digging for artifacts and looting, said 1,050 pieces were stolen from the museum.

UNESCO also carried a report, accessible here.

The Daily Mail also had a story, along with many pictures, including the one, posted bottom left, here.

Quotations From Kevin Orr And…A Sensible Critic

So much is out there re: the Detroit situation that I can simply give you a few excerpts for the flavor.

From a Reuters article published yesterday:

[Emergency Manager Kevin] Orr said he has never visited the DIA, though he has studied the museum’s art collection, which includes an 1887 self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh and a 27-panel fresco by Mexican artist Diego Rivera.

“I actually took an art history course years and years ago, and the stuff I read about is there,” Orr said….

…Orr said he would make a decision about what to do with the art after Christie’s completes its review, perhaps by mid-October.

Despite the size of the DIA’s collection, only 5,000 or so works are on display at one time. Orr said about 35,000 works are not subject to bequests or other obligations that would limit the ability to sell them.

“Once we find out what we’re talking about, that’ll probably lead the discussion about what we can and can’t do,” he said. “I’m not being flippant, I’m just being very careful because every time I say something about the DIA it’s another three weeks of, ‘Orr the Luddite is getting ready to sell our family jewels.'”…

…The emergency manager said many works “may not have been seen for decades,” and that the city must determine what is worth selling.

“If you have to sell 10,000 pieces to get ten dollars, why would you do that?” Orr asked.

Oh, brother.

Meantime, James Russell, over at Bloomberg, is more sensible:

…What would it take to put Detroit on a sustainable footing? That’s the question that’s got to drive decisions, and it is appalling that it does not….

…Once disinvestment starts in an American city, it’s pretty hard to stop. When businesses leave because somewhere else is newer and accessible by a shiny new freeway, you lose the talent and investment that keeps cities healthy. You lose good leaders and have to settle for hacks. Of course Detroit is badly governed, as many other poor communities are. Who would want such a thankless job?…

…The primary counterbalance to the forces of disinvestment has been the historic-preservation movement, which has drawn millions of people and catalyzed the investment of billions of dollars in cities….

…So responding to the Detroit debacle by regarding art assets as monetizable for the purpose of paying off creditors is not only wrong, it is strikingly venal and cruel. Detroit’s assets need to be understood in terms of what they can do to revive the city, not on what cash they will produce at auction.

Amen to that one.

 

 

 

Smithsonian’s Clough: Is This A Strategy I See Before Me?

The Smithsonian Institution was in the papers again in recent days and it wasn’t great news. But it might have been good strategy.

250px-Wayne_CloughA week ago, on July 17, the Washington Post published an article headlined Smithsonian Institution grapples with maintenance of its growing inventory, which didn’t get much notice except perhaps within the Beltway. The story recapped the Smithsonian’s difficulties caring for the 137 million objects in its collections, and was pegged to a hearing before the Committee on House Administration last week.

But, while the Smithsonian has not, to my mind, been handling its museums terribly well of late, there might be a little bit of politics in that hearing. If G. Wayne Clough, the Secretary, didn’t engineer it, perhaps he should have.

The hearing came just days before this week’s release of the Appropriations Committee budget bill for the Smithsonian and other agencies. But I’m a tad suspicious about that.

I say that because, according to the Post report, the committee was following up on a 2006 report by the Smithsonian’s Inspector General, which

showed that management facilities in Maryland were inadequate. The report also showed deficiencies in security and inventory controls, leaving collections open to theft or misplacement of objects. In an audit of the National Museum of American History, the museum could not locate 10 percent of items sampled, including historic gold watches and Roman coins. Audits of several other institutions also revealed incomplete collections.

Yes, a seven-year-old report.

Clough then testified that the Smithsonian had invested $462 million to improve its collections management systems and $390 million to fix storage facilities since then. But them Deputy undersecretary Scott Miller told the panel that “Our budget is stretched, and this could inadvertently impact the progress we have made.”

This week’s budget for the Smithsonian from the House Appropriations allocated $660 million for the Smithsonian, down $155 million versus last year’s enacted level. They must have known that something of this nature was coming — or should have.

If Clough did help engineer this, his strategy hasn’t quite worked — yet. It still might. Obviously the full House has to take up the budget, as does the Senate. It won’t be a bad thing to have last week’s hearing fresh in the minds of the rest of Congress.

And heaven knows the Smithsonian needs help with its collections. As the Post related:

Smithsonian Inspector General Scott Dahl testified that the Smithsonian is still using inadequate storage space in Suitland, a temporary facility built in the 1950s that was never intended for permanent storage of collection items. In 2010, one of the buildings collapsed in a snowstorm, and another succumbed to the 2011 earthquake. Hazardous materials, such as asbestos, were found in others.

 

A Big — Very Mixed — Day For Washington Museums

Well, it was a bizarre day for Washington museums. First, late morning, the Smithsonian Institution killed the Hirshhorn Bubble — officially, as we all know that this has been coming for weeks if not months. (More about this in a minute.)

9012 Lot 12 A Sickle-Leaf carpetThen, this afternoon, the Corcoran laid an egg: The carpet it decided to deaccession, estimated by Sotheby’s to fetch $5- to $7 million, actually brought $33.8 million, including the buyer’s premium. The so-called “important and revered 17th century Clark Sickle-Leaf Carpet” set a new world auction record for any carpet “by a significant margin,” Sotheby’s said, and also establishes a new record for any Islamic work of art at auction. Indeed, that price was more than three times the previous record for any carpet, Sotheby’s expert Mary Jo Otsea, the auctioneer and the senior consultant, rugs & carpets, said in the press release.  It added: ‘ At least four bidders fought for over 10 minutes for the star lot.”

Corcoran trustees may be rejoicing at their windfall, but one has to ask, why again was the Corcoran selling a crown jewel? Another lot, btw, the The Lafões Carpet, also from Persia, was purchased for $4.6 million, against a pre-sale estimate of $800,000 to $1.2 million.

All told, the Corcoran was selling 25 carpets from the collection of William A. Clark, and every one of them sold. The grand total was $43.8 million. Now the Corcoran, despite the financial straits it is in, says it will use the money for its acquisitions fund, as directed by museum ethics rule. Sotheby’s did not identify the buyers, but chances are we will not see these carpets again in the public domain.

It’s too bad that some deal could not have been made to keep these carpets in the collection of a museum: The Textile Museum in D.C. is opening a new building in partnership with George Washington University next year, and that would have been a nice home.

Now, back to the Hirschhorn: As I wrote here in mid-March, director Richard Koshalek’s “dream of erecting an Inflatable Seasonal Structure at the Hirshhorn for programming and creating a culural think-tank, is all but dead” and that was a follow-up to a February post in which I said: “If I had to guess now, I’d say it’s over.” The board has been divided about this bubble for some time, as I related then.

Significantly, it was the Smithsonian,  not the Hirshhorn, that made the announcement that it “will not move forward with plans for the Hirshhorn’s Seasonal Inflatable Structure, known as the Bubble.” Richard Kurin, the Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture, put his name to it, but it was clearly Secretary Wayne Clough’s call. Here’s the party line:

The decision to suspend the project was made by Kurin and Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough following consultation with the Smithsonian Board of Regents, the Hirshhorn’s Board of Trustees, museum staff, art museum directors inside and outside the Smithsonian, budget officers and others. The Hirshhorn’s board met May 23 and was unable to reach consensus on the Bubble; it made no recommendation to the museum director about proceeding with or canceling the project.

“Without the full support of the museum’s board and the funding in place for the fabrication and a viable plan for the operation of the Bubble, we believe it is irresponsible to go forward,” said Kurin. “Architects, artists and Smithsonian staff have praised the bold vision of a temporary bubble-shaped structure on the Mall, but after four years of planning and fundraising, there was not enough funding to construct the Bubble and, more importantly, to sustain programming for years to come.”

For once, when money spoke, it said the right thing. Although I did write about the idea dispassionately for The Wall Street Journal in 2010, I’ve always been a skeptic. Koshalek talked about his plans to create an “educational exchange” in the Bubble, in the belief that museums “have to curate the public spaces and educational programs as well as exhibitions.”

I think they have their hands full with the last two in that list. Well, not quite – museums should experiment, but starting a think tank, a cultural Davos, as Koshalek wanted, struck me as grandiose and not right for the Hirshhorn. Now what? It should go back to better execution of its main mission.

Oh, btw, Koshalek is leaving as of June 29, though he “will serve as an adviser to the Smithsonian until Aug. 31, advising on exhibitions, programming, acquisitions and curating public spaces.” Kurin appointed Kerry Brougher, the deputy director and chief curator of the museum, to be acting director starting June 30, while he leads “a nationwide search for a successor to Koshalek, who has served as Hirshhorn director since April 2009.”

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Sotheby’s

 

 

 

 

Those Infamous Chinese Bronzes Are Headed Home

Two Chinese bronzes, a rat head and a rabbit head, allegedly looted from Beijing’s Summer Palace in the 19th century, owned for a while by Yves Saint Laurent, “purchased” at the auction of his art in 2009 for $37.7 million by a Chinese national who then refused to pay, are headed home.

ratheadAnd it’s all about business. Late last week, French billionaire François-Henri Pinault — son of Francois Pinault, the art-collecting titan who apparently bought them a while back — has now said that his family will give them back to China, “their rightful home.” They were sold by Christie’s, which Pinault’s firm Artemis owns. He also controls PPR, which is changing its name to Kering. PPR sells luxury goods with brand names like Gucci and Bottega Veneta and does close to 10% of its business in mainland China. Besides, as The Wall Street Journal reported:

The move also follows the Chinese government’s decision to grant a license to Christie’s, making it the first international fine art auction house to operate independently in mainland China, based in Shanghai. Previously, Christie’s was restricted to a licensing deal with a local Chinese auction house. Christie’s said it expects to hold its first sale this autumn.

Quid pro quo? We don’t know. But Sotheby’s has to sell art in China with a local partner.

French president Francois Hollande is in China with a group of business executives, including Pinault, trying to get more business for French companies from China. Pinault made his announcement at a state dinner in Beijing Thursday night.

The New York Times also covered the move by Pinault, adding reaction from the Chinese government: “The Chinese side offers its high praise for this action and considers that it conforms with the spirit of relevant international cultural heritage protection treaties.” It also supplied trade and diplomacy information:

France has a significant trade deficit with China and wants more Chinese investment. But the French president is under some pressure to raise human rights issues with the new Communist Party leadership. Mr. Hollande doled out his criticisms more freely when he was simply the leader of the Socialist Party.

rabbit headMr. Hollande wants to reassure the Chinese that his government will protect the security of Chinese tourists in France and intends to discuss making it easier for Chinese to obtain visas.

The heads are to go home to China by year-end. And what happened to the other heads in the zodiac that these two are part of? According to GB Times, a company based in Finland that covers Chinese news for the rest of the world:

By the end of 2012, the heads of ox, tiger, monkey, pig and horse had been brought back to China and are being kept by The China Poly Group. The dragon head is reportedly in Taiwan, while the heads of snake, sheep, rooster, and dog still remain missing.

To refresh your memory, yes, these are the animal heads — two from a zodiac — that Ai Weiwei made new sculptures of (all 12) and which have been on display in various venues for the last few years.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of GB Times