April 18, 2000

Spain Hackers Sabotage Museum Site

MADRID, Spain (AP) - Computer hackers supporting the armed Basque separatist group ETA sabotaged the Web page of the Guggenheim Museum in the Basque city of Bilbao over the weekend, a museum official said Monday. The culprits tampered with the site Sunday so that it showed slogans praising ETA and its goal of independence for the Basque country, an area straddling the border between northern Spain and southwest France, said spokeswoman Neria Abasolo. The site was disrupted for a few hours, she added. Photographs of imprisoned ETA members accompanied statements written in English calling France and Spain oppressors. ETA is blamed for the deaths of nearly 800 people in its more than 30-year struggle for independence. The group called a cease-fire in Sept. 1998, raising hopes for an end to the conflict, but ended the truce in January of this year, expressing frustration with the pace of the peace process. The group has claimed responsibility for two car bombings this year which killed three people, and been blamed for another that injured seven.

Famed Art Museums Announce Joint Internet Venture

NEW YORK (Reuters) - In the first venture by art museums to start a profit-making company, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and London's Tate Gallery said on Monday they had joined forces to develop Internet services for art, culture and design. The museums, two of the world's most prominent, said in a joint statement the New York-based e-business would provide Internet access for people to learn about and purchase many forms of art and architectural models and design objects, beginning in late 2000 or early 2001. The as yet unnamed company would be managed and staffed independently of the two institutions and a MoMA official said eventually the new company could go public. ''The Museum of Modern Art and The Tate Gallery have long been pioneers in the museum world, and we look forward to extending that groundbreaking spirit to the Internet,'' MoMA Director Glenn Lowry said in the statement. MoMA was founded in 1929 and has the foremost collection of 20th century art including 100,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs and architectural and design displays. The Tate Gallery was founded in 1897 and houses the national collections of British art from the 16th century to the present. ``The 21st century is all about access,'' Tate Director Sir Nicholas Serota said in the statement. ``This new venture will promote deeper access to the best of visual culture around the world to the benefit of all those who are interested and engaged in art.'' The new venture will include a Web site offering design products and educational features such as lectures and concerts. ``It's to provide knowledge and allow people to get access and education about modern arts and culture and also to be able to purchase related products,'' Liz Addison, project manager for the new e-business, told Reuters. ``It will be rich in content and it will also have a community component and a commerce and merchandising component.'' She said the museums wanted to reach a much broader international audience and help develop interest in art design and culture. They wanted to generate new revenues for the museums to support current and future development projects. ``It's for the greater financial stability of these two institutions,'' said Addison, who is also MoMA's director of marketing and communications. Next month The Tate is opening the $208 million Tate Gallery of Modern Art opposite St Paul's Cathedral in London and the MoMA has embarked on a $650 million expansion.

From: "Dorit Straus" Dorit_Straus@aceusa-ins.com
Subject:

Re: safes

Lots of good reasons were provided for keeping objects that require a higher level of security in a safe within the storage areas. Steve Keller also mentioned the environmental concerns. I can only reinforce that concern from personal experience at one of the museums were I worked. I was retreiving small decorative ivory objects that were to be used in an exhibition, only to find that after 30 years of languishing in a safe which was not equiped with humidity and temperature controls, the ivories had deteriorated to dust. The only thing that is left of the objects are the photographic records which were taken during an inventory check . What a loss! Dorit Straus ACE USA Art Culture & Entertainment

From: Jonathan Sazonoff saz@kwom.com
Subject:

Update - WWII / Holocaust Looted Art Resources

Dear Subscribers,
Lately, there has been a lot of information about Museums examining the 1933 - 1945 provenance of their European Collections. For your convenience, here is a brief recap of recent web initiatives for those considering the moral and legal status of fine art looted in the holocaust and WWII. Several major initiatives are now on-line
First the German Government's web-site about Lost Art
http://www.lostart.de/index.php3?lang=english
Next, the AAM's guidelines
http://www.aam-us.org/nazi_guidelines.htm
Boston's Museum of Fine Art on-line 1933-1945 provenance research
http://www.mfa.org/research/
Chicago's Art Institute's on-line 1933-1945 provenance research
http://www.artic.edu/aic/provenance/index.html
The National Archives and Records Administration's continues to update their superb bibliography.
http://www.nara.gov/research/assets/bib.html
And, finally, we've also updated our web-page concerning these issues.
http://www.saztv.com/page23.html
We applaud the efforts of all who have worked towards the restitution of stolen art and other assets. All claims should be vigorously pursued. However, sadly one must assume that many items will go unclaimed. There should be some thought given to an international standard for a label or badge to mark these works for posterity. Perhaps museum labels could present those works, in part, as gifts or bequeaths from those victims, in their memory, in hope that genocide should never happen again.
Jonathan Sazonoff
Saz Productions, Inc.
http://www.saztv.com
Contributing US Ed
Museum Security Network
http://www.museum-security.org/saz.html

EBay pulls items stolen from William Burroughs residence

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) -- Internet auctioneer eBay said it is removing from its site personal items stolen from the home of author William Burroughs. Fans often travelled to Lawrence to meet Burroughs and made pilgrimages after his death. Lawrence police believe the theft occurred during one of those visits last year. Burroughs, whose 1959 book Naked Lunch made him a Beat generation icon, died in August 1997 at age 83. EBay is helping to track the seller. The items, including identification cards, credit cards and prescriptions, are being removed from the site, eBay said this week. It was unclear whether any of the stolen items had been sold. "It looks like a bunch of papers in a drawer that the thief just scooped up," Lawrence Police Sgt. George Wheeler said.

CHW reports on 17-04-2000:

SOTHEBY'S (HONG KONG) Should Stop the Auction

On May 2,2000, SOTHEBY'S (HONG KONG) is going to auction 2 pieces of Qing Dynasty cultural properties which were rubbed from Yuanmingyuan in the beginning of 20th century. To make all Chinese people distressed, these most important Chinese properties will be drifted aimlessly in some strange land once again. The 639th of the list is "An important and very rare reticulated 'famille-rose' hexagonal Vase", and the 749th is "An important bronze zodiac Tiger's Head". We hope Chinese authority can do something for the return of them. As a small independent organization on the protection of cultural heritage in China, CHW asks for stopping the auction of the 2 most important memorials on the humiliating disgrace at once.