November 4, 2000

Available Talent

From time to time I am asked to place individuals in positions or to find positions for talented people. I recently learned of the availability of a very qualified person who is seeking a job in museum security as a senior level supervisor in a major U.S. museum, as a training supervisor, or as a top level manager. He was recently downsized out of a job in a major world class art museum after over 20 years of service at many levels. If your museum needs a highly qualified museum security manager, let me know and I will see that you get a copy of his resume. I am assisting this individual on a personal basis. Be assured that there is no placement fee involved.
Steve Keller steve@stevekeller.com

From: James Barnhart" barnhart@alphaclp.clpgh.org
Subject:

Cost per Square Foot

I am trying to establish a data base for Security, Custodial, and maintenance cost per square foot for cultural property. The only information available is for commercial property. If any of the subscribers has any information on this subject or could point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate the information.
Thanks,
Jim Barnhart
Manager of Life Safety and Cultural Property Protection
Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh

Silent Witnesses to a Lost Culture

Souren Melikian International Herald Tribune
Saturday, December 2, 2000
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Latest about looted NOK statues and the availability of these statues in Brussels, Belgium:
http://museum-security.org/nokbelg.html
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NEW YORK Of all the objects buried many centuries ago and recovered from underground caches, the most deeply troubling are those left by vanished communities whose identity is lost forever. . On Nov. 20 at Sotheby's New York sale, and on Nov. 28 in a Drouot sale conducted in Paris by Lucien Solanet of the Piasa auctioneering group, scores of works of art from pre-Columbian America brought home the extent of the cultural havoc to which many of them were silent witnesses. . The most tragic of all were those of the Tainos from the Caribbean Islands - Cuba, Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic and Haiti), Puerto Rico and others - because those who annihilated them told us just enough in their writings to raise our awareness of their existence above the level of mere abstraction. They were the first New World people encountered by Columbus and his fleet of Spanish "conquerors" in 1492. The Tainos spoke Arawakan, a language that the Spaniards mastered sufficiently to borrow words that have now passed into English - hurricane, tobacco, iguana. Whether missionaries such as Bartolome de Las Casas actually achieved the bilingualism required to catch the nuances of the beliefs they report is impossible to say. . In any case, their reports do not shed light on the meaning of the stone objects that the Tainos carved with stunning aptitude at terse expressiveness. A few turned up in one of those medium-size sales at Sotheby's that are often more interesting to art lovers than the big affairs. A pickax called "ceremonial" in the catalogue written by Stacy Goodman and Fatma Turkkan Wille is carved in the form of a shark reduced to near abstraction. The thrust of the marine monster darting through water is masterfully suggested. The gem triggered a bidding match that was won, at $6,000, by El Museo del Barrio in New York. . Small as it is, the event says a lot about the chord that lost civilizations now touch among those born in the lands where they once thrived. The Museo del Barrio was founded in 1969 at the height of the civil rights movement by a group of Puerto Rican artists, educators and community leaders. The underlying idea, the Puerto Rican director Susana Torruella Leval says, was that traditional museums did not truly reflect the cultures of minority communities. A building in Harlem was conceded by the city and funds granted by the federal government and the city. Today, these cover one third of the running costs, the rest coming from private donations. . On Oct. 27, a long-cherished project came into being when a permanent display of some 125 Taino objects was inaugurated. Of these, one sixth represents the museum's permanent collection. One piece was bought in July in circumstances that point to remarkable determination. The celt, a stone implement, first surfaced at a Paris auction and failed to sell. The museum wanted the celt but lacked the funds, and when it heard that the object was unsold, it plotted its voyage back to the United States and eventually negotiated its purchase. . The Sotheby's stone shark pickax was its second acquisition on the art market. It hopes to build up a Taino collection and to become a center of Taino studies. . How the Latino community will relate to these works is anyone's guess. Most are enigmatic. Sotheby's sale included a stone object of low triangular shape, with a human head at one end, eyes raised, mouth open as if to shriek and a frog at the other end. The two images, similarly associated, recur on other pieces. Despite the fact that these "three pointers," as Sotheby's catalogue calls them, are mentioned in late 15th century Spanish reports, their meaning eludes us. Enigmas are intriguing. Sotheby's piece climbed to $7,000. . As one turns to most of the other pre-Columbian cultures known solely through their objects and, sometimes, their stone monuments, the feeling of unfathomable mystery deepens. Who were the artists who molded the surprising earthenware vessels in the form of human heads, discovered at Chanchan in the Moche river valley in Peru? Inca sources relayed by Spanish writers give the ancient name of the city, Chimor. The ruins cover six square kilometers (2.3 square miles), but no writings survive. We haven't got a clue as to the purpose of the vessels. . At Sotheby's, a striking Moche portrait vessel with dilated eyes cast down was dated to A.D. 300 to 600. It is hard to tell whether the expression is one of withering irony or uncontrolled hypnotic terror. The riveting object made $3,360. At Drouot, another portrait, again with dilated eyes, this time looking amazed at some astounding revelation, sold for a more modest 10,855 francs ($1,420). . Should one look for some connection between these Moche hyperrealist portraits and the strange vases from Chancay in the central coastal area, which Sotheby's expert places some time between 1100 and 1400? The necks are in the shape of human heads reduced through geometrical stylization to cartoon-like masks. Arms and legs molded and painted on the body enhance the cartoon appearance. And yet the arms that invariably clutch a small beaker suggest some exalted ritual symbolism. At Sotheby's, one of these with a sarcastic expression went for $3,000. At Drouot, another Chancay vase with a puzzled expression cost only 4,765 francs. . How the cultural phase of which this style is an illustration began and ended escapes us. In pre-Columbian America we get glimpses into unexplained moments, never the whole story. Even Mexico, officially so proud of its ancient past, is no exception. There too, incongruous labels with Spanish names are given to the haunting figures recovered from the burial sites of forgotten Indian nations. . Sotheby's catalogue entry, which began "A Jalisco Female Figure, El Arenal Style, Proto-Classic Style, ca. 100 B.C.-250 A.D.," describes one of those earthenware sculptures from Western Mexico, molded with a vigor and swing that excited the admiration of Diego Rivera and Henry Moore in the 1930s. There is an eerie contrast between the forceful presence of the seated woman resting her head on her hand with a smile of dreamy contentment and our inability to name the people who conceived it. A Florida collector became the owner of this three-dimensional portrait of uncertain parentage at a cost of $58,250. . Where the appeal to collectors influenced by modern aesthetics is lacking and no subconscious association with other familiar art forms is possible, the uncertainty surrounding pre- Columbian pieces can be lethal. A pottery Indian woman standing with her infant strapped to her left hip, labeled "Nopiloa, Late Classic, ca. A.D. 550 950," strictly figural, illustrates a classical moment in whatever culture it belongs to. No one touched it. . In a telling contrast, enthusiasm soared for a limestone figure of a man, catalogued as "Huastec, Late Post Classic, ca. A.D. 1200 1500." Standing in motionless attention as if awestruck by some illuminating sight, it has a quasi-Gothic feel. Its imposing presence makes it worthy of any museum. A Spanish collector secured the $75,500 sculpture. . The cultures may be dead or mortally wounded, their remote descendants, where they exist, are still denied the right to be taught or governed in their own language, but weren't their monuments just lovely?
http://www.iht.com/articles/3199.html

Museum's jade quality doubted (Museum to hold seminar on jade)

SPOILED GOODS: The National Palace Museum is under attack again by a lawmaker who claims that many of the costly objects on display are of highly dubious quality
A lawmaker lashed out at the professional knowledge and procurement procedures of the National Palace Museum yesterday, saying at least 400 objects displayed at the museum are of questionable quality.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2000/12/01/story/0000063682

Museum to hold seminar on jade

The head of the National Palace Museum said that the authenticity of ancient artifacts would be verified through academic discussions at a seminar the museum will sponsor this month. Museum director Tu Cheng-sheng's comments were in response to questions from DPP lawmaker Chen Chin-jun on Thursday that more than 400 costly objects on display at the museum were of dubious quality. "We [museum officials] are fully responsible for the authenticity of the artifacts exhibited at the museum because the museum budget comes from taxpayers' money. "Nevertheless, I need to re-emphasize that these are academic issues and have to be clarified by means of academic discussion," Tu said.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2000/12/02/story/0000063814

From: "Steve Freiman" Subject:

Response to "No Looted Art in Hitler's Museum at Linz"

I brought the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2000 (FAZ) article, "No Looted Art in Hitler's Museum at Linz" reproduced in the MSN mailinglist on November 22, to the attention of the Kluge's, heirs to Viennese art collectors whose fine art collection was confiscated by the Nazis from 1938 to 1942 . I met them two years ago and have been helping them negotiate the confusing world of art claims. With their permission, I am submitting to MSN Mailinglist Reports the response they sent to the FAZ editor.
In addition, I have attached to this email an article I recently wrote. Although it is not published, you may wish to include it in the articles section of the site. Fern Smiley, Toronto Attached is their story, On the Trail of a Lost Breughel Canadian Searches for Her Lost Collection
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Article is available at:
http://museum-security.org/canadian-lost-breughel.htm
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The following is the response Mr. Kluge sent to the editor and publisher of FAZ:

Attention: Publisher and Chief Editor

The article "NO LOOTED ART IN HITLER'S MUSEUM IN LINZ" written by Hanns C.Lohr and published by FAZ on November 20. 2000 came to my attention today, 30. November 2000.
Not only is the content disturbing but a twist of facts. It was obviously produced to whitewash and belittle actions of former Nazi's and their despicable behaviour. That Posse and Reimer, his immediate assigned successor after Posse's death were anti- Nazis, is untrue. Voss, who was afraid to become stranded in east Germany at war's end, ingratiated himself with the American forces at the Art Collection Point in München and "helped to recover" stolen artifacts. This was not an act of Anti-Nazism but he directly and indirectly knew very well where they could be found, having had a hand in collecting them with "Führervorbehalt" (Reserved for Hitler) for the "Sonderauftrag für den Führer" (The Museum in Linz) in the first place. It is true that some of the Jewish Artifacts were "Bought", but the circumstances of these purchases in that period constituted forced sales at fire sale prices of Jews who either needed money to survive, bribe or pay the imposed confiscatory taxes; the "Reichsfluchtsteuer" and JUVA "Juden Vermögens Abgabe ".
I am enclosing a copy of a document dated 10. Dezember 1942, a three page letter of Reimer to Seiberl, the man in charge of distributing Jewish stolen art in Vienna. It is just a small fraction describing what really went on at that time.
FAZ claims to be a well documented newspaper and boasts world wide reputation. it should do more research before publishing articles of this sort. The "Bundesarchiv in Koblenz" is a great source !!!
I can only hope that from the time this nonsense was published on 20. November and the time it came to my attention today, many other readers have already written to you and you have published a correction.
J. H. Kluge Toronto