AUGUST 25, 1997
 
 
- Fountain vandal to sue over fall
- US reportedly wants to talk to Connor on Gardner theft
- Historical Society of Pennsylvania (protest against selling and dispersing the Society's historic arts and artifacts collection)
- Romans seek crackdown after vandals break statue
- Provinces Help Tibet Protect Relics
- The Real Enemy of the Arts

 
 
 
 
(Times of London)
Fountain vandal to sue over fall
FROM RICHARD OWEN IN ROME
THE three vandals who caused uproar both inside and outside Italy when they broke off a piece of a fountain in the Piazza Navona by the Baroque sculptor Bernini were unrepentant yesterday. The ringleader, Sebastiano Intili, 43, who did the most damage, said he would sue the city council for £4,000 in compensation because he had slipped and hurt his foot while trying to climb one of the sea monsters in the fountain. "All we did was go into the fountain to have a swim," Signor Intili told police. "We always used to bathe in it when we were kids." The three are all unemployed men from depressed Rome suburbs with criminal records for drug dealing and petty crime. The authorities promised yesterday to repair the fountain within a month, but the incident has sparked off a assionate debate on how to protect monuments in a country which is in effect a vast open air museum. Francesco Rutelli, the Mayor of Rome, said more than 20 million tourists visited Rome a year, "and we cannot militarise the city". Some Italian art experts had suggested using the army to protect fountains and statues. The mayor did not rule out forming volunteer civilian "anti-vandalism squads" to guard publicly displayed works of art, as well as increased use of alarms and video cameras. Mario Serio, head of Cultural Heritage in Rome, said electronic surveillance was difficult because works of art were often in or near historic buildings which did not easily lend themselves to modern technology. Francis Haskell, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at Oxford, told La Stampa that "even if you mobilised the entire American and Russian armies combined, you could not protect everything".
The incident caused outrage not only because it damaged one of Rome's best
loved works of Baroque art but also because the city's fountains are regarded as almost sacred. Municipal regulations dating back several centuries forbid people to put so much as a hand or foot in the waters.
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US reportedly wants to talk to Connor on Gardner theft
By Ric Kahn, Globe Staff, 08/21/97
Federal authorities investigating the 1990 heist of precious artworks from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum are trying to negotiate a meeting with Myles J. Connor Jr., who is imprisoned for stealing paintings and selling drugs, sources close to Connor said yesterday. Investigators have already met twice with William Youngsworth III, an ex-convict and associate of Connor's who has also offered to help broker the return of the Gardner paintings in exchange for immunity from prosecution and millions of dollars in reward money. Federal authorities yesterday declined to comment specifically on any aspect of the investigation. ''We are willing to talk to anybody with information about the Gardner,'' said Peter Ginieres, a spokesman for the FBI in Boston. ''We would not want any strings attached when the information is presented to us.''
In March 1990, two men disguised as police officers stole artworks from the Gardner valued at $200 million, including ''The Storm on the Sea of Galilee,'' a Rembrandt masterpiece. In the aftermath, Connor's name surfaced as a supect, even though he was in jail at the time. Some investigators believed Connor, a onetime musician and former murder suspect, had masterminded the heist from behind bars. Though one person close to Connor said yesterday that Connor would not position himself to implicate anyone in the theft, another source said that stance would not prevent the inmate from talking to authorities if the right deal came along. In the early 1970s, Connor was charged with stealing Andrew Wyeth paintings from an estate in Maine. He pleaded guilty but got a lenient sentence after he allegedly helped arrange the return of a stolen Rembrandt, valued at $1 million, to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. ''It looks like he's trying to repeat the success he had in that enterprise,'' a source close to
Connor said yesterday. The source said that even if Connor does have inside information, it doesn't mean he was directly responsible for the Gardner theft.
Meanwhile, Youngsworth's lawyer said yesterday his client was trying to negotiate another meeting with law enforcement officials to discuss the stolen paintings. Sources familiar with the investigation say Youngsworth has not offered anything substantial, but authorities want the talks to continue.
Howard Lewis, Youngsworth's lawyer, has accused police and prosecutors of trumping up charges against his client to squeeze information from him about the Gardner heist. Youngsworth, an antiques dealer, was charged with illegal possession of marijuana and antique firearms after authorities raided his shop earlier this month. Stephen Kurkjian of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
This story ran on page of the Boston Globe on 08/21/97.
(c) Copyright 1997 Globe Newspaper Company.
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To: securma@museum-security.org
From: "Judy Hayman" <haymanjl@voicenet.com>
Subject: Historical Society of Pennsylvania
 
I am posting this letter for the signers below. Please respond with
comments and your position on this matter. Thank you for your attention.
 
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP) was founded in 1824 to "form
an ample library and cabinet (room)" of "articles drawing value from historical or biographical affinities." Its founders were dedicated to collecting and preserving evidence of history of both regional and national significance - a commitment the Society has maintained and extended over time - until now. The most recent director and Board of Trustees (minus those board members who have resigned their positions in protest) have taken the necessary legal actions to begin selling and dispersing the Society's historic arts and artifacts collection. The public is now presented with an irreparable cultural catastrophe in the making. In the not so distant past, a vast collection of original 18th century homes and buildings along the Delaware River were plowed under so that route 95 could be built. In one well-intentioned but ill-considered moment
we lost an authentic Williamsburg right in our own backyard so that we could have a highway. It appears as if the greatest vision of the current HSP leadership is not to amass a greater cultural legacy for future generations but rather to sell and disperse its artifacts in order to finance a building renovation. We are being made unwilling witnesses to a disaster of the greatest consequences - a "carjacking", if you will, of our regional and national heritage. The Society's own records amply demonstrate a long term and consistent
pattern of holding all of its entrusted cultural property in the highest
regard. A 1906 committee report to the Board asserts that "the preservation of the portraits is of the utmost importance, as much as the preservation of the books and manuscripts belonging to the Society, and, in some instances, more so." However, some 91 years later, the artifact collection is being turned into an investment portfolio. Less than ten years have passed since the previous director, Peter Parker, and curator, Elizabeth Jarvis, created what at the time was considered to be HSP's first permanent exhibition: FINDING PHILADELPHIA'S PAST. The exhibit presented "the rich history of the Philadelphia region from the 1660's through the early 1900's" and also sought "to inform the public on
the history of collecting." The exhibit invited visitors to go into their
attics and basements to see what they had stored away and what these
artifacts might tell us about life in the Delaware Valley in this century.
We were then asked to consider "donating that diary or pamphlet, photograph
or painting, chair from an affluent household or chest from a poor immigrant household, recruiting poster from World War I or rock concert poster from the 1960's to the Historical Society. Our newly donated items could take their places in history along with all the objects collected since 1824". 173 years of both haphazard gathering as well as innumerable grand moments of thoughtful and loving generosity is a very long time to amass a collection. The collection has grown to include more than 1000 portraits, landscapes and miniatures, over 6000 decorative arts and historical artifacts including early pieces used by the Penn family at Pennsbury Manor, surveying instruments used to lay out Philadelphia, the "Letitia Penn" doll (one of the earliest in America), the Penn Peace Treaty Wampum Belt, silver pieces by three generations of the Richardson family of silversmiths, the earliest surviving photograph taken in the United States (a view Northeast from the U.S. Mint at Chestnut and Juniper St.), and Mike Schmidt's baseball uniform. When Alexander Milne Calder was working on the
William Penn sculpture that stands atop City Hall, he came to the Historical Society where he found the facial likeness he eventually used. The sculptor found it in the "Portrait of William Penn" that was given to the Society in 1833 by William Penn's grandson as its first painting acquisition. The Society possesses two of the very few from life portraits of George Washington as well as the largest holding of authentic Washington artifacts in the world. The collection offers a wonderful compilation of historical relatedness: the Benjamin West portrait of the Lancaster gunsmith, "John Henry", as well as two guns made by John Henry's son; a fragment of the printer's proof of the Declaration of Independence and the lectern from the print shop whereon
Thomas Jefferson may have read and corrected the document; the watch fob,
key, and seal prominently displayed in the Washington portrait that was
Martha Washington's favorite image of her husband. To the credit of current director Susan Stitt and other board members, a good will effort has been made to keep the collection together and place it intact at the proposed Constitution Center on Independence Mall. Their initial efforts have not been successful and we are now at the point of no return. We are left asking the questions: What is the worth of our cultural heritage and how do we follow the highest moral and ethical codes as its custodians and caretakers? A measured compromise must be found which honors both the wishes of the current director and Board of Trustees
to divest themselves of their curatorial responsibilities as well as the
integrity of one of the supreme art and artifact collections of American
history. The John Singleton Copley "Portrait of Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Mifflin" is
presently on loan to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Might not the rest of
the collection be placed on "indefinite loan" to other institutions in the
area? This seems a reasonable demand for an institution that has been actively collecting with the public's trust, active participation, and blessing for 173 years out of our nation's 221 year history. In future years the collection can still be sold off to the benefit of HSP if the then empowered board so chooses. And then again, the very next board may discover a renewed appreciation for what may have otherwise been lost irretrievably. The temperature of this heated battle will have settled and a cooler, less passionate and more reasoned outcome may follow after a quietly reflective period of consideration. The public can enjoy accessibility to our regional and national treasures and the collection
will enjoy the benefit that comes with the passage of time to do the right
thing. Please accept these thoughts not so much as criticism but as a plea for
the most appropriate custodial care demanded by our regional heritage. The
recent Historical Society policy changes as they are now presented cannot
be allowed to stand. They cannot stand because there is, simply, too much
at stake.
Fred Koszewnik
Painting Conservator
Marilyn Kemp Weidner
Paper Conservator
Carole Abercauph
Painting Conservator
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Romans seek crackdown after vandals break statue
By CELESTINE BOHLEN
New York Times Service
ROME -- The first report on Tuesday was that someone, described as a young tourist, had gone for a dip in the Bernini fountain at the center of Piazza Navona and had broken off a piece of a marble water creature's tail. Damage to one of Rome's most beloved outdoor monuments was bad enough, but the news got worse. The culprit, it turned out, was neither young nor a tourist, but a 43-year-old Roman who not only will not say he is sorry, but now also wants to sue the city for damages. ``It was a whim, like eating watermelon,'' Sebastiano Intili said on Wednesday when he and his two companions were booked on vandalism charges. ``I climbed up on the tail, I dove in and the statue broke. Then I climbed up again, and dove again. I even hurt my foot.'' And so the story of the damaged Fountain of the Four Rivers, which began as another episode in Rome's war against vandalism, quickly become another kind of yarn -- this one not about the city's monuments but about its street life, about men like Intili and his two 33-year-old friends, Giovanni Pisano and Mario Giorgini, all three unemployed, who spend their summer days either on the piazza or at the beach. ``We wanted to take a dip, just like we did when we were kids,'' said Pisano, who lives in a Vatican-owned building in the center of Rome. ``Are you all crazy?'' Giorgini exclaimed to the newspaper La Repubblica in an interview about his life in a high-rise on Rome's outskirts. ``We didn't kill anyone. My friend was hot, that's all.'' The broken tail fell into six pieces, three of which were recovered on Wednesday when the fountain was drained. Irish tourist Ciaran Sheulin, 17, waded into the fountain's chilly water -- at a policeman's request -- to retrieve pieces of the dragon's tail. Pictures of Sheulin's plunge dominated the pages of Italian newspapers. Restoration experts say fixing the sculpture will cost the equivalent of $8,400, and Culture Minister Walter Veltroni is promising that it will be done by October. In a city like Rome that is an open-air museum, protecting monuments by masters like Bernini, whose Baroque sculptures grace Rome's museums as well as its fountains, is difficult. Episodes like the damage to the Piazza Navona water creature -- some describe it as a dolphin, some as a sea monster -- only cause more debates about how to prevent vandalism, deliberate or accidental. The city's first move has been to raise the fines for bathing in its fountains -- popular practice that predates scenes from Federico Fellini's movies -- from $84 to $560. Rome's mayor, Francesco Rutelli, has proposed making vandals go to work to fix the damage they have caused. Noted art historians have discussed creating a corps of student volunteers to patrol outdoor monuments, while the film director Franco Zeffirelli suggested corporal punishment for vandals. But Aldo Ceccarrelli, a lawyer famous around the Roman courthouse for his colorful language, argued on Thursday that his latest client, Intili, who spent Wednesday night in jail, had jumped into the Piazza Navona fountain at great personal risk, and should be awarded $5,600 in damages. ``The fountain is in a decrepit state,'' he told reporters. ``These things should not be kept this way.''
Copyright (c) 1997 The Miami Herald
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Provinces Help Tibet Protect Relics
LHASA (Aug. 22) XINHUA - The State Bureau of Cultural Relics and 13 other provinces in China have helped Tibetans with its cultural relics. Some 30 officials from various provinces gathered to draw up a plan for relics protection in the western autonomous region and visited many ancient sites and relics in the plateau region, to gather information on the region's relics protection. Hebei and Shaanxi have sent special groups of researchers and archaeologists to Ngari Prefecture, the toughest area in the region. The Palace Museum plans to give technical support to Potala Palace, and the Museum of Chinese History and Shanghai Museum have helped the Tibet Autonomous Regional Museum. The State Bureau of Cultural Relics has put aside 3.7 million yuan (about 445,000 US dollars) for the protection of Guge ruins. Other provinces have provided funds of 2.12 million yuan and a million yuan in interest-free loans for the relics protection effort. Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics donated 10 personal computers, and the Museum of Chinese History and nine provinces have trained Tibetan specialists in archaeology, relics assessment, and building restoration. Enditem 22/08/97 00:27 GMT
(21 Aug 1997 20:33 EDT)
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The Real Enemy of the Arts
Saturday, August 23, 1997; Page A17
The Washington Post
Robert Storr's and Lawrence W. Levine's contributions to "A Look at . . . Art
and Money" [Outlook, Aug. 3] provide some of the strangest justifications for
the National Endowment for the Arts that I have encountered on this subject.
What both authors fail to recognize in their own examples is that the NEA
actually harms artists and the arts by its methods of selective sponsorship and
top-down control. Levine's inspiring story of Shakespeare's imprint on 19th-century America teaches us exactly the lesson we need 100 years after the heyday of American commercial theater. Put simply: The marketplace, with its potential for democratic engagement and dissemination, is hardly the enemy of the arts. The burgeoning American theater of the 19th century owed nothing to Washington.
In fact, any system of selective, expert-dictated federal support for the arts
would have been anathema to the rollicking impresarios of that era. It is
passing strange that a historian of Levine's stature can read this perfect
counter-example as an endorsement of the NEA. Levine rightly decries the 20th-century project of urban elites to cordon off high culture in the United States. What he doesn't note is that it was this very cohort that created the endowment and continues to reap its largest grants, such as the $800,000 annually given to the Metropolitan Opera. Further, the NEA's reliance on "peer review" (read: highly placed experts and insiders) has only worsened the key problem Levine identifies art as an increasingly "one-way process: creative people expressing and audiences receiving without the independence or confidence to pit their taste against those of critics, performers and artists." The NEA regularly adopts this top-down attitude toward audiences, beginning with the public sculpture program it forced on resistant communities in the 1970s and continuing today with "cutting-edge" conceptual and installation art that baffles museum-goers. Robert Storr is right to say that the NEA has planted "seed money" in the arts since the 1960s. But his claim that "the NEA -- and the state and municipal
arts councils allied with it -- had no specific social, aesthetic or political
mandate" is incorrect. For example, the NEA refused to fund realist painters
for the first decade and a half of its existence. The NEA refused to fund a
conservatory in New York City because its students were required to master
the human figure. This, the agency claimed, would hamper creativity. The
NEA recently refused funding to an art colony on aesthetic and socio-political
grounds and then made the inclusion of performance artists and installation
artists a condition of future funding. Nowadays NEA grants are weighted
toward multiculturalism, a political cause. Monetarily speaking, the National Endowment for the Arts has rarely made more than paltry contributions to the arts. In exchange for "symbolic federal commitment," it has insisted on calling the shots, picked winners and losers and reinforced political and aesthetic hierarchies. Worst of all, it has damaged the twin causes of artistic independence and popular engagement that distinguish the best in the American creative tradition. To our far-flung, alternately thriving and desperate arts scene, the NEA has brought what the Bard of Avon called "the insolence of office."
-- William Craig Rice
William Rice, a poet and essayist, teaches expository writing at Harvard
University.
(c) Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company
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