museum-security

http://museum-security.org/
securma@xs4all.nl

AUGUST 7, 1997

- damage to Polish libraries
- Dual Tek Motion Detectors
- "trespassing" in the museum
- Re: "trespassing" in the museum
- Museum's prize painting 'fake'
- Wanted: information about security systems
- Debate Regarding Authenticity of Ancient Egyptian Art

http://portico.bl.uk/gabriel/en/news/apel.html
Warsaw, 21 July 1997.
Dear Librarians Worldwide:
The flood in Southern and Western Poland has caused severe damages in our libraries. Those libraries urgently need consultation on how to deal with damaged collections, equipment, hardware and buildings, which means also the need of material and financial help.
Central databank
The National Library in Poland - Warsaw has declared to participate in the organization of the aid for those institutions. The central databank has been created here, in order to collect, process, manage, and transfer all data on damages of any kind and of particular libraries needs to/from libraries, and to/from donors. The contact person is Mrs Wanda Tyminska:
email: biblnar@biblnar.bn.org.pl,
telephone: + 48 - 22 608-2298,
fax: + 48 - 22 608-2644.
Individual and group help
In addition to the above mentioned databank, the National Library has created a special team that prepares instructions on how to organize individual and group help:
* it coordinates the organization of the aid;
* it gives instructions, consultations, advise on how to deal with damaged materials (of any kind);
* it prepares reports, recommendations and proposals for all relevant authorities and institutions.
The contact person is Dr. Barbara Drewniewska-Idziak:
email: bnochron@biblnar.bn.org.pl
telephone: + 48 - 22 608-2951.
fax: + 48 - 22 608-2644.
Coordination
The coordinator of all activities, responsible for the organization of the aid - located at the National Library - is Mr Jan Wolosz, deputy director of the National Library in Poland - Warsaw:
email: bnwolosz@biblnar.bn.org.pl,
telephone: + 48 - 22 251-596,
fax: + 48 - 22 259-157).
The above mentioned teams of the National Library cooperate closely with the team organized by the Ministry of Culture and Art, and of the Polish Librarians Association, both dealing with the same purpose.
For all those who wish to support Polish libraries with financial donations we have created a special sub-account of the Foundation of the National Library:
Bank PeKaO S.A.,
VIII O/W Warszawa
No 12401112-30001590-2700-401112-002
"Pomoc dla bibliotek - powodz".
Any other help would be more than welcome, in this respect please contact directly the above mentioned persons.
Thank you for the consideration.
Ewa Krysiak
Biblioteka Narodowa/National Library Warsaw
Poland
e-mail: ekrysiak@biblnar.bn.org.pl

---------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1997 14:09:25 -0400 (EDT)
To: "Museum Security Mailinglist" <securma@xs4all.nl
From: Terry Massey <tmassey@cmnh.org
Subject: Re: AUGUST 1, 1997

At 04:51 PM 8/1/97 +0000, you wrote:
http://museum-security.org/
AUGUST 1, 1997

- Dual Tek Motion Detectors

IF YOU STILL NEED THE DUAL TEK CALL ME AT 1-800-317-9155 TERRY MASSEY EXT 320
---------------------------------------

(Museum-L)
From: "Pamela K. Hill" <PKHILL@IRIS.UNCG.EDU
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
Subject: "trespassing" in the museum

We are a mid-sized university art museum. Although this may be a situation
unique to a museum that is part of a larger institution, I would like the
input of the larger museum community as well.
As we left our staff meeting this morning, we noticed a new sign on each of the
entrance doors of the museum - both staff and public entrances - that reads
as follows:
"NO TRESPASSING - The use of this facility is restricted to UNCG students,
faculty, staff, and other persons authorized to enter these premises by the
director of public safety and police. Trespassers are subject to prosecution
under the laws of North Carolina G.S. 14-159-13."
These signs were a complete surprise - no one in the department of public
safety had notified us they would be installed - and are now on every door of
every building on campus. As you can imagine, I was tempted to try to remove the signs
myself as this kind of message on the front door of a museum does not exactly project a
visitor-friendly image. In addition, the signs hang crooked and were installed on doors
with UV-protective film which they may damage when removed.
Have any of you ever encountered a situation like this? If so, any suggestions
on how to work on getting the signs removed? Evidently they were installed
because in order to prosecute someone for trespassing, they must be made aware
that there is a no trespassing order for that building - but of course a
museum that is open to the public and has a mission to serve university,
community, state, and national audiences functions differently from a
traditional classroom building! Our director will be speaking to the head
of public safety soon about removing the signs, and I would like to hear your ideas.
Thanks,
Pam Hill
Curator of Education
Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
pkhill@iris.uncg.edu
----------------------------------------------

(Museum-L)
From: Stephen Nowlin <nowlin@ARTCENTER.EDU
Subject: Re: "trespassing" in the museum

Wow - pretty amazing story. I can only hope that this was a case of a
maintenance worker being given a blanket order to post signs, and someone
forgot about the special circumstances of the museum.
If this happened at my gallery I'd take the signs down first, before asking
any questions. That way, a convincing argument must be made for putting
them back up, rather than for taking them down.
If it's too late for that, tell your public safety person that nowhere in
the rest of this country do museums deem it necessary to protect themselves
by threatening visitors with criminal prosecution before entering. How
about some barbed wire around the entrance, for better effect? Priorities
need to be kept straight in this increasingly bureaucratic world. Take the
signs down, and see if the museum then proves to be conduit for hordes of
trespassers onto the campus. I'd bet it won't.
Good luck!
Stephen Nowlin
Director, Williamson Gallery
Art Center College of Design
http://www.artcenter.edu/exhibit/williamson.html
---------------------------------------------

Museum's prize painting 'fake'
By David Sapsted in New York

THE priceless centrepiece of the most valuable and comprehensive collection of Chinese art
outside Asia has been branded a fake by an eminent art historian.

The Riverbank, a 10th-century scroll described by the New York Times as one "of the three
rarest and most important early monumental landscape paintings in the world", is the first big
picture visitors see at the newly-refurbished Chinese galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art in New York.

Yet, despite being compared to the Mona Lisa in quality and despite a conviction at the Met
that it is genuine, New Yorker magazine maintains that the 7ft silk landscape by Dong Yuan is
not all it is cracked up to be.

This week's issue suggests that the painting could be "a modern forgery, possibly executed by
the notorious painter, forger and collector Chang Ta-chien" who sold it to it C C Wang
shortly after the 90-year-old painter, who indirectly sold it to the Met, fled from Communist
China in the 1950s.

This contention is backed by Dr James Cahill, an art historian at the University of California.
He said: "I can't accept that this is a 10th-century painting. It's simply not plausible in terms
of the fuzzy brushwork, the structural incoherence, and the unreadability. There are all kinds
of inconsistencies."

Mike Hearn, curator of the Met, said yesterday that this was nonsense. He said an analysis
of the style and structure of the painting point to it being a genuine Dong painted during the
Tang dynasty that ended in 906. "I am utterly convinced of its authenticity," he said.

That view is not universal, however. "I don't think you'd find everybody would agree on it,"
said Roderick Whitfield, one of the world's foremost authorities on Chinese art and Professor
of Chinese and East Asian Art at the University of London.

"I have known the painting for a long time. I have taken slides of it but have never used it in
teaching because it would be very hard to prove it was an authentic Dong. I think it's a very
old painting, though - I don't think it could be a modern forgery."

The New York museum, upset that a prize exhibit should be questioned, plans to publish a
detailed defence of its contention that The Riverbank is genuine.
--------------------------------------
Wanted: information about security systems
safety@xtdl.com
Louis Dimopoulos

I would like to learn more about the various types
security systems that are classified as high to
low in technology.
This area is known as "fine arts" in the insurance
community and if I may be able to learn more about
the sensitivity of these systems. I will
accomplish my objective for the month of August.
Could you e-mail me, reference material or mail
it to
21 Euclid Ave
Nashua, NH 03060
Attn: Louis Dimopoulos
I would be gratefully honored.
Thank you!
(Cigna Insurance)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Museum-L)
From: "Erik P. Mansoor" <mansoor@FLASH.NET
Subject: Debate Regarding Authenticity of Ancient Egyptian Art

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FACTS REGARDING CONTROVERSIAL ART COLLECTION
MADE AVAILABLE TO PUBLIC VIA INTERNET

The Mansoor Amarna Corporation Invites The Public To Witness Scholarly
Debate Regarding Authenticity of Ancient Egyptian Art
(LOS ANGELES, CA) August 1, 1997 -- The public can now make up
it's own mind regarding the controversial Mansoor Amarna Collection
of rare Egyptian art. All scientific and scholarly reports regarding
the Collection are now available via the Internet, along with an
on-line exhibit featuring photos of the pieces. Egyptophiles, art
lovers, scholars, historians and the simply curious can visit the
site at http://www.amarna.com.

The Mansoor Amarna Collection is an assemblage of rare artifacts and
sculptures dating from the Amarna Period of Akhenaton and Nefertiti
(circa 1350 B.C.) collected in Egypt during the 1920's, 1930's and
1940's by the late antiquarian M. A. Mansoor.
The debate surrounding the art is regarding the authenticity of the
Collection. During the last fifty years, more than twenty
internationally renowned Egyptologists and scientists, including Fred
H. Stross, Ph.D. (Guest Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley), Christiane
Desroches Noblecourt, Ph.D., (Inspector General of the Museums of
France; Special Consultant to UNESCO for Egyptian Antiquities) and the
late Canon Etienne Drioton, Ph.D. (Director General, Department of
Antiquities, Egypt) have examined the pieces and verified their
authenticity. The controversy surrounding the Collection began in 1949
when a museum official from the Boston Museum of Fine Art rejected the
pieces as forgeries. Since then, the art world has been unable to
come to an agreement as to the authenticity of the Collection.
Pieces of the Mansoor Amarna Collection are included in the permanent
collections of the Louvre, the Vatican Egyptian Museum, the Denver Art
Museum, the Becker-Colonna Egyptian Gallery at San Francisco State
University and several private collections in Europe and the United
States.

Alfred Mansoor, Secretary
Mansoor Amarna Corporation
mansoora@sonic.net
http://www.amarna.com
--------------------------------------

table of contents
inhoudsopgave
mail