December 23, 1999

CONTENTS:

Re: Virgin Mary damaged by visitor

Re: SE Asian Art Thefts

Subject: S.E. Asia

Cambodia

Ceylon

India

Indonesia

Myanmar/Burma

Nepal

Pakistan

CRIMES OF THE CENTURY: GARDNER HEIST

Masterpieces, masterminds
A decade later, art theft still baffles investigators

The biggest whodunit

Rewards, not ransom

Youngworth and Rembrandt

RE:Capacitive sensors

Y2k and humanitarian assistance (fwd)

FBI Recovers $3M Painting by Rubens

French National Assembly approves auction reform

Collection of O'Keeffe Paintings Declared Fakes

Y2K Parties Banned at Popular Tourist Site

Stealing California's Mission Past

Ask anyone who has completed the 4th grade in California schools, "What is the most memorable cultural icon of the state?" The invariable answer is, "the California missions". Whether you made a model of one of the missions of sugar cubes for a class assignment, visited one or more of the 21 Franciscan foundations, or have seen movies based on early California, the missions remain the symbol of the heart and soul of early California. No one would question their importance in the minds of Californians desperately seeking roots and a meaningful image of themselves. In fact, images of these same missions were the primary factor in attracting large numbers of Americans to California between 1890 and 1940. They gave rise to their very own modern architectural traditions in numerous railway stations, public buildings, and private homes. Today, California's missions are faced with several difficult situations. Most of the missions have formed the nucleus of towns, the church becoming the center of an active growing parish. At these missions, it is easy to forget that the original foundation was a large self-contained community, raising its own crops and farm animals, housing hundreds of neophyte Indians, manufacturing pottery, textiles, metal goods, and other necessary items. All missions show the wear and tear of normal aging. A little of this is attractive to the visitor, but all are located in a seismically active zone. How do you retrofit a church to make it safe for modern parishoners while respecting the historical integrity of the building? This is a difficult, complex, and expensive problem. In addition, parishes never have sufficient funds to do all the work desirable at the missions and are fearful of accepting public funds for fear of government controls. These problems are endemic to the very nature of the missions. A new threat has now appeared to threaten these venerable establishments. The religious nature of the missions can apparently no longer protect them in the modern world from the ravages of common thievery. In increasing numbers, articles of value are disappearing from mission museums and even from churches themselves. Luiseho Indian baskets were stolen from the assistencia of Pala in San Diego County, as was a bell from Mission Dolores, since returned when recognized in an antique store. Theft from religious sites is not confined to the Franciscan missions. A bell was also stolen from the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in San Francisco. A student reported seeing a page torn from a mission songbook for sale in a Ventura antique shop. With limited funding and limited staff, mission museums and churches often must be left unattended. Visitors wander through the complexes unsupervised. Glass cases and low fencing provide little protection to a determined thief. At Mission Santa Barbara, several Indian baskets were stolen from a kitchen display in the museum. At least some of these were Chumash and extremely valuable. The thief scaled a fence and knew exactly what was of greatest value. Since this is a rather "busy" mission, his risk of detection by other visitors was high. There is evidence that the thief blocked open a door to the museum so that he could return at a more opportune time. The baskets must have been removed in a bag or container. Missions San Miguel and San Antonio have been particularly hard hit by thieves. The Mission San Miguel museum was the victim of thefts during three successive years. They were not break-ins, but occurred during normal open hours. Each occurred at the same time of year, a period when most of the mission staff were absent. This is a strong indication that the same person, someone familiar with mission routine, was involved in all three thefts. Easy freeway access combined with low security and a low visitor rate aided the thief. In 1997, the left side of a wooden 17th century tabernacle door, ca. 35 x 23 inches, with painted figure in carved relief, was stolen. In 1998, an 18th century head from a gilded carved and painted wooden madonna figure disappeared. The latest theft in 1999 consisted of an 18th century Mexican oil painting of St. Anthony, ca. 19.5 x 13 inches, which was cut out its frame and presumably rolled up by the thief. At Mission San Antonio, a statue of St. Anthony holding a baby Jesus was stolen in 1999 around Labor Day from the church baptistry. The child figurine appears to have been taken first. The thief then returned for St. Anthony. While the church is unattended when not in use, we hope that someone will remember a person carrying a large statue out to their car at the appropriate time. Those who signed the guest register are being questioned. Like San Miguel, San Antonio does not have funds or staff to maintain a constant watch on museum or church and visitor rate is low. However, San Antonio's remote location in the middle of an Army base and the military's legal ability to search vehicles and control access poses greater risks to the thief. How can we best tackle this problem? It is not a question of preventing break-ins, since the thefts occur during working hours. Increasing staff is an expensive option and requires continuing expense to the parish. A better solution, already used in libraries and clothing stores, involves attaching sensors to each item. If the item is removed from the premises without desensitizing, an alarm will sound. This is an expensive but one-time cost. Some way would have to be found of secreting the sensor inside the object (statue, picture frame, etc.) to prevent its detection and removal. Staff should be briefed to respond immediately and in force to an alarm. Such a response will probably cause the thief to abandon his prize and flee the scene. He can then best be apprehended by Highway Patrol or Military Police. Another option might employ electronic surveillance, providing a record of thefts on video tape. Another useful strategy is to make disposal of the stolen property more difficult and risky for the thief. In this spirit, we are circulating detailed descriptions of the items stolen from Santa Barbara, San Miguel, and San Antonio on the internet, in appropriate journals, and as fliers to alert those involved in fine arts and antiquities to help us apprehend the thief. Please examine the following photos and keep them on file for reference. If you see any of these items, please contact: Mission San Miguel (San Luis Obispo County Sheriff) (805) 781-4550 Mission San Antonio (Monterey County Sheriff) (831) 385-8312 Mission Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara City Police) (805) 897-2300 (Read full report with photographs: http://www.ca-missions.org/hoover.html)

RE: damaged painting of the Virgin Mary

Painting in Disputed Exhibit Attacked by Man at Museum

The painting of a black Madonna whose elephant dung and pornographic touches have incurred the wrath of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and stirred a religious, cultural and political furor in the city was attacked at the Brooklyn Museum of Art yesterday by a man who smeared paint on it but did no permanent damage. Feigning illness to lull a security guard, the man, identified by the police as Dennis Heiner, 72, of Manhattan, leaned against a wall, darted behind a plexiglass shield, took out a plastic bottle and squeezed white paint in a broad stroke across the face and body of the Madonna, witnesses said. As the stunned guard and several museumgoers watched in horror and shouted, "Don't!" and "Stop!," Mr. Heiner, the police said, smeared the paint over about a quarter of the surface of the 8-by6-foot painting, "The Holy Virgin Mary," by Chris Ofili, a British artist of Nigerian descent. "He covered the head and face down to the shoulders and then down to the breast line," said David Eigenberg, who saw the drama at 2:33 p.m. in a fifth-floor gallery of the museum. He said he made a move to stop the man, but was told by the guard to stay back. Moments later, while the guard radioed for help, the man emerged from behind the plexiglass, his paint-smeared hands shaking nervously, but made no effort to get away, witnesses said. As other security officials raced up, the guard, whose name was not disclosed, asked, "Why did you do it?"
"It's blasphemous," the man replied quietly. James G. Kelly, the museum's security manager, said the guard had not stopped the attack because he had been surprised. Mr. Kelly called the reaction appropriate under the circumstances. "They're here to truly observe and report," he said of the guards."If they can come between someone in an act of aggression, they can stop it. But they're not peace officers and have no arrest powers." Within minutes, the police arrived, handcuffed Mr. Heiner and led him away. He was charged with second-degree criminal mischief, a class D felony. A woman who said she was Mr. Heiner's wife, Helena, said he was a devout Roman Catholic who opposed abortion and believed that the painting, adorned with elephant dung on one breast and cutouts from pornographic magazines, was sacrilegious. "The painting was offensive; he's absolutely right about that,"the woman said in a telephone interview. "This painting is your mother, the painting of the Blessed Mother, the mother of Christ. So he said, 'I will go here today and try to clean it.' " Shortly after the attack, museum conservators removed the painting and within an hour had cleaned it before the white paint was dry, leaving the artwork apparently undamaged. "It's like a stain -- the sooner you get at it the better your chances of removing it," said Sally Williams, a spokeswoman for the museum, who noted that the painting would be back on display today. The museum, in a statement, said the trustees and staff were "shocked and extremely saddened by this incomprehensible act." The Ofili painting is part of an exhibition, "Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection," that has been one of the most successful, and controversial, in the 177-year history of the Brooklyn Museum. Charles Saatchi, the British advertising magnate, owns the paintings and sculptures and is the show's largest financial backer. In September, a week before the exhibit's opening, Mayor Giuliani led a chorus of protests by various groups, including the Catholic League, objecting to the Ofili painting, a collage of paper, oil paint, glitter and resin on linen. It depicts a black Madonna in flowing blue robes, with a shellacked clump of dung on one breast and cutouts of female genitalia from pornographic magazines. Calling it "sick stuff," repulsive and offensive to Roman Catholicism, Mayor Giuliani denounced the museum for mounting the exhibition, vowed to cut off its $7.2 million annual city subsidy, then withheld the city's monthly subsidy payment and began proceedings to evict the museum. A federal court battle ensued. The museum, backed by cultural organizations, noted that Mr. Ofili often used elephant dung and other unusual materials in his work as a cultural reference to his African heritage, and contended that the mayor was violating the free-speech rights of the artist and the museum in trying to suppress the exhibition. Judge Nina Gershon of United States District Court sided with the museum and ordered the city to resume its subsidies and end its eviction proceedings. Since the show's opening on Oct. 2, nearly 130,000 visitors have flocked to see "Sensation," making it the most successful exhibition of contemporary art ever put on by the museum, Ms. Williams said. Because of the controversy surrounding the painting, the museum had wanted to post 21 guards for the exhibition, which features more than 90 items on the museum's fourth and fifth floors. But requests by Mr. Saatchi, who put up $160,000, increased total costs, and the museum had to pare down the security staff to 10 guards. In addition, one museum official said, Mr. Saatchi had objected to a piece of plexiglass that would have completely enclosed Mr. Ofili's painting. Instead, a piece slightly larger than the painting was hung from the ceiling, leaving gaps of several feet on either side and a four-foot separation from the surface of the painting. Mr. Heiner, who the police said was arrested in 1990 on a charge of obstructing government administration in a protest, bought his $9.75 ticket to the exhibition at the museum entrance yesterday and took an elevator to the fifth floor, where Mr. Ofili's painting is hung, along with only one other item -- Ron Meuck's "Mask" -- in a small, 12-foot-wide gallery between two larger rooms. After walking through several galleries, Mr. Heiner approached a guard and said he was feeling dizzy and ill, said Mr. Kelly, the museum security manager. The guard advised him to sit down. He then approached the guard near the Ofili painting and again said he was dizzy and ill. He was clad in a herringbone sport coat and dark trousers and did not seem suspicious. "He was very dapper," Mr. Kelly said. "He looked like a typical museum visitor." Mr. Heiner then leaned up against the wall beside the painting, and, choosing his moment, suddenly darted behind the plexiglass, witnesses said.

Re:French auction reform

Britain's Antiquities Law: It Works