|
Culture Without Context
Issue 4,
Spring 1999
|
- This issue marks a new departure for Culture
Without Context as its coverage extends world-wide. In future, there will be articles and
comment on all countries that are condemned to suffer the continuing depredations of the
illicit trade, starting in this issue with accounts of looting in Mali by Dr Kléna Sanogo
and in Peru by our own Peter Watson. Established readers may rest assured though that the
original Near Eastern focus will not be forgotten.
- In his contribution to the conference 'Who Owns Culture?' (see page 28) John Merryman
suggested that his 'acquisitors' discourse' (the collectors' point of view) has been
excluded from the debate over the antiquities trade. He would be less certain of his
opinion if he could spend six months in the Culture Without Context office poring over the
weekend and financial sections of quality newspapers, where the (usually monetary)
benefits of collecting antiquities are regularly trumpeted but only rarely is there any
mention of the legal and moral issues involved, or any discussion of the associated
looting.
- In the Money section of the March 6 issue of The Guardian, for instance, there was a
piece entitled Collectors after the Artefacts, which amounted to little more than an
advertising feature for London dealers Charles Ede Ltd and Bonhams the auctioneers.
Cypriot pottery was heavily trailed and Joanna van der Lande of Bonhams was quoted as
saying that five years ago you could not give away this pottery but now there is a vogue
for it. No surprise then to find a large collection of Cypriot Iron Age material, from a
private collection built up between the early 1970s and mid 1980s, including a model
chariot illustrated in the Guardian article, for sale in the Bonhams auction of April 22.
There were 31 lots of Iron Age pottery, but only 9 were shown to have been purchased prior
to the imposed division of Cyprus in 1974, suggesting that perhaps the subsequent looting
has not always been aimed only at the island's Christian remains. Still, at least some of
the material up for sale at Bonhams had a provenance of one sort or another; across town
at Christie's the day before it had been open season on Cypriot pottery with 39 lots on
offer. All in all, the unscrupulous bidder could have walked away from the two sales with
188 unprovenanced Iron Age pots.
- On a brighter note, the United States Information Agency announced on April 12 that
under Article 9 of the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the
Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property the United States
had reached agreement with the republic of Cyprus to place import restrictions on
Byzantine ecclesiastical and ritual ethnological material unless such material is
accompanied by an official export permit issued by the Cypriot Government.
- Also at the 'Who Owns Culture?' conference Chris Haskett spoke of the cultural and human
cost to Tibet of the antiquities trade. There is a large amount of Tibetan material now
coming onto the market that was probably removed by the Chinese, but armed gangs are still
attacking and despoiling monasteries. The emptying of Tibet seems, though, to be old news
in the dealing fraternity. Sam Fogg, for instance, when talking of manuscripts, was quoted
(in the February issue of The Art Newspaper [page 68]) as saying: 'It is well known that
treasures are coming out of Tibetan monasteries . . .'. The following month Dr Hugo Weihe
(in the March issue of The Art Newspaper [page 56]) observed that the increasing strength
of the market in Southeast Asian material is owing to the current interest in Buddhism and
Tibetan art. A clear indication, as if any is needed, that the market is demand driven.
Against this background it was difficult to understand what on earth Fabio Rossi was
talking about when he claimed about his exhibition of Tibetan ritual and ceremonial
objects that he was presenting them in their religious context rather than focusing upon
their art-historical importance. How Sotheby's New York, where his exhibition was housed
between March 24-April 3, could provide a proper religious context was not explained.
Tibet might have been more appropriate. The catalogue for the exhibition was written by
Professor Robert Thurman and David Weldon.
- While defending the Metropolitan Museum's policy of acquiring unprovenanced antiquities
(in the May issue of The Art Newspaper [page 19]), Phillipe de Montebello trotted out the
old argument that: 'Better, obviously, to have a work of art, albeit of uncertain origin,
displayed, studied, available to scholars, loved and cherished, than thrown back like some
worthless chattel into the maw of the vast and all-swallowing unknown.' Obviously?
On the contrary, it is not at all obvious. This type of argument has been thoroughly
discredited in the world of international law enforcement where it has long been
recognized that hostage redemption leads inevitably to more hostage taking, and thus by
refusing to negotiate with kidnappers the interests of the larger community are put before
those of the individual. This generally agreed principle applies just as much to
antiquities with no provenance. Sure, buying an individual piece preserves it for
posterity, but at what cost? How many other pieces 'surface' on the market in consequence?
How many more robber trenches appear in archaeological sites around the world? How many
more museum displays are vandalized?
- London is secure in its position as one of the centres of the antiquities trade, and
the month of March saw the launch in the United Kingdom of the CoPAT (Council for
Prevention of Art Theft) voluntary Code of Due Diligence for auctioneers and dealers in
art and antiques. Ostensibly designed to protect the legitimate trade in art and antiques
from the activities of thieves and their accomplices, it seems also to be an attempt to
head off the imposition of statutory controls as concerns mount about the abuse of the
trade for money laundering. There will be fuller discussion of these issues, and of the
implications that the Code of Due Diligence has for the illicit trade in antiquities, in
the next issue of Culture Without Context.
- As part of his ongoing research into criminal aspects of the antiquities trade Ken Polk
of the University of Melbourne has recently visited the antiquities markets of Singapore
and Hong Kong and has passed on several interesting anecdotes. When asking in one shop in
Singapore about the supply of Buddhist objects from Burma he was told 'of course the
material is smuggled, how else can we get it out?' In another shop selling mainly Chinese
antiquities he was surprised to see a prominent display of press clippings which dealt
with the recent crackdown in China on the smuggling of antiquities. Buy now, while stocks
last, seemed to be message. Collectors take note!
First posted July 1999; Page
design updated September 2006 |
