On June 11, 2008, the "Here On Earth" series produced by Wisconsin Public Radio — featured Dr. James Cuno, director of the Chicago Art Institute and author of the book "Who Owns Antiquity?" and Dr. Donny George Youkhanna, former director of the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad and the former president of the Iraq State Board of Antiquities.and now a visiting professor at Stony Brook University.
The program — titled "Who Owns Antiquities?" — has been archived and is available here.
At one point in the conversation, Dr. George said: "I do agree with Mr. Cuno that for people to go to one place and see antiquities and cultural heritage of different people, of different parts of the world is a wonderful thing, because this is the role of museums. Museums are cultural and educational centers. But I don't agree with the way these museums get these antiquities. We know that a lot of museums in the western world, in the United States, do have collections that come from illicit digging, that are originally stolen from those countries. This is my argument always. These museums can have material in legal ways. This is different..."
Moderator: "And the legal ways would be...?"
Donny George: "...would be, for instance, having exhibitions ... arrangements between two museums to have an exhibition, for instance, for Sumerian material from the Iraq Museum with the Metropolitan Museum in New York. And then, with the collection of New York, for instance, or the Native Americans Museum in Washington to have a kind of collection to send to Baghdad so that the Iraqi people will see the wonderful work of art and heritage of the Native Americans in Baghdad. This can be achieved in legal ways and wonderful ways for both sides."
After the commercial break, James Cuno responded: "I do take exception to Professor George's statement that we know museums in this country have antiquities known to be stolen. I don't think that is a statement that can be backed up by facts. There is not a credible museum in this country that has an object in it that it knows to have been stolen from someplace else."
Moderator (interrupting): "But what about the whole dispute the Italians had with the Met ... um ... where the director ... I think it was Thomas Hoving, who paid..."
James Cuno (interrupting): "That's right. The Euphronios Krater. You'll remember the resolution of that was based on evidence. And that evidence was only determined within the last couple of years. When the evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that these objects had been removed inappropriately, perhaps illegally, from Italy, they were returned. Until that time, there was no such evidence to make that case. The evidence was only found in a warehouse of an art dealer, I believe in Switzerland, within the last couple of years."
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Can it be true, as Dr. Cuno says, that: "There is not a credible museum in this country that has an object in it that it knows to have been stolen from someplace else." ?
Thursday, June 19, 2008
James Cuno: "There is not a credible museum in this country that has an object in it that it knows to have been stolen from someplace else."
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What are the histories for the pieces listed here in the Cleveland Museum of Art?
CUNO AND CREDIBLE MUSEUMS
James Cuno: "There is not a credible museum in this country that has an object in it that it knows to have been stolen from someplace else."
This statement attributed to Cuno must surely rank as one of the most blatant misrepresentations of our times. http://safecorner.savingantiquities.org/
Cuno and others have engaged a lot of people with the concept of “universal museum” which they now refer to as “encyclopaedic museum”. See “Encyclopaedic Museum Starter Kit”, http://www.artnose.org/museumstarter.htm
Now we have to make a distinction between “credible museums” and “non-credible museum”. Or is it “incredible museums”? What precisely does Cuno mean by “credible museums” remembering that recent events have shown that major and prestigious museums in the USA cannot be trusted to have acquired their antiquities in an entirely legal mode. The return of stolen antiquities to Italy is surely incontrovertible evidence that many museums do not shrink from acquiring interesting antiquities even though there is doubt about their provenance. Cuno’s own writings and statements will tend to support this view.
In his interview with Richard Lacayo, Cuno makes extraordinary statements which reveal some of the relationship between the museums and the illicit traffic in antiquities (A Talk With: James Cuno, January 27, 2008; More Talk: with James Cuno, January 28, 2008). In answer to a question about the relationship between illicit traffic and the fact that the purchases by museums encourage the illicit traffic, this is the response of Cuno:
More is lost to national disaster, economic development and war than is lost to the art market. Museums are a small part of this problem. If it's going to be stopped it can't be stopped by museums not acquiring.
Looting is a not a casual past time. It's desperate people in desperate circumstances who loot. They risk their lives. Museums recognize that there is a relationship between the marketplace and looting, and we want to distance ourselves from it as much as we can and still preserve these things that will otherwise be lost. How do you behave responsibly in this realm? There has to be a package of responses. One part of the package is partage. And another part has to do with allowing museums to reasonably acquire.”
So after praising looting, Cuno pleads for the right of the museums to acquire objects with dubious provenance. The moral or ethical question does not appear to be relevant for Cuno. It may be interesting to quote Roger Atwood’s assessment here:
Cuno's call to bring back partage is worthy and constructive (I make a similar suggestion in my own book, Stealing History). But then he reasserts the prerogative of museums to acquire looted antiquities. Give it to them legally or they may have no choice but to take it illegally, seems to be the message here. No one can blame him for wanting museums to have the best material available, but does he realize how much he poisons his own argument in favor of legal mechanisms for acquiring antiquities by defending the illegal ones? Only a few pages before his plea for partage, he makes this hair-raising statement: "If undocumented antiquities are the result of looted (and thus destroyed) archaeological sites, that there is still a market for them anywhere is a problem. Keeping them from U.S. art museums is not a solution, only a diversion." Roger Atwood, “Insider-Guardians of Antiquity?” http://www.archaeology.
Cuno tries in his book, Who owns Antiquity? to deflect the serious objections archaeologists have against the illicit trade which they see as being encouraged by the acquisition methods of the museums, by creating an opposition between the scholars and nation states:
“The real argument over the acquisition of undocumented (unprovenanced) antiquities is not what it appears to be. It is not really between art museums and archaeologists, about the protection of archaeological record from looting and illicit trafficking in antiquities.. It is between museums and modern nation-states and their nationalist claims on that heritage. Archaeologists are part of the arguments as allies of those states (or “source” nations; those with ancient remains within their jurisdiction). Archaeologists encourage the institution of nationalist retentionist cultural property laws, believing them to be important to the protection of archaeological sites”(pxviii)
Leaving aside the above points, is Cuno telling us that the debate about the museums and their methods of acquisition which has been going on for a considerable number of decades, is about nothing? Have we all been chasing a phantom? Is Cuno’s own book, Who owns Antiquity? not intended to support the museums in this debate against those he calls “nationalist retentionists? See http://www.afrikanet.
So what about all those books, articles and the laws about looting, plunder? Have these efforts been aimed at a non-existent acquisition by museums and dealers?
Cuno has taken the position that until a museum has been caught it should be considered as innocent even though everybody is complaining about its methods of acquisition. What about taking a more honourable position? Could the museums prove beyond all reasonable doubt that all they have in their stock have been legally acquired?
In this case the burden of proof should be on the museums since they are the only ones with any knowledge about what they have. The public has no idea about what the museums have in their depots. It would not be reasonable to expect outsiders to prove the legality or otherwise of the acquisition of antiquities by museums. How many museums have a complete inventory of all their acquisitions?
We know for sure that most of the Benin bronzes now in British, American and German museums were stolen by British soldiers when they invaded Benin in 1897. All those working in the cultural sector have known about this ever since they were stolen. Can Cuno now pretend that the plaque that is now in the Art Institute of Chicago did not come from the loot by the British soldiers or that when the AIC acquired it they had no idea where it came from?
If there have not been any illegal acquisitions by “credible museums” as Cuno would have us believe, for whom was the Association of Art Museum Directors drawing the guidelines which were issued recently? Was all this only for the “non-credible museums”? In which category would Cuno put Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Princeton University’s Art Museum which have recently been made to return antiquities acquired in dubious circumstances from Italy?
Cuno’s formulation contains a lot of escape routes for the museums. When does a museum know that an object it has is of dubious provenance? When its director knows or when the curator or the acquisition department knows?
Cuno has been repeating many of his questionable statements recently. I do not know whether he shares the philosophy of the rhetoric school which believes that the more you repeat a statement, even if all the facts prove the contrary, the more you gain credibility. See A Satirical Approach to the “Universal Museum,” http://www.modernghana.com It reminds one of the statesmen who repeat that life in a certain country is better even though the news media, including the television programme on which they speak, report about many people dying there everyday.
The major museums cannot escape from their history nor the history of the specific objects found therein unless they re-write history as Cuno’s colleague, Neil MacGregor, Director, British Museum has been advocating.
Scholars and museum directors must accept the history of the violent and unscrupulous acquisition methods used in the past by mighty States against weaker ones in depriving them of their cultural objects which are now in the museums of the West.
The task of our generation should be to find a reasonable solution that enables all sides to continue their history and at the same time provide the world adequate information about cultural objects. In this process, we may through mutual arrangements decide where important objects should be kept but arrogant and insensitive statements by Cuno and co will not help anyone, least of all, those countries where most of the illegally acquired cultural objects are to be found at present.
Kwame Opoku, 20 June, 2008.
It is relevant for readers to know that the Art Institute of Chicago has distanced itself from the controversial views of Cuno.
THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO DISTANCES ITSELF FROM THE CONTROVERSIAL BOOK OF ITS DIRECTOR, JAMES CUNO, WHO OWNS ANTIQUITY?
Finally, the Art Institute of Chicago has reached the conclusion which others have reached long time ago, that the position and the views Cuno and his followers have been propagating over a long period, are not conducive to good and friendly relations. The view that the strong can take the artefacts of the weak and keep them has never been morally acceptable, no matter what James Cuno, Director, Art, Institute of Chicago, Neil Macgregor, Director British Museum, Phillipe de Montebello, Director, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, may say to the contrary. That there has been so far no strong resistance to the activities of the Western museums should not be taken as evidence that they are on the right path.
If the various museums in Chicago have finally seen the light of the day, we would expect them to act soon and swiftly. They should rest assured that they have the support of most of the intellectuals in the West, they can rely on the moral support and approval of the peoples of Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania in their efforts to clean up their museums and return cultural artefacts to their countries of origin as, the UNESCO and the United Nations have been asking over the last thirty decades.
The museums in Chicago should know that by showing respect to the African peoples and their artefacts, they are also showing respect to their African American population who can never feel completely free when they know that the cultural and religious symbols of their ancestors have been detained in museums across the USA. They cannot feel at ease in a country which insists on treating the valuable and cherished religious and cultural symbols of their ancestors as mere museum pieces which can be forcibly taken away from their societies of origin and placed in other societies which treat them as war trophies or objects for aesthetic contemplation.
The US museums are not responsible for the atrocities of the British in 1897 but they should not condone criminal and illegal acts by remaining silent and
dealing with stolen objects as if they had been legitimately acquired. The ignoble acts of the 19th and 20th century need not be perpetuated by conferring on them any semblance of legality and legitimacy.
Should the Chicago museums remain steadfast and sweep their museums clean of any vestiges of colonialism and imperialism, they would make an inestimable contribution to improving relations to peoples on both sides of the Atlantic.
We congratulate the Board of Trustees of the Art Institute of Chicago on their first step in the right direction. They can count on our unfailing support in this endeavour.
The Trustees should also take a serious look at the infamous Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums which embodies the ideas of Cuno and his supporters, such as Philippe de Montebello and Neil MacGregor. By this Declaration the Western holders of artefacts illegally and illegitimately acquired from Africa and elsewhere declared their intention of not returning these stolen artefacts which were declared as part of Western culture:
“Over time, objects so acquired—whether by purchase, gift, or partage—have become part of the museums that have cared for them, and by extension part of the heritage of the nations which house them”
This Declaration and its further elaboration by Cuno and his allies has had the effect of making more acrimonious the debate on restitution of cultural property. The abrasive language of Cuno and the arrogance displayed in the writings of supporters of retention of stolen cultural objects and their insensitivity ion have done incalculable damage to the relationship between the Western countries and African and Asian countries. The colonial and 19th century imperialist pomposity which runs through the whole Declaration has engendered resistance to Western hegemonial tendencies.
The Board of Trustees of the Art Institute of Chicago should, in contact with the American signatories of the infamous document, endeavour to find ways of counterbalancing the damage done by that document and, if possible issue a clear statement defining their own approach to the question of restitution of stolen/looted African cultural objects. A general approach should be worked out to provide a solution to this general question. The infamous Declaration envisaged a case by case approach but given that there are thousand of these objects in Western museums, it could take ages to solve a problem which should not take so long to solve,if there is genuine goodwill.
The world has serious problems of poverty and hunger to resolve and we should not let a few museum directors create problems where there should be none.
Those interested in following the arguments and controversies surrounding the views of Cuno and related issues may wish to consult:
“DO PRESENT-DAY EGYPTIANS EAT THE SAME FOOD AS TUTHANKHAMUN? REVIEW OF JAMES CUNO’S WHO OWNS ANTIQUITY?” http://www.afrikanet
“BENIN TO CHICAGO: IN THE UNIVERSAL MUSEUM”http://www.museum-security
“NEFERTITI, IDIA AND OTHER AFRICAN ICONS IN EUROPEAN
MUSEUMS: THE THIN EDGE OF EUROPEAN
MORALITY”http://www.modernghana.com
Kwame Opoku. August 08, 2008
Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums
The international museum community shares the conviction that illegal traffic in archaeological, artistic, and ethnic objects must be firmly discouraged. We should, however, recognize that objects acquired in earlier times must be viewed in the light of different sensitivities and values, reflective of that earlier era. The objects and monumental works that were installed decades and even centuries ago in museums throughout Europe and America were acquired under conditions that are not comparable with current ones.
Over time, objects so acquired—whether by purchase, gift, or partage—have become part of the museums that have cared for them, and by extension part of the heritage of the nations which house them. Today we are especially sensitive to the subject of a work’s original context, but we should not lose sight of the fact that museums too provide a valid and valuable context for objects that were long ago displaced from their original source.
The universal admiration for ancient civilizations would not be so deeply established today were it not for the influence exercised by the artifacts of these cultures, widely available to an international public in major museums. Indeed, the sculpture of classical Greece, to take but one example, is an excellent
illustration of this point and of the importance of public collecting. The centuries
long history of appreciation of Greek art began in antiquity, was renewed in Renaissance Italy, and subsequently spread through the rest of Europe and to the Americas. Its accession into the collections of public museums throughout the world marked the significance of Greek sculpture for mankind as a whole
and its enduring value for the contemporary world. Moreover, the distinctly Greek aesthetic of these works appears all the more strongly as the result of their being seen and studied in direct proximity to products of other great civilizations.
Calls to repatriate objects that have belonged to museum collections for many years have become an important issue for museums. Although each case has to be judged individually, we should acknowledge that museums serve not just the citizens of one nation but the people of every nation. Museums are agents in the development of culture, whose mission is to foster knowledge by a continuous process of reinterpretation. Each object contributes to that process. To narrow the focus of museums whose collections are diverse and multifaceted would therefore be a disservice to all
visitors.
Signed by the Directors of:
The Art Institute of Chicago
Bavarian State Museum, Munich (Alte Pinakothek,
Neue Pinakothek)
State Museums, Berlin
Cleveland Museum of Art
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Louvre Museum, Paris
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Prado Museum, Madrid
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
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