News

Coming back oh lort

Life’s been messy (like all year 🎉) but I hope to post here regularly again, even if it’s just on some odd days. I enjoy the certain luxury that absolutely no one is waiting on me to update this thing, and that this is purely an outlet to challenge myself with concepts relating to all the fine arts and old things. With that said, I look forward to dedicating some time every week to reflect on the latest developments in these spheres and channeling it all into a summary here (maybe with an editorial every so often). Anyway, cool – it’s September already and I’ve neglected this long enough lol

France: Genghis Khan exhibit on hold following censorship orders from Beijing

October 14, 2020 – An exhibit on Genghis Khan in Nantes’s history museum (the Château des ducs de Bretagne) will decidedly be divorced from all Chinese funding, according to museum director Bertrand Guillet. Generous loans from China would bear a caveat of heavy censorship at the discretion of Beijing – which, on further review, would have rendered the Genghis Khan exhibit not to be a Genghis Khan exhibit at all; the Chinese communist party decided the terms “empire,” “Mongol,” and “Genghis Khan” would be expressly prohibited. Maps and brochures at the exhibit would also have met this grim fate of political bias. Guillet defended the “human, scientific, and ethical values” of his museum in a statement on the exhibit’s hold.

Germany repatriates five more silver coins to Greece

October 8, 2020 – In a last-minute recovery from auctions in Munich and Zurich, the Numismatic Museum of Athens now rightfully holds five more Grecian coins dated between the fifth and fourth centuries BC. The coins’ locations of origin include Lindos (Rhodes), Thrace, and Elis. This follows a similar intervention in 2019, by which two tetradrachms (third- and second-centuries BC) were recovered from another Zurich auction.

Footprints in Saudi Arabia lend insight to human migration out of Africa

September 21, 2020 – Archaeologists and other experts in paleoanthropology discovered seven unique footprints in an ancient lakebed at Alathar, dated to 120,000 years ago. The finding distinguishes itself as the earliest evidence of human migration into the Levant. Analysis by experts suggests the footprints belong to two or three individuals traveling in a group. This development affords archeological context to what was a relatively brief presence of humans in that portion of the Nefud desert. Evidence in the footprints tells a compelling story of our genetic ancestors, as the DNA is linked far more substantially to that of Homo sapiens than of Homo neanderthalensis.

Jail time for architecture student who vandalized $26M Picasso

August 26, 2020 – Shakeel Massey, 20, is sentenced to 18 months in jail for his damages to Picasso’s Bust of a Woman as part of a “performance”. It was December 28 when the Spanish architecture student ripped the 1944 artwork from its display in the UK’s Tate Modern. Massey has attested, unapologetically, that his vandalism was a means of artistic expression. Massey’s damages to the portrait are expected to incur $450,000 in repair costs, in tandem with 18 months of labor toward restoration.

Paolo Giorgio Ferri: a cultural heritage hero

August 20, 2020 – UK publication The Times has published their obituary for antiquities expert and prosecutor Paolo Giorgio Ferri. Ferri’s endeavors to restore Italy’s looted and laundered antiquities consequently exposed dozens of museums around the world for their part in criminal procurement; and his success can be measured by the ten thousand people implicated in his findings. Ferri’s tenacity for justice earned him his prestigious affiliations with ICCROM and UNESCO, and finally his Expert Advisor position with the Ministry of Italian Cultural Heritage. The brilliance of Ferri’s investigations afforded him his leverage to repatriate some of Italy’s finest cultural pieces – most notably, the Euphronios krater from the Met in 2008.

Rare objects by the “thousands” discovered in Oxburgh Hall’s attic

August 17, 2020 – The fifteenth-century estate’s attic was found to have thousands of “rare” items beneath its floorboards. Among the objects are manuscripts, textiles, and other personal objects which belonged to Sir Edmund Bedingfeld – the home’s original builder. Several items are indeed roughly as old as the house itself; and most of the lot is perfectly preserved, thanks to dry conditions and a heavy coat of dust. The Bedingfelds themselves were devout Catholics, and their estate had most notably been used as a haven for clergymen amidst violent persecution in the Elizabethan age.

US returns ten of India’s antiquities

August 15, 2020 – Today, on India’s Independence Day, ten more stolen idols were ceremoniously repatriated from the United States. This exchange is the latest installment of the estimated 200 artifacts due for return to India, per an agreement with the US in 2016. However, repatriating all 200 objects has proven challenging for the two nations to coordinate.

In 2017, The Antiquities Coalition examined the ongoing plunder of Indian and Asian artifacts as part of their interview with Anuraag Saxena, co-founder of the India Pride Project. As of 2020, the landscape of antiquities trafficking is thriving yet – but the Project remains Saxena’s call for change.

Archaeologists uncover sixth-century Byzantine church in Israel

August 12, 2020 – A Byzantine-era church has been discovered in Kfar Kama by the Israel Antiquities Authority, with help from Kinneret Academic College. The 1,300-year-old ruins are survived by distinguishing features of a church: three apses, elaborate mosaics on the floors, a courtyard, and a stone reliquary. The dig has also uncovered a series of adjacent rooms – leading experts to believe this was a more complex structure, such as a monastery. Its location in the Circassian village hints at historical ties to Mount Tabor, known in Christianity as the site of the Transfiguration.

Douglas Latchford dies aged 89 – and his controversies live on

August 10, 2020 – The family of Douglas Latchford has officially confirmed that the antiquities mogul passed away in Bangkok on August 2, 2020. Latchford was long a controversial figure in archaeology; his dissemination of stolen artifacts out of Cambodia and Thailand since the 1970s finally earned him charges by the FBI for wire fraud, smuggling, and conspiracy. But it was only late in 2019 that these charges were filed – by that time, his work had proven lucrative at auction houses around the world for decades. Still, even in prominent art publications such as The Art Newspaper, he is memorialized as an “adventurer scholar”. Latchford’s death and its reactions lend attention to a familiar elephant in the room: that our modern art world is still healing from colonial wounds.

Senate Report finds Russian oligarchs abusing the United States art market in multi-million dollar transactions

July 29, 2020 – Anonymity in art dealing gives way to a rampant system of money laundering on an international scale – which leaves millions of dollars in the U.S. economy vulnerable to abuse by foreign entities. The New York Times examines this phenomenon with two exemplary perpetrators: Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, two close associates of Vladimir Putin. Read the full story or head over to an editorial piece right here on our website.

New legislation in France may return 27 artifacts to Benin and Senegal

July 15, 2020 – ArtNet reports that 27 pieces of history may finally be repatriated to Benin and Senegal, thanks to French legislation still in its early stages. All but one of these objects were looted in 1892 from a royal palace in Benin; the item belonging to Senegal is a sword believed to have been used by anti-colonial figure El Hadj Omar Tall (1794–1864). It’s a move by France deemed “new” and “historic”, ashamedly so – as France continues to harbor 90,000 African artifacts seized during colonial rule.

Notre-Dame will be restored to its prior state, forgoing proposals to modernize

July 9, 2020 – The French government announced Thursday that Notre-Dame and its spire would be rebuilt to replication, pursuant to the cathedral’s devastating fire in April 2019. Notre-Dame’s present stewards and French leadership, including Emmanuel Macron, had been involved in heavy debate in the months leading up to this decision – with calls to modernize the structure even earning favor from the President himself.