http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-getty1oct01,0,7864696.s
tory?coll=la-news-comment-editorials
STATE OF THE ART
Just say no to plunder
October 1, 2005
THE ILLICIT TRADE IN ART and antiquities has often been compared to
trafficking in drugs or guns. Both trades are international in scope,
require a sophisticated smuggling operation and are driven by demand in
wealthy nations. But the analogy ends there.
Art enriches society. Furthermore, the vast majority of U.S. and European
museums are respectable institutions run by conscientious professionals who
do their best to act responsibly under what are often challenging
circumstances. But the best intentions, as recent revelations about the
Getty Museum illustrate, are no protection against questionable or even
criminal behavior.
The Getty should not merely take a stand against smuggling; it should return
any illgotten parts of its collection.
The Getty's curator of antiquities is on trial in Italy for conspiring to
traffic in looted art. Times reporters Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino,
reviewing hundreds of records from the museum, documented Sunday that half
of the masterpieces in the Getty's antiquities collection were purchased
from dealers suspected of looting. Their investigation also revealed a
disturbingly wide gulf between the Getty's standards and practices.
For two decades, the Getty has deplored the plundering of art, lecturing to
anyone who will listen on the ethics and legalities of collecting ancient
art, and revising its own acquisition policies to make them stronger. The
museum's former director described its basic stance: "Nothing would justify
buying an object that we knew or strongly suspected was stolen."
Yet one internal memo shows that the Getty paid $10.2 million for three
objects dug from ruins near Naples decades after Italian law had made it
illegal to do so. Another memo showed that the Getty had acquired more than
300 antiquities from a private collection without a documented ownership
history - eight months after unveiling a revised acquisition policy that
pledged the museum would only buy items that had been published in catalogs
or journals before 1995 or were part of "established and well-documented"
collections.
It is easy enough to ask that the Getty abide by its own rules. But it also
is worth pointing out that the purpose of those rules is not simply to
protect the Getty but to protect the cultural heritage of societies that
have long since departed this world.
The plundering of art, which has been practiced for thousands of years, has
its defenders. There are some who justify holding ancient treasures such as
the Elgin Marbles, the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the so-called
Pergamon Altar at, respectively, the British Museum, the Louvre and Berlin's
Pergamon Museum, saying they are better protected and taken care of there.
Yet archeologists and historians argue that ancient works of art are best
understood in their original context whenever possible.
In the United States, it must be said, the Getty is not the only museum
entangled in this kind of controversy. Other great U.S. museums, such as the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and the
Cleveland Museum of Art, also have been accused of housing looted treasures.
One could reasonably argue that before 1970, when the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization approved a convention that
called on governments to make it illegal to "import, export or transfer
ownership" of cultural property without permission from the country of
origin, such looting was at least legally excusable. And at least until
1983, when the U.S. ratified the UNESCO convention, U.S. museums were not
legally bound by it.
Yet the looting continues, with the Getty's experience as the most prominent
recent example of a museum failing to live up to its ideals. The first step
is for the Getty to return the pieces it cannot prove were acquired
legitimately. It also should adopt and enforce a clear, unequivocal
acquisitions policy that it will not buy, accept or receive on loan any item
illegally removed from its country of origin since 1970, when UNESCO adopted
its convention.
The looting of ancient art is a moral crime. As an institution devoted to
the study of ancient civilizations, the Getty should play no part in a
practice that limits our ability to understand both our heritage and who we
are today.
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