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You can't have your stuff back

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/galleries/930727,CST-NWS-art04.article


When Art Institute President James Cuno, then 19, visited his first museum
-- the famous Louvre in Paris -- he was awed.

"Most of the world was there for me, or so it seemed,'' recalls Cuno of the
Louvre, mentioning artifacts from Mesopotamia, pharaonic Egypt, renaissance
Italy and baroque France.

Today, Cuno worries that "encyclopedic" museums such as the Art Institute
and the Louvre, which contain antiquities from around the planet, are
endangered by nations that, simply put, want their stuff back -- and don't
want any more stuff to leave their borders.

In his new book, Who Owns Antiquity?: Museums and the Battle Over Our
Ancient Heritage (Princeton University Press, $24.95), Cuno answers his own
question this way: All of us do.

The question isn't just the musings of a museum man. Egypt, Greece, Peru,
Turkey and China are among countries pushing for the return of objects
removed from their lands years ago. Italy has forced the return of dozens of
pieces from American museums. Laws in host countries can now seriously
restrict export of artifacts.

Cuno is fighting back.

"Antiquities are the cultural property of all humankind, evidence of the
world's ancient past, and not that of a particular modern nation,'' he
writes.

Countries seeking the return of objects or, in Cuno's view, becoming overly
stingy on exports, "conspire against a greater understanding and
appreciation of the world's many diverse cultures,'' he says.

Critics are seething over the book, which won't be out until May 28 but
already is in circulation for review and causing a buzz.

Cuno's one-world approach will be accepted only "when European and North
American museum directors cease believing in their eternal and divinely
endowed role as custodians of global cultural heritage,'' blogs one British
art historian.

On another Web site, an African writer fumes that the museums of "Cuno and
Co.," with "more objects than they can manage to house," are pining for "the
good old days of empire that allowed them to take from other countries
whatever they wanted."

"The question smacks of arrogance and even, some might say, colonialism,''
says Chapurukha Kusimba, the Field Museum's associate curator of
anthropology. "When this book is finally released, there's going to be a
huge uproar. It's going to portray the Art Institute in a very bad light."

...

Dave Welsh
Unidroit-L Listowner
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Unidroit-L
dwelsh46 at cox.net