[MSN] Indianapolis Museum of Art limits its antiquities acquisitions

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Art museum limits its antiquities acquisitions
Artifacts removed from their country of origin after 1970 must be 
exported legally, IMA director says

By Whitney Smith

The Indianapolis Museum of Art will not buy or accept gifts of ancient 
artifacts that left the country where they were discovered after 1970 -- 
unless there's proof they were exported legally. The decision by IMA 
Director and CEO Maxwell L. Anderson and the museum's board comes amid 
an at-times acrimonious international debate about black-market 
trafficking in antiquities that may encourage the plundering of 
archaeological sites.
The IMA isn't the only museum struggling with this issue. The J. Paul 
Getty Museum in Los Angeles adopted a policy similar to the IMA's last fall.
Some government authorities, especially in antiquity-rich Italy, have 
demanded that artifacts in museums be returned.
Last year, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art agreed to return 
objects allegedly stolen from ancient sites in Italy, in exchange for 
long-term loans of other objects. Its director, Philippe de Montebello, 
however, has made a case that museums should keep acquiring antiquities 
-- generally defined as objects that pre-date the Middle Ages in Europe 
-- even without complete documentation.
Founded in 1883, the IMA is the nation's fifth-largest encyclopedic art 
museum, with more than 50,000 objects, said museum spokeswoman Jessica 
DiSanto. The museum's Asian art collection, including many antiquities, 
is a signature feature.
Anderson, 51, has been with the IMA for almost a year but has been 
passionate about acquisitions for decades. As a former president of the 
Association of Art Museum Directors, he is a well-known figure in the 
debate.
"I've had the unhappy experience of seeing pillaged sites in Italy, when 
I was a curator for the Met in the '80s," Anderson said in a phone 
interview from Washington. "Tomb robbers are seeing what they want, 
popping open the tombs like soft-boiled eggs, grabbing things and 
disappearing."
In 2005, The New York Times quoted him as saying museum directors could 
no longer stand behind old collecting practices. "The ground is shifting 
radically under the pressure of newly documented claims," he said. 
"While there may not be a single clear solution for every claim, 
institutions will need to be forthright in explaining future acquisitions."
Anderson thinks the IMA policy -- which still lets it acquire 
antiquities if they arrived in the U.S. before a 1970 United Nations 
protocol -- could become part of a growing trend.
"It is our hope that the IMA's moratorium will encourage other major 
collecting institutions around the world to take a similar step, along 
with collectors and dealers," Anderson wrote in this month's edition of 
The Art Newspaper, published in London. "A universal moratorium would 
seriously impact the clandestine trade in antiquities."
One IMA patron agreed that museums must be concerned about an object's 
pedigree.
"Objects ought to be documented, regardless of the year," said 
Northwestside resident Robert Grubbs, 74, as he stood at a balcony near 
the IMA's Asian art collection. "I think, at least, that objects that 
are documented could be marked."

Call Star reporter Whitney Smith at (317) 444-6226.

http://www.indystar.com