On Art Looting in Africa: Q&A with George H. O. Abungu
George Abungu is the winner of the 2012 ARCA Award for Lifetime Achievement in Defense of Art. Dr. Abungu, a native of Kenya, has served as Chairman of the International Standing Committee on the Traffic of Illicit Antiquities since 1999, and as Director-General of the National Museums of Kenya from 1999-2002. Among his many projects, he was involved in the return to Kenya of looted vigango (traditional grave markers).
You can view a Slovenian documentary film on art forgery, “Vsak Ima Svojo Resnico” (Everything Has Its Own Truth), directed by Nina Blazin and made for RTV Slovenija, here. The documentary is in Slovene, but I appear throughout speaking in English. The film focuses on forgeries of the famous Slovene painter Zoran Music.
The Secret History of Art, also a writer for The Daily Beast, has a weekly interview series called HOW I WRITE, in which I interview fellow writers about the writing life. The first interview was with Jodi Picoult, and this week’s interview features Chad Harbach. Chad is a first-time novelist, whose book “The Art of Fielding” was lauded to the skies by critics worldwide. Chad is also the founder of a literary journal, n+1. Click here to read the interview. The HOW I WRITE series will feature a new interview every Wednesday on The Daily Beast.
The Secret History of Art just returned from a week of filming for television in Rome and Ghent. Here we are pleased to offer a short introduction to the wonderful city of Ghent, the perfect place for an artistic pilgrimage to see The Ghent Altarpiece (before it is taken down, piece by piece, for a five-year restoration, starting in September) and to eat the world’s best mustard, drink the world’s best beer, and gorge on fries and waffles.
Ernst Schöller has been called Germany’s leading art investigator, and with good reason. He and his colleagues have had remarkable success in recovering stolen art, and arresting thieves and forgers. This is particularly impressive because it is rare to recover stolen art (the best recovery rates worldwide are around 10%), and rarer still to successfully prosecute (2-6% of art crime cases end in successful prosecution).
The Secret History of Art just appeared on BBC Radio to discuss the recent heist of 18 Chinese artifacts, mostly made of jade, including a 14th century Ming vase and a 16th century jade carved buffalo, that were stolen around 730pm on 13 April 2012. Police are still investigating with a team of around 25 in what has been dubbed “Operation Tundra.”
The Secret History of Art is pleased to recommend a handful of great art crime documentaries for your viewing pleasure. The fine website, DocumentaryStorm.com, a curated resource for watching documentaries online, put together a list of some suitable documentaries, and I’ve added a few more.
Eighteen rare Chinese artifacts, mostly made of jade, were stolen this week in a heist from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England. The most valuable of these was a 14th century Ming period cup made of jade. Wisely the museum did not comment on the value of the stolen objects–that would only serve to attach a price tag that the thieves could use as a point of departure to determine the value of their haul.
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