THE UNIVERSITY DAIRY KANSAS
NEWS
9A
INTERNATIONAL
Auctions open up questions about who has rights to art
BY JILL LAWLESS Associated Press
Associated Press
LONDON — A bronze rabbit's head was the first to go under the hammer, then came Mohandas Gandhi's glasses and sandals.
Auctions are becoming a new battleground for art dealers, activists and aggrieved countries dueling for plundered antiquities and lost pieces of heritage.
People in China look at posters advertising an exhibit showing sculptures of bronze heads from the Chinese zodiac which disappeared in 1860, when French and British forces sacked the former Summer Palace at the close of the second Opium War, at the grounds of the former Summer Palace in Beijing. Feb. 23. China has demanded the return of looted imperial bronzes and the sculptures of a rat and rabbit head.
Roger Keverne, a London-based dealer in Chinese art, said the politicization of art had become "inevitable, and unfortunate."
Gandhi's glasses, as well as sandals, a watch and other artifacts belonging to the revered Indian independence leader, were sold to an Indian businessman on Thursday night in New York for $1.8 million — a bid aided by the Indian government.
"Who has a right to the world's culture?" he said.
Their owner.
auction house last month over the objections of China, which saw them as stolen antiquities.
American collector and peace activist James Otis, offered to stop the sale and donate the items to India, if its leaders agreed to spend more on the poor. India rejected the demand as an infringement on the country's sovereignty and the auction went ahead.
"Auctions by their very nature are public."
The items went into limbo last week when the successful bidder revealed that he had made the $40 million bid as a protest, and had no intention of paying. Chinese art dealer Cai Mingchao, who advises a non-governmental group seeking to repatriate looted Chinese art, said he had bid on the bronzes as a patriotic act.
The rabbit head and a companion piece depicting a rat, both taken from a Beijing palace in the 19th century, were sold by Christie's.
Christie's, which sold the bronzes during an auction of items belonging to the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, refused to say what it would do next.
But some art market watchers
PATTY GERSTENBLITH
Professor of Law,
DePaul University
ASSOCIATED PRESS
said Christie's and other auction houses were caught up in a battle for public opinion over contested antiquities.
"Auctions by their very nature are public," said Patty Gerstenbelt, a cultural heritage expert and professor of law at DePaul University in Chicago. "If something is sold through a dealer or gallery it can be sold secretly so it doesn't attract the same level of attention."
Tempers have been rising for years over the artifacts that fill Western museums and art collections — many acquired, or plundered, during years of war and imperial expansion.
The bronzes sold at Christie's were part of an elaborate water clock fountain, designed by lesuit missionaries, which disappeared in 1860 when French and British forces sacked the Summer Palace on the outskirts of Beijing at the close of the second Opium War.
China has long sought their return and had urged Christie's to withdraw the bronzes. A Chinese-backed group tried and failed to get a Paris court to suspend the figures' sale. After the auction, Chinas State Administration of Cultural Heritage said it had "harmed the cultural rights and national feeling of the Chinese people."
"This is a particularly emotive subject — 1860 and the vanidism at the palace," said Keverne. "The way they were taken was in particularly distressing circumstances."
The sale further strained relations between France and China, already frayed over French boycotts in the run-up to last summer's Olympic Games and French President Nicolas Sarkozy's talks with Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Pierre Berge, the bronze's coowner, suggested before the auction that China could have the treasures back if it improved its human rights record — an idea Beijing dismissed as "ridiculous." Berge said later he thought it was his criticism of China's human rights record in Tibet that led to Cal's action.
Increasing sensitivity about looted artifacts has prompted museums around the world to return antiquities to their homelands over the past few years. The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts have all handed artifacts back to Greece or Italy.
But the British Museum has refused repeated Greek requests for the return of the Parthenon Marbles, also known as the Elgin
marbles — 2,500-year-old sculptures and friezes removed in the early 19th century by British diplomat Lord Elgin. The museum says they are part of the world's heritage and are best displayed in London, where the public can view them for free.
One solution is for countries to buy back their own heritage. The Indian government said it would try to buy the Gandhi relics, which
were not looted but given by him to supporters and a great-niece.
In 2007, Macau casino mogun Stanley Ho bought a bronze horse head — from the same group that included the rat and rabbit heads
— before it was due to be auctioned and returned it to China.
Art experts agree that China has no legal claim to the figures.
POLITICS
Obama overturns Bush's restrictions on stem cell research
Associated Press
BY PHILIP ELLIOTT
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's announcement Monday that he is overturning his predecessor's policies toward embryonic stem cells also will include a broad declaration that science — not political ideology — would guide his administration.
Obama planned to reverse President George W. Bush's limits on federally funded stem cell research through the National Institutes of Health and to put in place safeguards through the Office of Science and Technology Policy so that science is protected from political interference. The moves would fulfill a campaign promise.
"We've got eight years of science to make up for," said Dr. Curt Civin, whose research allowed scientists to isolate stem cells and who now serves as the founding director of the University of Maryland Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.
Bush limited taxpayer money for stem cell research to a small number of stem cell lines that were created before Aug. 9, 2001. Many of those faced drawbacks. Hundreds more of such lines — groups of cells that can continue to propagate in lab dishes — have been created since then. Scientists say those newer lines are healthier and better suited to creating treatments
for diseases, but they were largely off-limits to researchers who took federal dollars.
"We view what happened with stem cell research in the last administration is one manifestation of failure to think carefully about how federal support of science and the use of scientific advice occurs," said Harold Varmus, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist who is chairman of the White House's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology.
Bush and his supporters said they were defending human life; days-old embryos — typically from fertility-clinic leftovers otherwise destined to be thrown away — are destroyed for the stem cells.
Obamas advisers sought to downplay the divisions.
"I think we all realize, and the president certainly understands, there are people of good faith on both sides of this issue," said Melby Barnes, the White House's domestic policy adviser. "We recognize there are a range of beliefs on this."
Rep. Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, said the focus should be on the economy, not on a long-simmering debate over stem cells.
The long-promised move will allow a rush of research aimed at one day better treating, if not curing, ailments from diabetes to paralysis.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Theresa Gratsch, a Ph.D. research specialist, views nerve cells derived from human embryonic stem cells under a microscope at the University of Michigan Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich., on Oct 22, 2008. Reversing an eight-year-old limit on potentially life-saving science, President Barack Obama is expected to lift restrictions Monday on taxpayer funded research using embryonic stem cells
KU HALL CENTER SCHOLAR AWARD 2009-2010
The Hall Center for the Humanities is looking for undergraduates with strong academic credentials who have demonstrated significant engagement within the university community. Hall Center Scholars interact with the well-known authors, scholars and public intellectuals who speak in our Humanities Lecture Series. The $500 award is sponsored by the Friends of the Hall Center. The deadline for applications is March 22, 2009.
Visit our website at www.hallcenter.ku.edu/grants/support for application guidelines.
Questions may be directed to Associate Director Kristine Latta at 864-7823 or klafta@ku.edu.
The deadline for applications is March 23, 2009.
KU HALL CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES
www.hallcenter.ku.edu
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