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Thousands of Artifacts Seized at Rural Indiana Home

I don’t have the whole story or all the facts. That said, if this article is true: they haven’t charged the man, there is no offered evidence as to reasonable suspicion, and there is no explanation given as to what precisely he did wrong. Instead they have taken items worth immeasurable value from a 90 year old man that will take more than his life for them to “catalog.” Just imagine the potential threat to all museums and private owners if it is considered acceptable for officials to take collections just to “verify,” without probable cause for suspicion.  It’s incomprehensible.   ** DB

“Thousands of Artifacts Seized at Rural Indiana Home”

by Diana Penner via “IndyStar”

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“FBI agents Wednesday seized “thousands” of cultural artifacts, including American Indian items, from the private collection of a 91-year-old Rush County man who had acquired them over the past eight decades.

An FBI command vehicle and several tents were spotted at the property in rural Waldron, about 35 miles southeast of Indianapolis.

The man, Don Miller, has not been arrested or charged.

Robert A. Jones, special agent in charge of the Indianapolis FBI office, would not say at a news conference specifically why the investigation was initiated, but he did say the FBI had information about Miller’s collection and acted on it by deploying its art crime team.

FBI agents are working with art experts and museum curators, and neither they nor Jones would describe a single artifact involved in the investigation, but it is a massive collection. Jones added that cataloging of all of the items found will take longer than “weeks or months.”

“Frankly, overwhelmed,” is how Larry Zimmerman, professor of anthropology and museum studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis described his reaction. “I have never seen a collection like this in my life except in some of the largest museums.”

The monetary value of the items and relics has not been determined, Jones said, but the cultural value is beyond measure. In addition to American Indian objects, the collection includes items from China, Russia, Peru, Haiti, Australia and New Guinea, he said.

The items were found in a main residence, in which Miller lives; a second, unoccupied residence on the property; and in several outbuildings, Jones said. The town originally was Iroquois land.

The objects were not stored to museum standards, Jones said, but it was apparent Miller had made an effort to maintain them well. (more…)

“Saving Guangxi’s Cultural Heritage from Decline”

“Saving Guangxi’s Cultural Heritage from Decline”

via “South China Morning Post”

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Dancers from the Zhuang ethnic group perform at the San Yue San festival in Wuming county, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on Wednesday. Photo: Xinhua

 

Residents of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region are enjoying a new two-day official holiday the local government has offered to encourage them to participate in an annual ethnic minority singing festival.

Wednesday was the third day of the third month of the Chinese lunar calendar, when crowds traditionally gather to sing in the antiphonal, or call-and-answer, style to find love and make new friends.

Historically, it has been observed by more than 27 million people of Zhuang, Yao, Miao, Dong and Mulao ethnicities in Guangxi, or half the region’s total population.

However, the 1,300-year-old custom has lost its allure in the modern era, prompting government action to help it survive and regain popularity.

With the event’s auspicious date falling this year on a Wednesday, the day was a major test of whether the festival could thrive again.

Before dawn on Wednesday, Deng Zhiting from Dakeng village in Fangchenggang city got up to take part in the government-organised singalong attended by thousands of Zhuang and Yao people.

But the spritely 72-year-old, dressed in Yao traditional costume and carrying a flute-like instrument, frowned when he saw only a few young faces in the crowd.

“What a lean time for our group’s folk songs,” he grumbled. “We don’t have young people to inherit this treasure.” (more…)

“First Look Inside Expanded Harvard Art Museums”

“First Look Inside Expanded Harvard Art Museums”

by Greg Cook via “The Artery“

“Light is one of the most important materials of architecture,” Renzo Piano said at a talk at Harvard University in 2009. Light and transparency—one of the ways he makes light part of his architecture—are primary themes for the suave, celebrated Italian architect.

“Transparency is still a very important quality of urban life,” he said at that Harvard talk. “Urbanity comes because the buildings talk to the street.”

These notions are evident in his designs for the newly renovated and expanded Harvard Art Museums between Quincy and Prescott streets in Cambridge. On Tuesday the university announced plans to reopen the complex on Nov. 16.

Since the project began with the closing of the institution’s Fogg Museum and Busch-Reisinger museums in 2008, he’s taken the iconic Italian Renaissance-style courtyard at the heart of the 1927 Fogg, which has been protected with listing on the National Register of Historic Places since the 1980s, and extended it upward and crowned it with a futuristic-looking, steel and glass pyramid that floods the five-story-tall space with sun.

Piano first made his mark as a post-modern punk with his designs for Paris’s Pompidou Centre in the 1970s, which seemed to expose all the guts of the museum  . . . .”

“Queens Museum to open Indian art exhibition next year”

“Queens Museum to open Indian art exhibition next year”

Via “American Bazaar“

“NEW YORK: The Queens Museum has announced that it will open an entire exhibition entitled “After Midnight: Indian Modernism to Contemporary India (1947-1997)” in January 2015, which will highlight important works of art and track the growing modernity of India during its first 50 years of independence.

Malini Shah, Sudhir Vaishnav, Sunil Modi and other community members along with Tom Finkelpearl, President and Executive Director, Debra Wimpfheimer, Director Stategic Partnerships, Hitomi Iwasaki, Director and Curator and Manjari Sihare Curatorial Manager.

In a statement, the museum explained that the timeframe was chosen because its beginning and end dates are significant checkpoints in Indian history. The year 1947 is obviously important because it is when Indian gained independence from the British, but also because it saw the birth and rise of the Progressive art movement in India. The year 1997, when India turned 50, was marked by “economic liberalization, political instability . . . .”

“Fantasy Meets Technology in Ocean Resorts’ Underwater Art Show”

“Fantasy Meets Technology in Ocean Resorts’ Underwater Art Show”

By Bekah Wright via Yahoo! News

Where does one go to see an art exhibition in the Maldives? Under the sea, of course — the Indian Ocean, to be exact. Two of the island nation’s luxury resorts will be showcasing underwater works from photo artist Andreas Franke’s “Phantasy Fairytale” through May. 

The sites, Huvafen Fushi and Niyama, are sister properties in the posh Per Aquum collection, where rooms start at about $600 a night. Rather than in some stuffy gallery, the “Phantasy Fairytale” showings are in Subsix, Niyama’s underwater music club, and Huvafen Fushi’s Lime spa, also below sea level. 

Two photo shoots were necessary to create each fantasy-themed piece, one using an underwater backdrop and the other taken in a studio with real-life models. The superimposed images are encased in Plexiglas and stainless-steel frames, and divers put each piece — priced from $15,000 to $12,000 — in place per Franke’s specifications. 

What will visitors see in the “Phantasy Fairytale” galleries? Some familiar faces are captured in a combination of photography, nautical exploration and digital mastery: fairytale characters such as Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Star Money, The Snow Queen and The Last Unicorn. The two spaces have four identical Franke images, with the exception of The Snow Queen, only at Niyama, and The Last Unicorn at Huvafen Fushi.

Franke, an award-winning Austria-based photo artist and avid scuba diver, has said of the series: “With my photographs, I want to pull the spectators into unreal and strange worlds. Mystified scenes of a fairytale play within a fictional space. Dream worlds you can get lost in, or that you can identify with. This creates a new and unexpected atmosphere. This work shows very much of myself, since I am always on the lookout for stunning themes to create new images that have never been seen before.”

Adding to the story each image tells: salt and algae that collect on the frames, along with the ever-changing world of marine life around them. “The underwater scenery is beautiful, coral reefs surround both Subsix and Lime Spa. You can see all sorts of coral from finger coral to brain coral, hard coral and soft coral,” Stacey Dean, Per Aquum’s director of marketing and communications, told Yahoo Travel in an email. “There are also many fish that live in the coral reef such as parrotfish and clown fish. We even have the odd turtle, stingray and reef shark that swim past.” . . . . . .

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