NPR Correspondent Fired Over Report That Revisits the Seizure of Works on Loan to the Museum of Modern Art Years Ago
Due to my affiliation with the museum I will refrain from commenting on the story, but the following are some links to various articles or comments made about the situation throughout the duration of the case. I should note that D'Arcy's firing is only one small piece of a much larger story that has been ongoing since the initial attempt by the U.S. to sieze the two Egon Schiele works in 1998. Decide for yourself what the issues at hand are and I will facilitate the discussion as (if) it evolves.
Here you can find the NPR report by David D’Arcy, that aired on December 28 2004, that has led to his dismissal. Note also the correction posted by NPR regarding D’Arcy’s report.
Artnet first ran the story about D’Arcy’s firing in the article found here.
To take a step back, here are some articles that discuss the history of the work's seizure, its ownership and the lawsuits which followed:
Art in America: February 1998 by Raphael Rubenstein
The Art Newspaper, July 21 2000, The Art Newspaper by Martha Lufkin
On February 10 2000, MoMA director Glenn Lowery gave an address to the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, United States House of Representatives. Of notable interest is the following excerpt:
“Our point was not that one side or the other was the proper owner -- a museum is neither equipped nor empowered to serve as judge and jury in a dispute over other people's property -- but rather that current New York State law protects works of art on loan for public exhibition from any kind of seizure.”
Here you can find the NPR report by David D’Arcy, that aired on December 28 2004, that has led to his dismissal. Note also the correction posted by NPR regarding D’Arcy’s report.
Artnet first ran the story about D’Arcy’s firing in the article found here.
To take a step back, here are some articles that discuss the history of the work's seizure, its ownership and the lawsuits which followed:
Art in America: February 1998 by Raphael Rubenstein
The Art Newspaper, July 21 2000, The Art Newspaper by Martha Lufkin
On February 10 2000, MoMA director Glenn Lowery gave an address to the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, United States House of Representatives. Of notable interest is the following excerpt:
“Our point was not that one side or the other was the proper owner -- a museum is neither equipped nor empowered to serve as judge and jury in a dispute over other people's property -- but rather that current New York State law protects works of art on loan for public exhibition from any kind of seizure.”
posted by Corey Wyckoff at 7:14 PM
3 Comments:
Regardless of whether the museum should legally return the work, doesn't MoMA have a moral obligation to see that suspected stolen works of art be returned to their rightful owners?
Finally a discussion! D'Arcy made an interesting comment in his report which came after his interview with Ronald Lauder, chairman of MoMA and founder of the Commission for Art Recovery. D'Arcy says that the Commission is focused on returning stolen works that now exist in museum collections to their rightful owners, however his conclusion is that MoMA is taking a different position in the case of the Schiele painting. MoMA’s position, which is indicated by Mr. Lowery’s comments to the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, is that it is not the responsibility of the museum to determine the ownership of the work as it is not part of their collection, it is a loan from another institution. Prior to all loans museums do thorough provenance checks to confirm that the work may be legitimately loaned and also to include the work’s "biographical" information in the exhibition catalogue. Further, every museum is bound by its contractual obligation to maintain a borrowed work while in its custody and ensure its safe return to the lender. Charles Laurence of the Museum Security Network touched on another important factor in comments posted on the organization’s website on January 10, 1998. According to Laurence, the seizure of the Schiele works threatened to “destroy the system of trust underlying the exchange of art works for major international exhibitions.” The fact that we are talking about a loaned work of art rather than a work in the museum’s permanent collection is something that has been underplayed in the media coverage of this story, particularly in terms of what the borrowing institutions responsibilities include.
Sounds to me like (1) NPR was hasty in firing D'Arcy, given that MoMA had the opportunity to offer a comment in the report and the museum declined, (2) one could argue that, since the painting is now temporarily in MoMA's control, the museum is justified in taking no position on the ownership of the painting until the matter is decided by a court, and (3) one could also argue that MoMA failed to live up to its responsibility to investigate whether the lender in this case had the power to loan MoMA the painting; wouldn't a proper investigation have unearthed the Bondis' claim to the painting, making the lending museum's claim to ownership doubtful?
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