ArtCurious News This Week: August 12, 2022

August 12, 2022 Jennifer Dasal

Happy Friday, listeners! It’s Jennifer, ArtCurious host, back at you this week with our short-form Friday roundup of my favorite art history updates and interesting news tidbits. This is ArtCurious News this Week, and this gets you up to date on some of the latest goings-on in the realm of art history. Today is Friday, August 12, 2022.

This week’s stories:

Horniman Museum & Gardens: Horniman to return ownership of Benin bronzes to Nigeria

NBC News: Woman swindled elderly mother out of art worth $140M using ‘psychics’ who claimed it was cursed, police say

ArtNews: Archaeologists Rebury ‘First-of-Its-Kind’ Ancient Roman Villa in England One Year After Its Discovery

Getty Museum: Why Would We Rebury Ancient Sites?

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Episode Transcript

Alright. Today is Friday, August 12, 2022. And you might be tired of me chatting every week about artwork repatriation, but don’t be, because this is good, good news. Right now, museums seem to be taking the lead from each other more and more as pressure mounts for them to return cultural objects to their countries of origin around the world, with the objects known as the Benin Bronzes acting as the poster objects for this serious issue. I mentioned recently that several German and U.K. institutions have made headlines for their announcement of deals brokering the return of these objects to Nigeria, and this week it was announced that another small London-based museum, the Horniman Museum and Gardens, will be transferring seventy-two artifacts back to Nigeria. According to a press release on the Hormiman’s website, though only twelve brass plaques currently held by the Horniman are considered part of the so-called “Benin Bronzes,” the other objects are still considered to be vastly culturally valuable and consist of such diverse items as brass bells, fans, baskets, ivory carvings, and altarpieces. The process of the works began in January of this year when the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments formally requested that the Horniman begin research and both internal and external discussions of their collection with everyone from academics on down to schoolchildren visiting the museum, and from there, the repatriation decision was made. According to Eve Salomon, Chair of the Trustees of the Horniman Museum and Gardens, quote: “The evidence is very clear that these objects were acquired through force, and external consultation supported our view that it is both moral and appropriate to return their ownership to Nigeria. The Horniman is pleased to be able to take this step and we look forward to working with the NCMM to secure longer term care for these precious artefacts.” This comes, by the way, almost concurrently with another announcement this week that New York officials held a repatriation ceremony for 30 objects from Cambodia that had been illegally sold to both private and public collections. So keep it coming, everyone. I am so thankful that these conversations are happening more and more and that we seem to be hearing, on an almost weekly basis, about a new institution stepping forward to do the right thing. Yay!

My second story today is also good news. Don’t you love a feel-good Friday? Earlier this week, Brazilian police announced that they had recovered several stolen works by the Brazilian artist Tarsila do Amaral, including the 1929 painting Sol Poente, or Setting Sun, a piece worth more than $59 million. These paintings by do Amaral were included in a cache of artwork, jewelry, and cash that had purportedly been squirreled away by Sabine Coll Boghici, who had conned the owner of the pieces—her own mother, the 82-year-old Genevieve Boghici, out of. Genevieve Boghici is the wife of a late art dealer who had amassed one of the most impressive collections of modern art in all of Brazil. Now, the story of this con is interesting in and of itself. According to a statement released by the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro, Sabine Coll Boghici, working alongside a purported psychic, convinced her elderly mother that she—Sabine-- was in frail health and approaching death. She then extorted her mother to pay, quote, “exorbitant amounts for spiritual treatment,” involving healing practices by an Afro-Brazilian priestess. Her mother complied until she began to grow suspicious, ultimately refusing to pay—and then was threatened and confined to her home as retaliation. The property theft, including the artworks, was most likely completed by Sabine Boghici’s associates, and it is assumed that several individuals were involved in this scheme, with police having arrested Sabine Boghici and three others, and producing arrest warrants for at least two others.

If Tarsila do Amaral isn’t a name familiar to you, that’s totally okay—but I’d love to use this moment to share a little bit about her. She’s considered one of the most important modern painters from Brazil, having studied painting and draftsmanship professionally in Europe before returning to Brazil to establish her own nationalist style. Think of her, somewhat, as being to Brazil what Frida Kahlo or Diego Rivera are to Mexico: an artist who trained in the European modernist mode but ultimately used that background to produce something wholly unique, something wholly Brazilian in its language, colors, themes, and appearances. Sol Poente is a mesmerizing scene—a landscape with a radiating sun and green hills and trees—maybe even a cactus or two—and some blobby creatures swimming in the water below. It’s simplistic, and stunning, and was a key work in a retrospective exhibition—one of the first dedicated to this fascinating artist—at the Museum of Modern Art.

Alright, time to take a quick break for some brief words from today’s sponsors. But I’ll still be here after the break to share more with you, so stick with me.

Welcome back to ArtCurious, and our News this Week. For our last story today, we are heading across the pond again to the U.K., and talking about something that, on the surface, might seem like a bad thing, but is—again—another spot of good news, even though it feels like a bit of a head-scratcher. Just last year, in the town of Scarborough on England’s north coast, the ruins of an ancient Roman villa were discovered—a villa that was most probably the remains of an elite family, replete with a circular courtyard and a massive bathing complex the size of two tennis courts. They were uncovered last year when the area was being prepared for development, and are unique in terms of Roman design yet discovered in the U.K. The ruins made the news this week not because they were further excavated, but because—they were reburied, on the suggestion of the governmental preservation organization, Historic England, according to ArtNews. It seems a bit shocking to us to hear that an archaeological find, especially a significant one, is being covered right back up, especially only a year after its discovery, but it's not an uncommon practice. In the show notes and on my blog post today I’ll be linking to an awesome article on the Getty Museum’s website all about this interesting idea, which is all about the protection and preservation of such ancient structures. It keeps the ruins from being damaged by overtourism, vandalism and theft, and environmental factors, while potentially allowing future generations to complete further work and research on the site. The good news, too, is that the land is no longer being developed but will remain a public space dedicated to the ancient dwelling, which will include a, quote, “interpretive depiction” of the villa, according to developers.

Before we go today: guess what! To the best of my knowledge, there weren’t protests where people glued themselves to artworks this week. Yay!

Thanks for listening to this short-form news recap to round out our art historical knowledge here on ArtCurious. Just a quick note that I will not be releasing ArtCurious News This Week for the next two weeks—and the same goes for a few other dates this fall—as I will be traveling quite a bit over the next few months. But I promise I’ll be back in your earbuds again soon. As I mentioned previously, we are in the middle of prepping for our next round of episodes, but if you’re missing your traditional ArtCurious content while we are on break between seasons, definitely check us out on YouTube. This week’s episodes involve my upcoming trip to France next month and what I am most excited about doing there, and I released a video talking about what I really think of all these immersive art experiences. You know what I’m talking about—those Van Gogh projections you might have seen or read about that have been making such great use of empty warehouses everywhere. You can find those and all my videos by going to youtube.com/c/artcuriouspodcast, or by searching ArtCurious—one word—on YouTube. Until then, see you next week—and stay curious!