CPAC – Building A Wall Against Art Part I: How the Executive Branch Controls US Access to Art and Artifacts

"The art world is dominated today by stories about spectacular multi-million dollar sales of contemporary artworks at shows and auction houses. Yet the market for ancient and ethnographic artworks has no such lofty expectations. There are far fewer important ancient artworks offered at auction in the US than just a decade ago, and there are fewer foreign exhibitors (or even American galleries) willing to show at major antique fairs in New York.

Already, US authorities’ aggressive seizures of artworks from long-held collections and the unprecedented number of prosecutions based upon foreign laws that nationalize virtually all antique artworks have made art dealers, collectors, and museums hyper-cautious. These enforcement actions threaten to end the once-dominant New York market in global antique and tribal art....Objects that can be proven to have been collected before 1970 are categorized as “good” for marketing, collecting and museum acquisition purposes. Objects without proof of collection date or collected post-1970 are “bad.”"
Quoted from this article, please read: Click here.

Trump Administration Proposed Tariffs on Chinese Art & Proposed Extension of Existing MOU.

The importing of Chinese art from China has been regulated since 2009 by a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that is set to be renewed soon, through 2024. It is my opinion, and that of many other experts and commercial & non-profit institutions in the U.S., that this ban is not appropriate. The ban covers virtually all items through the Tang Dynasty and wall decoration and monumental sculpture more than 250 years old.
See the discussion on why this MOU should not be renewed posted by Cultural Property News here.

In addition, "ordinarily, there are no customs duties on art or antiques. It is considered in the public interest to bring art and literature to the U.S., so in the past, no duties were imposed on foreign art or books. The Trump administration is changing that, at least for art and antiques from China. This is one of the more bizarre stories in the tariff saga, since a tariff on antiques will please the Chinese government and reinforce its global dominance and monopoly on Chinese art. Artworks, antiques, and historical and archaeological collections are included in the Trump administration’s proposed 10% retaliatory tariff on an additional $200 billion of China imports....it is clear that the proposed tariff on Chinese art only punishes U.S. collectors, dealers, and art museums – not the Chinese, who requested import restrictions on art and antiques up to 1912 in the first place!" (quoted from Cultural Property News July 19, 2018).
The article includes a link on how individuals can comment on these proposed tariffs, which must be received by August 17, 2018.

Provenance and Plunder at Museums

Aljazeera recently reported on an interesting story of interest to Asian art collectors of antiquities.
Provenance and plunder: What museums won't tell us. On how Western museums encourage and abet the smuggling of antiquities.
For the article, click here.
The next time you visit museums, consider what the labels do not say about where the art came from. As the article notes, "Museums fight against having to reveal the provenance of objects precisely because they know that many of the objects in their vast collections have illicit histories behind them."
That being said, it is important to remember that decades ago when museums began acquiring Asian pieces, the world was a different place and removal to a museum often saved pieces from ruin.

NEW U.S. Government Very Restrictive Ivory (and Other Endangered Species) Sales Regulations

The biggest concern in the Asian art market (and the antiques market generally) at present is the overly restrictive new regulation of the sale of objects made from endangered species (including ivory) that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has enacted this year, known as Director's Order #210, along with even more restrictive regulations promulgated by several states including New York and New Jersey (that other states are now considering). These new rules make it virtually illegal for auction houses and dealers to sell and ship most antique ivory artifacts.They are in the process of being modified, however.

A lot has been written about this by critics in the art world recently. Among the best and most concise is a commentary by Lark Mason, published in the ART NEWSPAPER, #262, Nov. 2014.
See also a short report on the NY regulations regarding the "deceptive" ivory trade, June 18, 2014, by attorney Michael McCullough of the law firm  Pearlstein & McCullough

The US Fish & Wildlife Service has a web page with useful images to help distinguish ivory from other types of animal tusks. But still this is hard for novices to do and I recommend that when in doubt, consult an expert.

For information on the ongoing saga of these regulations see the website FIXESA.ORG

CT Loo, Famed Prewar Chinese Art Dealer, Son of a Peasant Opium Addict

The Financial Times has an interesting article today: CT Loo: champion of Chinese art ... or villain?

Among the many famous pieces he sold to museums worldwide is this mural at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, that I and my friends who studied at Kansas have studied and admired for decades.

NY Times article THE CURSE OF THE OUTCAST ARTIFACT

Provenance (the history of past ownership) has great importance when assessing value of ancient Chinese arts. That is because dealers and auction house are increasingly unwilling to accept objects for sale and museums are not accepting them as gifts if acquisition history cannot be documented prior to 1970 (the year a United Nations convention on looted antiquities took effect). On July 12, 2012, the New York Times published a story on this situation: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/arts/design/antiquity-market-grapples-with-stricter-guidelines-for-gifts.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1

Asia Society Forum on Collecting Ancient Art in the 21st Century

I recently attended a 2-hour forum at the Asia Society in NY in which a panel of experts including museum directors and curators, art dealers, academic specialists, collectors, and a former officer with the Department of Homeland Security discussed issues relating to the collecting and displaying of ancient Asian art. I found the discussions incredibly informative and have already found a summary of it and a video of the entire program posted to a website.