The Denver Artwork Museum (DAM), desperate to purge traces of institutional deference to colonialism, final 12 months eliminated all references to Christopher Columbus from its collections.
This spring, after a scathing exposé in its native newspaper, the museum excised the identify of its late benefactor Emma C. Bunker from its Arts of Asia gallery, for which Bunker’s household had raised cash. The museum additionally closed down an acquisition fund in her identify. However Bunker can be a tough presence to expunge completely in Denver, if the museum wished to. Her reminiscence continues to be a presence in different departments the place she donated objects.
A veteran writer on Asian artwork and a longtime donor to the museum, Bunker died in 2021 on the age of 90. Her father-in-law, Ellsworth Bunker, had been US ambassador to Vietnam from 1967 to 1973, when Richard Nixon ordered the bombing of Cambodia.
The rationale the museum eliminated Emma Bunker’s identify was due to her work with Douglas Latchford (1931-2020), a vendor primarily based in Bangkok and a infamous smuggler of artwork who bought sculptures looted from temples in Cambodia and Thailand. She co-wrote books with Latchford on Cambodian artwork that consultants now say have been crammed with false provenances.
Bunker was related to the museum for many years, throughout which period she introduced works bought from Latchford into the gathering. 4 of these works have been returned to Cambodia. There may very well be extra. The US Division of Homeland Safety is claimed to be investigating sculptures (together with one now in Denver) from a web site in Thailand close to the Cambodian border.
The veteran author was herself recognized to regulation enforcement. In a 2021 grievance in US District Court docket focusing on Latchford, and detailing Bunker’s personal efforts to mislead investigators, federal prosecutors in New York referred to as her “The Scholar” and, with out naming her, recognized her as a volunteer analysis guide who “facilitated the sale and donation” of looted objects, “together with by vouching for his or her provenance.”
Bunker was additionally referred to as “The Scholar” and recognized by identify in earlier US efforts to recuperate looted objects from Sotheby’s in 2012, and from the vendor Nancy Wiener in 2011. Within the latter case, Bunker offered a false provenance for a stolen bronze Buddha that Latchford bought to Wiener for $500,000.
An in depth sequence on her double life, revealed by Sam Tabachnik within the Denver Put up final December, introduced this long-running cultural saga to a wider viewers. His story of Emma Bunker’s adventures with Latchford additionally introduced the Denver Artwork Museum extra consideration than it has had since 2006, when it opened a metal constructing with shiny spikes designed by the architect Daniel Libeskind.
So has the museum now entered a post-Bunker period? Not if transparency is the usual. The establishment turned down a request from The Artwork Newspaper to interview its director, however a press consultant famous by e-mail that “the museum’s accumulating insurance policies are in alignment with AAM and AAMD greatest practices, and have developed in lockstep with the museum area… The Denver Artwork Museum is dedicated to moral accumulating practices, and has a monitor file of working proactively and collaboratively with US and overseas governments to return artworks confirmed to belong to a different nation or particular person.”
The museum additionally declined to speak to Tabachnik of the Denver Put up over the 12 months that he spent writing his sequence on Bunker and artwork smuggling. “There was no dialog. They by no means spoke to me. They by no means gave me an interview,” he stated. Nor would members of the Denver Artwork Museum board speak to Tabachnik.
The Cambodian authorities can also be searching for a larger stage of transparency from the Denver Artwork Museum, famous Bradley J. Gordon, a lawyer for the Kingdom of Cambodia. Talking by telephone from that nation, he stated that his consumer is keen to learn about some other objects that left Cambodia and handed underneath Bunker’s eye. Gordon says Bunker helped make the DAM “a laundromat for looted objects,” which then handed into museums and personal collections.
“For us, the disappointing scenario in the intervening time is that Denver has nonetheless not handed over any provenance paperwork,” he stated. “For our analysis, it’s vital to have as many paperwork as we will.”
“Any kind of documentation that they’ve referring to Cambodian artifacts is useful to us. However they’ve been silent,” Gordon famous. “We’re not getting any data from them in any respect.”
The museum countered in an announcement that it has labored immediately with the US Justice Division: “The museum has executed so, together with offering all information to the DOJ concerning the returned items.”
For the Cambodians, that’s not sufficient. “The DAM had stolen antiquities, and now they’ve been returned. They need to be helping us to higher perceive how these stolen antiquities bought to the museum,” stated Gordon, “The story’s not over but. They’ve the chance to do the appropriate factor now.”
