Saturday, January 26, 2008

Complicity

In my post yesterday on the California antiquities raids, I mentioned a quote from Lee Rosenbaum: "This may well turn out to be an ART-MARKET scandal, but the degree of intentional complicity by MUSEUMS in this mess is not yet known."

Well, today's New York Times has a story headlined "Museum Workers are Called Complicit," which says: "Affidavits related to search warrants executed at four Southern California museums on Thursday say that staff members at two of the four museums worked closely with the main targets of the investigation, visiting a storage locker maintained by a smuggler of stolen antiquities and meeting with the sellers of stolen goods — even while acknowledging that the artifacts headed for the museums might be tainted."