Abstract
Despite being issued by one of the two main professional associations for museums in the United States, the efficacy and limitations of the American Alliance of Museums’ (AAM) “Standards Regarding Archaeological Material and Ancient Art” remain largely unstudied. Issued in 2008, the AAM’s guidelines establish mechanisms for public accountability: (1) museums should maintain a publicly available collection policy; (2) if a museum acquires an object that does not comply with the guidelines, it should be transparent about why the museum has deemed it appropriate to do so; and (3) museums should make all ownership information for archaeological and ancient material accessible to the public. Over the course of a year, we contacted 67 AAM member museums to survey whether they complied with each mechanism and to what extent. The responses showed that compliance with the AAM’s guidelines is significantly lacking, and transparency is—alarmingly, though unsurprisingly—not a priority in small museums. Using the David Owsley Museum of Art as a case study, this chapter will discuss our findings and the dangers unregulated acquisitions in small museums can pose to cultural heritage preservation and art market integrity.
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Notes
- 1.
The AAM, founded in 1906, currently represents around 4000 institutions and offers professional network opportunities as well as training for various museum departments (AAM, 2021a). As discussed further below, the AAM issued guidelines for the ethical acquisition and possession of antiquities in 2008 (AAM Board of Directors, 2008). The AAMD, founded in 1916, currently has 227-member museum directors, split among museums in the United States, Canada, and Mexico (AAMD, 2021). The AAMD has promulgated a Code of Ethics as well as standards on topics such as deaccessioning art from museum collections, the use of intellectual property in museums’ digital initiatives, and the relationship between museums and corporate sponsors (AAMD, 2006).
- 2.
Provenance is the detailed ownership history of a work of art or artefact, ideally starting at the time of the object's creation, but usually beginning with the time of recovery from an archaeological site, or earliest known existence (possession) of the item, to present (Bankoff, 2012). Unprovenanced antiquities are archaeological objects that do not have a documented record of discovery, export, and ownership.
- 3.
For six of the non-responsive institutions, we were unable to locate a different email address for a relevant staff member. In those instances, we called the museums to attempt to speak directly with staff. We did not receive a response from those institutions.
- 4.
Of the 29 museums that did not answer our question about whether or not they had an antiquities collection policy, 21 museums did not answer our inquiry at all. The remaining eight museums responded but did not address this question specifically.
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Appendix
Appendix
For this study, we contacted the following 67 museums that are members of the AAM (but not the AAMD) and have antiquities in their permanent collection.
Alice C. Sabatini Gallery, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library | Doris Ullman Galleries, Berea College |
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin 1College; Amarillo Museum of Art | Drexel Collection; Fairfield University Museum |
American Museum of Ceramic Art | Fine Arts Collection at UC Davis; Fitchburg Art Museum |
Appleton Museum, College of Central Florida | Fleming Museum, University of Vermont |
Arnot Art Gallery; Art Complex Museum | Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College |
Art Museum of the University of Memphis | Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art |
Asia Society Museum, New York | Fresno Art Museum; Glencairn Museum |
Bates Museum of Art; Binghamton University Art Museum | Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Queens College |
Colorado College Fine Arts Center | Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University |
Colorado State University Museum | Hispanic Society |
Crow Museum of Asian Art, University of Texas at Dallas | Hofstra University Museum of Art |
Cummer Museum | Huntington Museum of Art (West Virginia) |
David Owsley Museum of Art, Ball State University | Hyde Collection |
Davis Museum, Wellesley | James E Lewis Museum of Art |
Denison Museum | Krannert Art Museum |
DePauw Art Collection | Kruizenga Art Museum, Hope College |
La Salle University Art Museum | Pomona College Museum of Art |
Longwood Center for the Visual Arts, Longwood University | Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art |
Louisiana State University Museum of Art | Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum at Hamilton College |
Mandeville Gallery, Union College | Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery of Scripps College |
Maridon Museum | Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art State University of New York at New Paltz |
Mead Art Museum at Amherst College | Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art, Tulsa; Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame |
Miami University Art Museum | Staten Island Museum |
Middlebury College Museum of Art | Taubman Museum of Art |
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum | Trout Gallery, Dickinson College |
Museum of Indian Arts & Culture (Museum of New Mexico) | Tucson Museum of Art |
National Museum of Mexican Art | University of Colorado Boulder Art Museum |
Newcomb Museum of Tulane | University of Southern California Pacific Asia Museum |
Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University | University of Wyoming Art Museum |
Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University | |
Polk Museum of Art, Florida Southern College |
We initially contacted nine additional museums, but removed them from the study after learning that the AAM guidelines were not relevant to them for various reasons, including that they had not collected antiquities from outside the United States.
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Thompson, E., Priest, M. (2021). Small Museums, Big Problems. In: Oosterman, N., Yates, D. (eds) Crime and Art. Studies in Art, Heritage, Law and the Market, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84856-9_12
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