Showing 1 result for the tag: Chading Aphrodite.

June 13, 2012

Chasing Aphrodite – calling into question the place museums occupy in our society

Posted at 5:54 pm in Similar cases

Another review of Chasing Aphrodite, The book about the problems of looted artefacts in their collection that have plagued the Getty Museum for the last decade.

From:
Paste

By Chaz Oreshkov
Chasing Aphrodite by Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino
The Art of Looting
Published at 12:32 PM on June 12, 2012

“To me my works of art are all vividly alive. They’re the embodiment of whoever created them—a mirror of their creator’s hopes, dreams and frustrations. They have led eventful lives—pampered by the aristocracy and pillaged by revolution, courted with ardor and cold-bloodedly abandoned. They have been honored by drawing rooms and humbled by attics. So many worlds in their lifespan, yet all were transitory. What stories they could tell, what sights they must have seen! Their worlds have long since disintegrated, yet they live on.”—J. Paul Getty, The Collector’s Choice

Artifacts belong in museums. We know this much from Indiana Jones’ epic words at the beginning of Last Crusade, when he yells (on a sinking ship in the middle of a typhoon, no less) “That belongs in a museum!” to another explorer who wants to keep an artifact for private use.
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