David Cohen Drops in...

Michael Fitts, last night at Penn's Paleastra
Photos: WritersClearinghouse News Service/Richard Carreño

At Michael Fitts's 'Hail
and Farewell' at Penn Law
... Slimmer and Taller
The PJ was invited to a 'hail and farewell,' held last night at  Penn's Palestra, honouring and celebrating the fourteen-year well-respected tenure of Michael Fitts as dean of Penn Law. (Michael will be the new president of Tulane University). Also in attendance was Penn President Amy Gutman and David Cohen, chairman of Penn's board, Comcast honcho, and all-round go-to Philly phixer. The PJ has never encountered Cohen in the flesh before. Surprisingly, there's less flesh to him -- up close and personal. Usually, in photos, he looks like he's going to pop. Also he's taller than I expected. More than six feet. In photos, he looks about 5-feet, four-inches.
--- RDC

Merry Christmas!

Dr. Richard Hodges addresses a press gaggle in previewing the new show at the Penn Museum.
Photos/Writers Clearinghouse News Service

Or a Period of Bliss

Maya Predict World's End 23 December
Time -- how the Maya calculated it, revered it, and predicted it -- is the theme of a new inter-active exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaelogy and Anthropology. It's the best thing the Penn Museum, under the direction of the brilliant Dr. Richard Hodges has done, in years. That's saying a lot since Hodges -- who alas is leaving for an academic post in Rome -- has transformed the museum to a worthy companion to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, only taking a back seat to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for curatorial skill in presenting ancient civilizations.

'Maya, 2012: Lords of Time' runs to 13 January 2013. If if all goes well, that is. According to the Maya calendar, doomsday will come two days before Christmas, as the Western calendar is calculated. Or, if not doomsday, the beginning of a period of bliss. Never mind, the Maya weren't sure.

This wonderful exhibit was curated by Dr. Loa Traxler and Simon Martin. Come to learn about Maya time. Come away learning about the Maya, uniquely different from the Aztec with whom they are often confused.

P.S. Got to wondering about the almost interchangeable usage of 'Maya' and 'Mayan' in the exhibit as noun and adjective. Actually, not so. 'Maya' is the noun and adjective for all things Maya, except their language which is Mayan. The meaning of 'Maya'? Native People.
-- Richard Carreño

SOS Preservation Tour



Part of the SOS walking tour




Early 19th
century cobblestones




David Traub, SOS facilator,
 welcomes the group
 (Photos: Richard Carreno
/Writers Clearinghouse)

 Walking into the Past

A warren of 'small' streets In Washington Square West became a setting for a fast rewind in time for a few hours this week as 21st century urban Philadelphia, highlighted by the hubhub of nearby Locust Street, receded into a 200-year-old labyrinth of twisted alleys and hidden walks from the early 19th century. It was an-only-in-Philly moment, enhanced by the city's uniquely pristine housing stock from long ago. For about 30 members and friends of Save Our Sites (SOS), who meandered through the nearly 10-street area Sunday, all that was missing was an official 'All aboard!,' inviting the group to step into the time capsule afternoon tour.

'I've walked these streets many times before,' said one SOS member on the Sunday tour. 'But this is the first time I've seen the true history of these buildings.'


For SOS, however, one concern had a particularly modern twist. The group is concerned that a 'stub' of one street might be rezoned for private use.

Also highlighting the tour, principally around 11th Street, was a visit to the visit to the Mask and Wig club, a private theatrical group made up of students from the University of Pennsylvania.
-- Writers Clearinghouse News Service, edited by Justin Carreno

The Philadelphia Junto depends exclusively on reader support. Please help us continue by contributing directly via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via Writers.Clearinghouse@comcast.net. Empowered by Writers Clearinghouse | S.P.Q.R. 1976

At Penn Museum

'Mummies' the Word
With graceful eyelashes, long flaxen hair and serene expression, the "Beauty of Xiaohe" seems to have just softly fallen to sleep—yet she last closed her eyes nearly 4,000 years ago. She was found in 2003, one of hundreds of spectacularly preserved mummies buried in the desert sands of the vast Tarim Basin, in the Far Western Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. This "Beauty of Xiaohe" and more than 100 objects, 700 to 3,800 years old, travel for the first time ever to the East Coast, where 'Secrets of the Silk Road' opened yesterday at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology for a run through 5 June before returning to China.


'Secrets of the Silk Road' was organized by the Bowers Museum, Santa Ana, California, in association with the Archaeological Institute of Xinjiang and the Urumqi Museum, began its U.S. tour of the Bowers Museum before moving to the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences.

Penn Museum's exhibition will provide a new context for the 'Secrets of the Silk Road' material, drawing upon the rich history of Central Asia's Tarim Basin desert, and the mystery of the peoples who lived there or passed through so long ago. Opportunities to "Unravel the Secrets" draw visitors into some of the issues, and discoveries, that engage scholars today. New interactive components in the exhibition are designed to engaged visitors of all ages with the ancient artifacts and principal themes; what can the variety of textiles made and traded in the rgion, an astonishing range of languages, and exceptionally preserved mummification, reveal about this region of the Silk Road? A full schedule of complementary Silk Road programming, designed for diverse ages and intersts, continues throughout the exhibition.

The new presentation was developed by the Penn Museum's exhibition team in close collaboration with Victor Mair, Penn Museum consulting scholar and professor of Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Mair is the 'Secrets of the Silk Road' catalog editor and a curatorial consultant. Credited with "rediscovering" the Tarim Basin mummies for the West on a trip to the region in the 1980s, Dr. Mair has engaged in intensive research on Xinjiang archaeology since then.

"This traveling exhibition of materials from half way around the world is opening new doors—providing visitors with an unparalleled opportunity to come face to face, literally, with life in East Central Asia, both before and after the formation of the fabled Silk Routes that began more than 2,000 years ago," said Dr. Mair.

'Secrets of the Silk Road' includes two mummies and the full burial trappings of a third, representative of three different periods of time: the much celebrated, six foot six inch "Yingpan Man," ca 3rd-4th century AD, with his gold-foil and white mask and opulent robes (the mummified remains of his body were too fragile to travel); an infant, ca 8th century BC, wrapped in a still vibrant blue bonnet and burgundy woolen shroud similar to that found in northern Europe; and the spectacular, just recently discovered, 3,800-year-old "Beauty of Xiaohe," whose state of preservation and attractiveness are startling.

Upon first encountering these mummies, Dr. Mair and other scientists realized the potentially enormous implications of these astonishingly well-preserved human remains for migration and interactions at this central meeting point of Europe and Asia so long ago. The material buried with these men, women and children, as well as their perfectly preserved clothing, bears a striking resemblance to mummies found in Siberia to the North, and Persia and Europe to the West. Even more surprising is that these mummies span a period of more than 3,000 years, providing a glimpse into the lives and culture of the ancient Silk Road traders, who are, based on new DNA research, an intriguing mix of people from all over Eurasia.

In addition to the mummies, the exhibition features more than 100 objects that offer insight into the long and diverse cultural heritage of Central Asia—a crossroads of the Silk Road. These include an array of well-preserved clothing, textiles, wooden and bone implements, coins and documents. Along with gem-encrusted gold vessels, masks, jewelry, accessories and other objects, and even preserved foods, such as wonton and flower-shaped desserts, the collection reflects the wide extent of the Silk Road trade, with strong Mediterranean influences as well as goods from ancient China.

The discovery of these ancient people along the Silk Road has helped scholars better understand the settlement of ancient Central Asia and has opened up a window to understanding the very early exchange of important technologies, life-improving inventions, and ideas and customs—including what may be the world's first sunglasses—being practiced in the inhospitable lands of the Tarim Basin where East meets West. The advanced metallurgy and textile traditions of these mystery mummies are of particular note, according to archaeologists.

The Silk Road, which scholars date from China's Han Dynasty in the late second century BC to about AD 1400, was aptly named because of the vast amounts of silk and other merchandise—spices, gold, precious metals and stones, ivory, glass, exotic animals, furs, ceramics, jade, laquer, iron and plants—that were carried back and forth between East and West. Many goods were bartered for others along the route, and objects often changed hands several times. Artifacts in the exhibition both span the 1,500-year period of the famous route, and, in the case of early mummy burial goods, pre-date the historical Silk Road.

The exhibition is accompanied by a full-color catalog authored by a team responsible for much of what is known outside of China about these mummies and their culture, including Dr. Mair; Spencer Wells, director, National Geographic Society's Genographic Project; Dr. Elizabeth Barber, noted expert on ancient textiles, Occidental College; and Lothar von Falkenhausen, professor, art history and archaeology, UCLA.

The Penn Museum presentation of this exhibition is made possible, in part, through the generosity of Lois and Robert Baylis; the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation; the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Host Hotels and Resorts; A. Bruce and Margaret Mainwaring; Alexandra and Eric J. Schoenberg, Ph.D., the Selz Foundation, and Titan. The Henry Luce Foundation and the Center for Ancient Studies, University of Pennsylvania, are sponsors of the international symposium March 19, 2011. Annette Merle-Smith, the PNC Foundation, Subaru of America, and the Wachovia-Wells Fargo Foundation sponsored Education initiatives for the exhibition.

Museum Mile

On and Off Philly's Museum Row

By Richard Carreno

[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

Stephen Starr --

At the Philadelphia Museum of Art
New * resto opens
The Philadelphia Museum of Art's restaurant has been rechristened Granite Hill, and is now open for lunch and dinner. The restaurant, formerly operated by the gargantuan New York-based caterer, Restaurant Associates, is now part of the local chain run by resto mogul Stephen Starr. On offer are 'modern twists on classic bistro fare.'
Pistoletto gets solo show
More than 100 paintings and sculptures by Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto will be featured in the artist's first solo show in the United States in more than 20 years. The exhibition, 'From One to Man, 1956-1974,' debuts 2 November. Pistoletto was 'at the center of sweeping change in postwar Italy, and his influence persists today as one of Europe's most innovative contemporary artists.'
Thomas Eakins in LA
If you've already seen Thomas Eakins newly refurbished The Gross Clinic, and are looking for a different thematic twist from the artist, a trip to Los Angeles might be in order. Pictures by 19th century Philadelphia artist, emphasizing the Eakins' keen interest in physical sport, will be on display through 24 October at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The show is titled 'Manly Pursuits: The Sporting Images of Thomas Eakins.' Of course, at home, the PMA also boasts many pictures along these lines in its permanent Easkins collection, the largest anywhere.

At the Academy of Natural Sciences
Philly's Best Museum?
The Academy has been voted the Philadelphia region's 'best' museum in beauty poll run by something called the 'Philly Hot List.' A total of 93,217 votes were cast, according to Philly Hot List, with Museum Mile's Academy garnering top spot. No vote breakdown was announced. Runners-up in popularity, in slots two to five, were the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology in University City, the Mutter Museum at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia in Center City, the Glencairn Museum in Huntington Valley, and, in fifth place, the Wagner Free Institute in North Philadelphia, near the Temple University campus.

At the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Art-at-Lunch Lecture Series Announced

PAFA's very popular noon-time lecture series will feature almost a dozen art talks this fall through December. A talk on Andy Warhol, 'The Artist of and his Critics,' will be held next, 20 October. Talks in the series, free to the public, are held every Wednesday.

At the Tyler School of Art

Tyler sponsors performance at PMA

A performance by Russian-born artist Yevgeniy Fiks, titled a 'Communist Tour of the Philadelphia Museum of Art' and which includes a tour of some of the PMA's permanent collection, will be conducted Friday, 15 October, in a program sponsored by Tyler, Temple University's art school. Those wishing to attend the performance should meet at 5:30 pm in Gallery 161 (Resnick Rotunda), at the entrance of the Modern and Contemporary Art Galleries. Fiks, who now lives in New York, will make connections with modern artists represented in the museum collections and 20th century Communism. The tour is open to the public and is free after paying the museum's admission fee. Admission is free to Tyler students with identification.

At the Institute of Contemporary Art

'Whenever Wednesday' sponsors 'travelog'

The ICA's ongoing 'Whenever Wednesday' program will kick off a 'staycation' lecture series of travelogs on art centers throughout the world. The first lecture, at 6:30 pm on 20 October, will be offered by Virginija Januskeviciute, a curator at the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, Lithuania. Also featured in the series will be arts venues in Singapore, Beirut, Paris, and in Santiago. Admission is free to all.

At the National Constitution Center

New Journalism Prize Sponsored

The NCC, in conjunction with the Peter Jennings Project for Journalists and the Constitution, will sponsor a new eponymous journalism prize that honors the late television reporter and ABC news anchor. The Jennings prize, which carries a $5,000 award, will be given to a journalist whose work 'illuminates the Constitution's centrality to American identity and life,' according to NCC spokesperson Ashley Berke. The prize will be awarded annually. The deadline for entries for the 2011 prize is 1 November. The winner will be announced in March during a Jennings project program that will conducted at the NCC.

Ex-FBI Agent Followed the 'Monet'

Museum Crooks
'Dis-Art-ened'
by Ex-FBI Agent

Bob Wittman, right, at Penn Museum/Photo Richard Carreno 

By Richard Carreño

Junto Senior Staff Writer Bio
Robert K. Wittman returned to the scene of the crime.

As an ex-FBI special agent, based in Philadelphia, Bob Wittman's presence at a former crime scene isn't unusual. The site, at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, across from Penn's Franklin Field, might raise more than a few sceptical eyebrows, however.

As Wittman recounted last week, the Penn Museum, in 1991, was in fact the site of one of the boldest art heists in memory. And solved.

That solved part, according to Wittman's retelling of his derring-do as Federal Bureau of Investigation's first, full-time art crime investigator, is what distinguishes some monster art thefts from others. Just a year earlier, in Boston, thieves walked off with some Rembrandts, a Vermeer, and five sketches by Degas from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a private treasure house that's akin to the Barnes Foundation. Quirky, defiant in its nontraditional showcasing, and a total reflection of its founder, Boston Brahmin Isabella Gardner.

The stolen Gardner museum art, valued at jaw-dropping $500 million, dwarfed the Penn Museum theft, merely pegged at $500,000. (Wittman also had a huge hand in working the Gardner case, as well).

Yet, some walls at the Gardner are still bare; Mrs. Gardner, ever the grande dame, ordained that only art she personally collected could grace her townhouse and gallery.

At Penn, on the other hand, museum administrators are still exuberant that their stolen objects, a 19th century Chinese crystal orb and a 5,000-year-old bronze of Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead, are back in their rightful places.

Anyway, according to the 54-year Wittman, who retired last year after 20 years as one of the world's most prominent art sleuths, stolen art isn't about monetary values. It's about stealing history and a culture's patrimony. All great art and historical artifacts are, in a word, 'priceless,' says Wittman, who was signing copies of his recently published memoir as a globe-trotting art hunter. (He now runs his own suburban Philadelphia security firm, catering to art museums and insurance companies).

The book, published by Crown, is titled, not surprisingly, Priceless.

Wittman, founder of the FBI's Philadelphia-based Art Crime Team, was sitting, appropriately enough, in front of the 45-pound crystal orb that he recovered, now reinstalled in its original place of honor in the museum's rotunda. (A glass case, ahem, is new).

Just minutes before, Wittman was regaling a packed audience on how the orb was discovered and how that find again proved the rightness of one of his favorite investigative dicta, 'Better to be lucky than smart.' (Another is, 'You can't make this stuff up.')

A burly six-footer, Wittman looks cop. Still, with a ready smile and infectious laugh, you can also see how Wittman managed over the years, while hunting stolen pieces from such disparate parts as Paris, Miami, New Mexico, and -- one of his favorites -- the New Jersey Turnpike, could finagle the confidence of the bad guys he was dealing with.

He also has an unpretentious, street-smart demeanor. (That aspect is marvelously captured in the 'voice' you hear when reading Priceless, thanks to Wittman's co-author John Shiffman, a Philadelphia Inquirer Washington-based reporter).

Wittman got his start in art recovery by happenstance, as a rookie agent in 1988. Again, it was a Philadelphia institution, the Rodin Museum branch of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Stolen was Rodin's iconic piece, the Mask of the Man with the Broken Nose. Besides being his first art case, the heist was remarkable for being the only one of the scores he's been involved wherein a firearm was discharged. (No one was hurt).

The sculpture was recovered, following a tip. Better to be lucky than smart.

From there, thinking that art investigations might be a whole lot more interesting that busting an endless stream of drug dealers, Wittman decided to get a bit smarter about fine art -- the difference between Manet and Monet, for starters -- by enrolling in an enrichment course at the Barnes Foundation. (Wittman's hagiographical appraisal of Albert Barnes, in the book, is a passage, by the way, you can skip).

From there, too, starting in 2005, he developed the Art Crime Team, based in Philadlphia and now with 13 agents tackling what Wittman described as a $6 billion illegal, worldwide trade in art and antiquities. Why Philadelphia? For no other reason that was Wittman himself was posted and where he relied on officials of the Penn Museum, the Barnes Foundation, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art as resources.

According to Wittman's tally, his investigations reclaimed more than $225 million in stolen goods. Cases were as far-flung as Europe, Philadelphia (the Pennsylvania Historical Society an the National Constitution Center also figure in his tale), and, yes, the Jersey Turnpike, where in 1997 he negotiated for the 'purchase' of a 2,000-year-old indigenous Peruvian 'backflap' in solid gold. (This, too, was recovered, and was returned to Lima -- after its only American public viewing at the Penn Museum). 

And to Trenton, where thanks to a yet another tipster, he found the crystal orb, in the bedroom of a self-described witch. The woman had covered it with baseball cap, thinking that 'glass ball' was worthless. You can't make this stuff up.

In all, Priceless is an insightful look into the merchanics of art theft investigation.

Wittman puts the lie to any glamourous notions regarding art thieves. Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief? Pierce Brosnan in the Thomas Crown Affair? Hardly. In reality, they'e loser types, pumped up with 'beer muscles.' 

Is art stolen on commission? he was asked. Sure, said Wittman. But generally, not by rich art patrons. The wealthy can afford the real thing. At the end of the day, Wittman noted, insurance companies are the ones 'holding the bag.'

Other maxims seem intuitive, though not always adhered to. One example hit home. Many years ago, while as editior at Massachusetts daily, the house of the newspaper's owner was robbed of more than a dozen French Impressionist paintings. The cop shop reporter filed the story, and we scheduled the straight-forward report as a above-the-fold Page 1 story. That is until the paper's managing editor spiked the story.

The ME was being too politic by half. The next day, the heist story ran with a banner head. To hinder resale, the owner's insurance company in fact encouraged widespread publicity. And the ME was taken to woodshed by the paper's publisher.

Rewards? These can cut two ways, according to Wittman. Sometimes they draw out a glut of wannabe tipsters, clogging the investigation with dead-end leads.

'Stuff' like this is revealing and riveting. When Wittman -- cum Shiffman -- dabble into Wittman's personal and family life, things start to lag. Some gaffes also fall through the cracks. repetition runs rampant.The Revolutionary War financier is Robert Morris, not Roger Morris. Also, the book would have been a much better resource if an index had been included.

That said, you can't make this stuff up. And Wittman didn't.

Wittman has another talk scheduled at 7:30 pm June 22 at the main branch of the Free Library, 1901 Vine Street. Admission is free.

(Richard Carreño can be reached via Writers.Clearinghouse@comcast.net).

Library Science

The Libraries of Philadelphia

The Fisher Fine Arts Library at Penn. Designed by Frank Furness.

8 February 2009

JUNTO PHOTOS:RICHARD CARRENO

Gallery:

The University of Pennsylvania