vending machines

Around the world with 26 of the weird and wonderful.

And coming to a lobby near someone soon...

This isn't that modern, incidentally. 

According to wiki, a first century engineer and mathematician, Hero of Alexandria, invented a device that accepted a coin and dispensed holy water.  (The deposited coin fell on a pan attached to a lever;  the lever then opened a valve which let water flow out.)  Also, in the early 1600s, English taverns already contained vending machines that dispensed tobacco.

As for banned goods of the "weirder yet," an 1800s English bookseller named Richard Carlile devised a vending machine that distributed forbidden literature.  Mr. Carlile was an important champion for freedom of the press;  he was jailed in England for his writing, and prosecuted for publishing Thomas Paine's Common Sense, The Rights of Man and the Age of Reason.

*Photo credit, via Wikipedia, Minnesota Historical Society, "This vending machine was made by National Vendors, Inc., of 50555 Natural Bridge, St. Louis 15, Missouri, circa 1952, though there appear to be patent dates on the machine as late as 1960."

kwakwah

The Los Angeles Annenberg foundation turns out to be one of the mysterious bidders in another controversial Paris auction of sacred Native American artifacts, this time selling off 24 antique masks from the Hopi and 3 from the San Carlos Apache tribes based in Arizona.  A French court ruled last December that an earlier contested auction could legally proceed, and in this case, the French court ruled similarly.

As reported at this blog, tribal members and supporters protested in France last April, since the masks - also known as Katsinam - are held by indigenous peoples to be real, sacred beings with a value that precludes sale as art. The Katsinam are also described as stolen during the early 20th century.

In a surprising twist of good news though, the kind that restores faith in humanity, it turns out that the charitable Annenberg organization intended all along to restore these pieces to the tribes in question - and had moved in on the auction with exactly that purpose.  A suspenseful short story, whereby secret French and English-speaking operatives, along with the tribes' attorney (via Survival International), collaboratively triumphed in the bidding war, ultimately making off with 21 Hopi artifacts and all three San Carlos Apache for 530,000 dollars.

In further good news, one of the three remaining artifacts was incidentally purchased by a private couple also intending to repatriate their acquisition to the Hopi.

The masks were made during the 19th and early 20th century.  Like many of the artifacts in dispute, they are used in religious ceremonies and eventually "retired or left to disintegrate naturally."  One Hopi protester said in April that children are not even supposed to look at them, and some websites report that display in photographs and media is offensive, though the images have been widely circulating throughout the internet.

Robert Redford leveraged his well-known voice in the protests, calling the auctions, "criminal."

From Huffpost:

The U.S. Embassy had also called for a delay so that tribal representatives could come to France to identify the artifacts and investigate whether they have a claim under the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, to which both France and the U.S. are signatories.

A widely noticed and magnificent Angwusnasomtaqa or Tumas Crow Mother, shown here in April's post, and variously reported as sold for 171,000 or 210,000 dollars, was among those acquired at the earlier auction in April when Reuters described another mysterious collector who suggested that he might one day "give some back."

Unfortunately, that was not an Annenberg operative.

As for this caper, if you will, Hopi katsina priest Sam Tenakhongva thanked Annenberg, attorney Pierre Servan-Schreibert, and Survival International, while asserting that no one should "have to buy back their sacred property."

“Hopefully," he said, "this gesture [of Annenberg's] is the beginning of a larger conversation to discuss and inform various communities about what is sacred and what is for sale.  Although we were disappointed in the decision of the court which allowed the sale to proceed, we will continue to work to protect our cultural heritage on behalf of our Hopi people and others."  He added, "Our hope is that this act sets an example for others that items of significant cultural and religious value can only be properly cared for by those vested with the proper knowledge and responsibility. They simply cannot be put up for sale."

Annenberg reports that the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act gives federally recognized Native American tribes a way to reclaim "funerary objects from federal agencies and museums in the U.S.," but that the law does not apply to items held internationally.

The Navajo Observer reported on December 10th that 6 similarly contested items from the Zuni tribe in New Mexico were also up for sale at the December 9th and 11th Paris auctions at Eve Auction House.


*Photo credit/via Voice of America/Reuters,  Following a French court's ruling, Hopi and San Carlos Apache masks are displayed at an auction house in Paris, April 11, 2013.  Most will be returned to the groups following purchases by the Annenberg Foundation and a private couple. 

antique egg poacher

An antique egg poaching stand in action (video below) via the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans.  The museum just opened the first pubic library in the south devoted entirely to southern culinary literature, and is also housing The Menu Project, collecting menus from restaurants throughout the southern United States. 

20,000 leagues under the sea

A photostream of the remarkable South Philly home of Adam Wallacavage, militant ornamentalist and father of octopus chandeliers.  Much of what you see in that photostream was made by Adam Wallacavage himself with a solo exhibition of his works, Magic Mountain, slated for the Jonathan LeVine Gallery in NYC, Oct 19th-Nov. 16th, 2013.  Mr. Wallacavage is also a photographer - so don't miss this series.  Or browse here at instagram.

back alleys of tribeca

Weekend's last chance to see the complete current show at Museum, reportedly NYC's tiniest museum housed in a 60 square foot freight elevator on Cortland Alley between Franklin and White Streets.  This is the place that boasts the shoe thrown at George Bush amongst its permanent collection of modern day artifacts from around the world. 

What's to see currently includes personal ephemera from Al Goldstein, rocks & tools from Tom Sach's Mars expedition, objects made for or by prisoners in U.S. prisons, fake vomit, and Jim Walrod's collection of NYC tip jars.

Visit Sat. or Sun. between 12 noon to 6 PM.  Otherwise, check out the viewing window 24/7.  Or a virtual catalog here with objects of interest from previous exhibitions. 

 

*Photo credit/via Szabrodski Instagram and Inhabitat.

angwusnasomtaqa

 

A protested French auction of ancient and sacred Hopi masks went ahead in Paris via a judge's ruling.  It generated 1.2 million dollars in sales, the 1880's artifact shown above (World News/Art Et Communication / Ho / EPA), Angwusnasomtaqa or Tumas Crow Mother selling for the highest price at $210,000.  

During the auction of Crow Mother, a woman stood up amidst the group of about 200 applauding auction goers, calling out, "Don't purchase that.  It is a sacred being."   

Protesters gathered with signs outside the auction, urging auction goers not to participate.  Bo Lomahquahu, an American exchange student and member of the Hopi tribe said, "We have lots of art that can be shared with other cultures, but not these.  Children aren't even supposed to see them."

The buyer, who declined to be identified,  defended his purchase, stating that, ".. if it had not been for collectors in the 19th century who contributed to the field of ethnology, there would very little knowledge of the Hopi," and, "One day I might give some back."  The buyer acquired 3 other masks, expressing delight at being able to add to his collection of Hopi artifacts.

The Hopi tribe of northeastern Arizona and supporters, including the U.S. ambassador to France and actor Robert Redford, urged the Paris auction house to suspend the sale due to the masks' cultural and religious significance.  Robert Redford wrote:  "To auction these would be in my opinion a sacrilege, a criminal gesture that contains grave moral repercussions."

The French court rejected the motion from both the tribe and Survival International, a London-based advocacy group representing the tribe's interests, the court asserting that it could only intervene to protect human remains or living beings.

Pierre Servan-Schreiber, the lawyer for Survival International, said, "This decision is very disappointing.  Not everything is necessarily up for sale or purchase, and we need to be careful."

whale of a tale?

You may have read that risqué tale about Tattoos and Scrimshaw: The Art of the Sailor, the B.C. Vancouver Maritime Museum exhibit including two dozen erotic carvings on sperm whale teeth presumably dating back to the 19th century.  The family-friendly locale gained notoriety when a local mom took her two sons, ages two and three, to inadvertently see things like this (photostream at link with sexually graphic content).  Such a twitter went up that Stephen Colbert hilariously featured the issue on his show.  The National Post now reports that the artifacts are fake - and not because they are not naughty - but because the pornography is not from the 19th century.  James Delgado, director of maritime heritage for the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and a former executive director of the Vancouver Maritime Museum - previously called in expert Stewart Frank, a Massachusetts-based curator and authority in the realm of fake scrimshaw.  Apparently, the market "abounds with specimens attempting to masquerade as the work of a Moby Dick-era whaler."  Said Mr. Frank, "It's all a fake."  At which Mr. Delgado, during his tenure, squirreled the material away in museum storage with a report on their findings.

From the Post:

The style was indeed too modern to have come from the 1800s, but the real “smoking gun” could be seen in the cracks of the antique ivory itself. The engravings, which had likely been done with a machine, were conducted over top of the existing cracks — indicating a recent engraving, even if the whale teeth themselves were authentic.

Mr. Frank even had a possible culprit; an unknown carver in the Los Angeles area that had been selling fake erotic scrimshaw since at least the 1970s. “He said it was likely the work of one person who unscrupulously took in this collector who wouldn’t know otherwise,” said Mr. Delgado.

As for the otherwise controversial issues surrounding the show, the show goes on, with an additional disclaimer to the one accompanying the museum's family-friendly photo ad, but one that was there all along;  i.e.:

This whole arrangement was known to the museum’s current managers, of course, which is why they posted a sign warning that some of the pieces have had their “authenticity questioned,” but that “it was felt that the images depicted were true to the period.”

 “We can’t say for sure if these examples are from the period, but even if they were produced in the 1920s, does that make them fake because they weren’t produced in the 19th century by whalers?” said current museum director Simon Robinson.

*Photo credits/top, Vancouver Sun/photographer: Arlen Redekop/Tattoos & Scrimshaw: The Art of the Sailor exhibit at Vancouver Maritime Museum/bottom, Vancouver Sun/photographer: Arlen Redekop/"A whalebone carving showing a captain preoccupied with land-based pursuits from Tattoos & Scrimshaw: The Art of the Sailor exhibit on now at the Vancouver Maritime Museum."