Goldin auction house said this spring it will sell a broadside copy of the Declaration of Independence that was printed in Exeter, New Hampshire, in July 1776. The company said it’s believed to be one of only 10 similar copies in existence.
Molly McVety
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Following a two-decade run as the only American museum dedicated entirely to Himalayan art, the Rubin Museum, as we know it, will shutter for good tomorrow, October 6. The institution announced the decision to close in January, at which time it also detailed plans to shift to a decentralized “museum without walls” model. The Rubin will retain some of its collection—an assemblage of nearly 4,000 objects spanning fifteen centuries—and will focus on organizing traveling exhibitions, enriching its grant program, and developing educational resources. What remains will, in theory, carry forward the museum’s mission in a lighter, more nimble format. Its final exhibition, “Reimagine: Himalayan Art Now,” is on view now. If you can make it before the museum closes tomorrow, you’ll find paintings, sculptures, sound installations, videos and performance art by over thirty contemporary artists from the Himalayan region.
Husband-and-wife philanthropists Donald and Shelley Rubin purchased the Rubin Museum building at 150 West 17th Street, a former Barneys department store, in 1998 for $22 million. The building’s tranquil, domed skylight and sweeping spaces would offer a seamless backdrop for the Rubins’ world-class collection. Transforming the 70,000-square-foot space into a haven for Tibetan art was ambitious, if improbable, even for a pair of deep-pocketed collectors. Though the Rubins oversaw extensive renovations, the couple retained as many original details as possible—including the building’s iconic spiral staircase, which became a centerpiece of the museum’s 25,000 square feet of exhibition space. Six years later, in 2004, the Rubin opened and swiftly became a model for culturally immersive museum design. It also eventually became a focus in the ongoing controversy around repatriating stolen artifacts.
Provenance disputes are nothing new in art, but they have been particularly acute for the Rubin, which repatriated two pieces to Nepal in 2022. The museum faced increased scrutiny earlier this year when, in March, activists renewed calls for the museum to take accountability “for decades of violent exploitation of our sacred ancestral objects.” The Tibetan-led campaign Our Ancestors Say No (OASN) has demanded the repatriation of allegedly stolen sacred artifacts, many displayed in the institution’s popular Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room. Following the Rubin Museum’s closure, over 100 works from the Shrine Room will find a new home at the Brooklyn Museum, via a loan dubbed “another thrilling example of New York City museum collaboration,” by Brooklyn Museum director Anne Pasternak in a statement. Pasternak also pointed out that the Shrine Room has been “a renowned and beloved cultural experience for people around the world” since its opening in 2015. The art and ritual objects will be on loan to the Brooklyn Museum for at least six years, beginning in June of 2025.
For twenty years, the Rubin was praised for thought-provoking exhibitions and its unique approaches to Himalayan art. The museum’s Mandala Lab was celebrated for its interactive, multi-sensory space designed to create immersive, emotionally resonant experiences for visitors. The “Gateway to Himalayan Art” exhibition, on view since 2021, likewise received accolades for its ability to introduce audiences to the complexities and depth of Himalayan artistic traditions. Through these exhibitions and more, the Rubin Museum of Art became more than just a repository for artifacts. If it’s possible to look past the museum’s controversies, the Rubin’s legacy is as a cultural hub for engaging deeply with the spiritual and philosophical underpinnings of Himalayan art, making its closure all the more poignant. While The Rubin is framing its closure as a reimagining of what a museum can be—“more art, accessible to more people, in more places,” as its executive director Jorrit Britschgi put it—the closure of its Chelsea location feels like a loss.
The Editors
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Last week, the American Museum of Natural History in New York closed two major Native American exhibits to the public in its latest push to comply with the White House requirement to repatriate Native American items. The requirement to return cultural items to Native American tribes was first instituted decades ago but has received a boost from President Joe Biden.
Tribes have long argued that the museums and other institutions have dragged their feet in complying with the repatriation law. Now, many are celebrating the removal of their history from institutions of learning in the name of cultural healing.
But at what price does society and, perhaps more importantly, the tribes affected by this action have to pay?
The famous American Museum of Natural History in New York shut down two Native American exhibits last Friday.
Museum president Sean Decatur said:
“The halls we are closing are artifacts of an era when museums such as ours did not respect the values, perspectives, and indeed shared humanity of Indigenous peoples.”
The action of the New York museum comes on the heels of the Biden administration’s requirement that museums and universities repatriate human remains and cultural items associated with Native American tribes within the next five years. The requirement comes from the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act or NAGPRA from 1990, which required the same.
So why has it taken so long for museums and other institutions to repatriate said items? Many argue that the lack of historically verifiable documentation within the Native American community to prove the ownership of said items has made it difficult for museums and universities to ensure the proper repatriation of remains and items.
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However, thanks to the Biden administration, curators are now required to:
“…defer to the Native American traditional knowledge of lineal descendants, Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations.”
Essentially, in the often-found event that documentary proof is unavailable, curators are to take the word of tribal leaders when returning items. Not only is this unscientific, it opens the doors to all manner of mishaps, including inaccurate repatriation, tribal squabbling over said items, and worse yet…the loss of these historical items forever.
As usual, the government tends to make almost any situation worse. San Jose State Professor of Anthropology Elizabeth Weiss has been warning against this from the start.
Professor Weiss wrote to The Political Insider:
“I’ve predicted that the new NAGPRA regulations would bury our ability to carry out objective scientific inquiries, hide our discoveries about the past, and ruin biological anthropology.”
Professor Weiss goes on to explain the more profound implications of the NAGPRA regulations outside of science:
“However, the new regulations will impact more than just science and natural history museums – new targets include art purchased from contemporary Native American artists. In a recent NAGPRA information session about the new regulations, curators were told to consult with tribes over the display of modern art created by Native American artists that had been recently purchased by the museums.”
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The professor isn’t wrong, as evidenced by the Cleveland Museum of Art covering Native American pieces in the name of NAGPRA. Other items are also being removed from other museums, including Native American musical instruments from the famed Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
What happens to the history, forensic scientific study, and cultural appreciation of these tribes when these items are removed from displays and institutions of higher learning? What happens to that culture if there are no items for scientists to study and no cultural pieces for society to admire?
While claiming to honor the cultures of these tribes, society is enabling the erasure of their existence, robbing them of their historical voice and place in the grand timeline of humanity. The progressive woke mind virus isn’t just a danger to education, science, and culture – but to those they claim to fight for.
The best way to preserve the culture of “marginalized” groups isn’t to remove their history from museums and universities – but to display more of it. The world and societies are made richer and stronger by studying those who came before them, not by burying or hiding them from sight.
If we aren’t careful, all that will survive of the tribal communities will be their sacred oral histories that, with the passage of each new generation, are in danger of disappearing like a whisper in the winds of time.
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Kathleen J. Anderson
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Archaeologists have discovered a giant hand ax that is thought to be more than 200,000 years old.
An international team of research researchers uncovered the prehistoric stone artifact during an archaeological survey conducted in a desert landscape known as the Qurh Plain in northwestern Saudi Arabia.
“This hand axe is one of the most important finds from our ongoing survey of the Qurh Plain. This amazing stone tool is more than a half a meter [around 20 inches] long and is the largest example of a series of stone tools discovered on the site,” project director Ömer Aksoy, with TEOS Heritage, an archaeological consultancy firm based in Turkey, said in a press release this week.
“An ongoing search for comparisons from across the world has not come up with a hand axe of equal size. As such, this may well be one of the largest hand axes ever discovered,” Aksoy said.
The Qurh Plain is located to the south of AlUla, an ancient oasis city featuring mud-brick and stone houses, which was founded in the 6th century B.C.
The area surrounding AlUla is a region of outstanding natural and cultural significance in Saudi Arabia, containing important archaeological remains and sites. Aside from the city of AlUla itself, the region is also home to Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site, Hegra. Video of the discovery can be seen here.
Hegra is an ancient city spanning around 52 hectares, much of which dates back to the 1st century A.D. The site contains nearly 100 well-preserved tombs with elaborate facades cut into the outcrops of sandstone.
The city was once the southernmost settlement of the Nabatean Kingdom, whose capital city was Petra—a famous archaeological site in modern-day Jordan that is also listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Nabateans were an ancient people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern Levant. They traded incense, spices and other goods, amassing significant wealth and influence, with Petra establishing itself as a major regional hub.
A distinct Nabatean kingdom emerged from the mid-3rd century B.C., of which Petra became the capital. The kingdom became a client state of the Roman Empire in the first century B.C. and in A.D. 106, the territory was annexed, losing its independence.
Despite being renowned for its Nabatean history, the AlUla region also displays evidence of human occupation stretching back much further—around 200,000 years ago, during the middle of the Paleolithic period. Among this evidence is the stone hand ax recently uncovered by archaeologists in the Qurh Plain.
The stone tool, which measures around 20 inches in length, 4 inches wide and 2 inches thick, is made of fine-grained basalt. The evidence indicates that it had been worked on both sides to produce a robust tool with usable cutting or chopping edges. At this stage, it is not clear exactly what the tool was used for, the researchers said.
The survey being conducted in the Qurh Plain is still ongoing, and the artifact is one of more than a dozen similar, albeit somewhat smaller, Paleolithic hand axes that have been uncovered.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
