An Association of Antique American Indian and Tribal Art Dealers Dedicated to Authenticity and Integrity
- What is ATADA?
- What are ATADA’s association policies?
- Why is ATADA concerned with the recent federal raids?
- The historical perspective
- The federal raids and ATADA's respon ses
- Epilogue
What is ATADA?
The Antique Tribal Art Dealers Association, ATADA, was
established in 1988 to set ethical and professional standards for
the trade and to provide education for the public. ATADA members are
pledged to act as honest brokers, to guarantee authenticity and to
provide the buying public with the available information on the age,
source, integrity and collection history of the objects that they
sell.
The ATADA Bylaws,
first put into writing in the early 1990s and first published on the
web in 1998, spell out the essential elements
The
ATADA Foundation is a separate, non-profit 501(c)(3)
entity.
The ATADA
Foundation is dedicated to expanding education on tribal art, both
antique and contemporary, from around the world.
The ATADA Foundation participates in projects that advance
awareness of the cultural, historical and aesthetic importance of
antique tribal art of North America and the world and of the peoples
who created it. The Foundation gives grants to needy institutions
providing education to the public, ranging from small tribal and
community museums to major U.S. museums collecting and exhibiting
tribal art, and has contributed to the Council for Indigenous Art
and Culture’s efforts to fight the flood of overseas fakes of Native
American arts into the market.
ATADA’s
publications
in print and online and our
art and the law
page are a
resource for students and the general public. Our
new publication,
"Native American Art and the Law: A Collector's Guide" is
essential reading for anyone who is serious about understanding the
legal issues facing collectors today.
In the past, the ATADA Foundation has also supported public
interest issues, including litigation that impacts the right of the
U.S. public to access, own, donate and view antique tribal art.
What are ATADA’s association policies?
ATADA urges everyone to stay within the law. ATADA condemns all
illegal digging and theft of cultural property. ATADA urges all
citizens not to buy, sell, trade, or otherwise transfer artifacts
taken illegally from federal or Indian lands.
Ethical Business Practice and Professional Integrity.
ATADA forbids commercial misrepresentation and requires guarantees
of authenticity.
Support for Native American and Tribal Arts and Artisans.
ATADA supports strong enforcement of laws forbidding the sale of
fakes and misidentified copies of Native American arts by
non-Indians. ATADA is deeply concerned about the future of Native
arts and committed to supporting and sustaining the work of
contemporary Native and tribal artists around the world.
Responsible Stewardship.
ATADA urges all dealers and collectors of ethnographic art to
document, make public, and share information about their
collections.
ATADA urges federal agencies to support and participate in this
dialog, as mandated by
the Archaeological Resources Protection Act
of 1979 (ARPA).
ATADA supports proper conservation and retaining the integrity of
artifacts. ATADA supports laws that protect and preserve both the
natural environment and endangered species.
Why is ATADA concerned with the recent federal raids?
The buying and selling of Native American art is a huge part of the
national economy.
The publication
Indian Trader
recently quoted the director of the Department of the Interior
Indian Arts and Crafts Board (IACB) as stating that the contemporary
market in Native American art may approach a billion dollars
annually. The director of the Albuquerque-based Indian Arts and
Crafts Association stated that the market is at least 750 million
dollars annually even after the recent decline. There are hundreds
of art galleries and thousands of Native Americans, many still
living a traditional life, who buy and sell Native American art for
their livelihood. This business is important to the national
economy and is unique to the western states. Many tourists come here to buy
Indian art and the money spent turns over many times in the community.
The Indian art trade has suffered
serious harm as a result of unfair and inaccurate publicity.
Buying and selling Indian art is legal, yet fear and uncertainty
have directly impacted the economy.
There has been a spill-over effect resulting from legitimate public
concerns over looting and damage to archaeological sites. Due to
public uncertainty of the legal status of ancient, old, and even
contemporary artworks, the market as a whole has constricted.
Not only art dealers, but also contemporary Indian artisans are now
seeing their arts and crafts sales decline.
Casual collectors and tourists do not distinguish between old and
new or sacred and profane, and indeed these lines are often unclear
to the expert.
Questioning the legality of any type of Native American artifact
affects the market for it. If the press says that a kachina doll, a fetish, a dance rattle, a
basket, or a pot may be subject to repatriation without pointing out
that the repatriation provision affects only ceremonial items in
federally funded museums, this will affect the entire market. By destabilizing the
American Indian art market, the government is harming native art
traditions and culture as well as eliminating the livelihood of
Native American artists.
The serious collecting community, which is the backbone of the American
Indian museum scene is paralyzed by the legal
uncertainty.
After last year’s raids, collectors are afraid
to purchase new items or to show or share their collections.
Misinformation in the press has created tremendous uncertainty in
the public mind – many now believe they cannot own older pieces or
anything once used in a ceremonial context.
Grave robbers and diggers who take artifacts from federal or Indian lands should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Stolen artifacts should be returned.
However, there should be repose for artifacts that have been traded since before ARPA and which have no history of unlawful trade, as envisioned in the statute. The laws state that artifacts that were illegally taken from federal or Indian lands are not legal to trade in. The laws state that objects from private lands and objects legally sold are legal to trade in, to pass to children, or to give to museums.
The problem is that the lawful or unlawful source of hundreds of thousands of items simply cannot now be known. If artifacts are held to be guilty until proven innocent, they will remain in legal limbo, without a future.
These objects should not be “orphans” but free for trade,
inheritance and donation, as envisioned under ARPA. A federal judge
in New Mexico has noted that making trade in these objects of
unknown origin illegal would criminalize the innocent actions of
thousands of Americans who purchased Indian items before passage of
ARPA and now wish to pass them on to family or to donate them to
museums.
There has been a very active trade in Native American art and
artifacts involving hundreds of thousands of artifacts since the
1880s, long before any law regulating collection or trade was
passed. For nearly seventy years after passage of the first law in
1906, Indian goods including antiquities continued to be regularly
sold by Indians to tourists on reservations, traded through curio
and pawnshops and sold at auction. Many of the goods that were
circulating openly in the market prior to 1979, when Congress passed
ARPA, have no history of their original find-spot.
U.S. museums have been encouraged to treat objects as
“guilty until proven innocent.” This ill-considered policy will
continue to harm the public interest into the far future.
Fearful of public criticism, U.S. museums have taken steps to
self-police acquisitions that go far beyond the requirements of the
law. But these self-policing activities are already backfiring on
museums – many cannot accession long-promised collections simply
because no records were kept back in the time when no record-keeping
requirement existed. To impose a requirement now for documentation
on materials purchased in good faith long ago is a task beyond the
ability of collectors to accomplish. To move the burden of proof on
these issues from government to the individual, while at the same
time moving historical goal posts, is bad practice and bad law.
Dealers and collectors are under attack. It is ATADA's duty to respond .
"It is potentially problematic to deal in this stuff. You don't
always know the provenance of an object. All the more reason for the public to avoid buying antiquities. I'd
like the trade to dry up.
The Historical Perspective
While attending a show in 1988, a small group of independent tribal art dealers got together for dinner. The dinner conversation turned to their mutual concern for the apparent and damaging lack of ethical standards for the business at large. From that discussion and those that followed, was born the concept of a professional association of dealers that would provide education for the public and set standards for the trade. An organization of honest and informed sellers would afford buyers a new and much needed sense of security and promote an awareness of our members' accountability to good business standards and adherence to the laws.
That organization became ATADA, the Antique Tribal Art Dealers Association. As members, we offer buyers a guarantee that objects we sell are as represented regarding age, authenticity and extent of restoration (if any). Furthermore, this guarantee allows buyers a full refund if the object proves to be other than represented. We also ensure that objects have been properly acquired and fall within the restrictions of laws concerning cultural sensitivity.
Since that time, we have grown to sponsor our own vetted shows and, in a continuing effort to educate the public, offer seminars drawing on the expertise of recognized authorities, many of whom comprise our membership.
In the early 1990s the majority of our attention was turned to dealing with new legislation pertaining to cultural patrimony. These are issues that affect all of us and our future in this profession. In that direction, our elected ATADA officers continue to work alongside government legal agencies in an ongoing effort to clarify these new standards. We are also working to address issues that affect everyone's property rights, to clarify the interpretation of what is problem/questionable material, and to help bring reason to the interpretation and enforcement of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 (ARPA) and the Native American Graves Protection Act of 1990 (NAGPRA) issues.
In the late 1990s, ATADA began to take new directions which provide needed services for the collecting community and for the membership . We established www.atada.org and started publicizing thefts of American Indian and Tribal Art. The ATADA Theft Alerts has led to several major recoveries of stolen art and has a significant deterrent effect. We provided Group Insurance for members' collections at attractive rates. Most current members find that this is a very important reason for membership in ATADA. Our web site grew to include a Legislative Alert Page, serving the dual functions of educating our readers in the US laws that govern transactions in tribal materials and of bringing to the members' attention proposed legislation that may change the way that we conduct business and possibly threaten to close down part of the areas in which we collect. The ATADA publications (The ATADA News and The ATADA Membership Directory) have been given a bright new look and add value to membership in ATADA. Recently, ATADA has worked in association with promoters to help vet their shows, recruiting a group of qualified volunteer experts. ATADA vetters assisted at the Santa Fe Historic Indian and World Tribal Arts show in 2006 with remarkable success, and a new group will vet The Marin Show: Art of the Americas show in San Rafael, California in 2007. We hope that vetted shows will soon become the standard in our industry. Finally, we have established the Lifetime Achievement Awards to honor individuals who have made significant and long term contributions to studying and collecting American Indian and Tribal art. The first group of awards were presented at the ATADA banquet in San Rafael on February 24, 2007.
In 2009, the Legislative Alert page was dropped and replaced with a new page entitled Art and the Law. This more complete web page, written by our Legal Committee Chairperson, Kate Fitz Gibbon, provides more accurate interpretations of the law than ever before. Early in 2009 we scheduled the first in a series of public talks in the Art and the Law series, to be presented during the Whitehawk Show in Santa Fe.
The Federal Raids and ATADA's Responses
In early 2009, the FBI took its long anticipated action to enforce the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 (ARPA) and the Native American Graves Protection Act of 1990 (NAGPRA) by staging multiple simultaneous armed raids in Blanding and elsewhere in Utah and the Four Corners region. Somewhat surprisingly, these were followed with a set of raids in Santa Fe in June, 2009.
In early August, 2009, a set of negative articles about collecting Native American Art appeared simultaneously in the all the Santa Fe and Albuquerque newspapers. ATADA was unprepared. We had never seen such an onslaught of negative publicity. This was coupled with misinformation and incomplete information in the media accounts. We had no good means to combat it.
One highlight of the week was the Art in the Law talk. Because of the publicity, the session was well attended. It was not surprising how eager the audience was to hear the discussion of the law. The questions showed a general need for education on the relevant laws which we continue to address in our Art and the Law sessions.
In November, 2009, the Board of Directors took the first-ever step of holding a retreat at a time not associated with a show. This retreat was held in Kansas City shortly after the opening of the new American Indian Art wing at the Nelson Atkins Museum. We had quite thorough discussions of the current issues. One session was devoted to a thorough rewrite of the Bylaws. The ATADA bylaws have been rewritten to reflect the changes in direction that have occurred in recent years. One result of the retreat was the formation of a new Legislative Education Committee. This committee met many times during the winter and spring and has met with several newspaper editorial boards as well as with Congressman Ben Lujan's (D-NM) staff. The committee hopes that other ATADA members will use this model to take on similar meetings in their own states.
Early in the summer of 2010, Kate Fitz Gibbon wrote a 32-page booklet entitled "Native American Art and the Law: A Collector's Guide." This user-friendly booklet is written in language that the average collector can readily understand. Copies were distributed to all members in August. Additional copies are available from the ATADA Publications page.
Also at the Santa Fe August 2010 shows, the Legislation Education committee conducted a seminar entitled "THE FEDERAL RAIDS: Myth & Fact." This first-person account of the Four Corners raids played to a packed house and generated very good press for ATADA. Minutes of this discussion are available on our Resource Archive page and in the Fall, 2010 issue of The ATADA News. The next day, there was a very lively discussion at the ATADA 2010 Annual Meeting.
Epilogue
It is true that we are addressing these issues with all the seriousness they deserve. It does not, however, overshadow our highest-priority goals, which are: 1) to provide a set of standards for the trade and present ourselves to the public as a trustworthy association of art dealers adhering to the tenets outlined in our bylaws; and 2) to encourage the public to educate themselves in the cultures these objects represent and the roles they played within the cultures. These can only promote better understanding. We would be happy to send you a copy of our newsletter to introduce ourselves to you. Our work is far from finished. If you wish to help achieve our goals, we invite you to join us. We encourage you to apply for membership.Please direct inquiries and report errors, omissions, and corrections to Alice Kaufman at acek33@aol.com, phone 415-927-3717.
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