Strange Museums

Incredible but true: as I was reading the online publication artsjournal.com, I came across a brief notice called “Behold America’s First-Ever Jellyfish Museum.” The museum in Pompano Beach, Florida, was founded by a Ukrainian couple who had a similar institution in Kyiv before immigrating to the U.S. 

This started me thinking about other unusual museums. I started to look online and was amazed at subjects that people have thought worthwhile for starting a museum and that people would want to visit. Seems there are many on both sides of that coin. Maybe when we plan a trip, instead of just going to the major museums which we usually think of as art museums, museums of natural history, or sports museums, we should save time for one unusual one. I did just that with the DATALAND museum on our recent trip to L.A. 

https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2026/08/what-i-did-on-my-summer-vacation.html

I am sure that if you go online, which obviously you do, you have come across lists of best restaurants, best movies on Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu, etc., etc., etc. Looking for unusual museums, I expected 10 to 40 suggestions but found one such site with 1,214 listings. Never fear, I don’t plan on going through that list with you, but I thought I would select just a few in different states across the country.

If you like the macabre, I recommend the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. It is a medical museum, which may not be all that unusual. However, this one is not what I would have expected. It features a wall of 139 human skulls and over 2,300 foreign objects swallowed or inhaled by people and safely removed by a pioneering otolaryngologist (a specialist who diagnoses and treats conditions of the head and neck).

In Savannah, Georgia, you will find The American Prohibition Museum where, as their website states, you can “discover how the battle over booze changed the country forever … from antique cars and moonshine stills to unique flasks and flapper dresses.” If that doesn’t race your motor, maybe you will be more interested in their, for adults only, speakeasy tucked into the museum “with craft cocktails that capture the essence of the 1920’s”.

The Vent Haven Museum in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, has over 1400 dummies used by ventriloquists to throw their voices, creating alter egos for the performers. These figures range from the 19th through the 21st century. There are also scripts, photographs, and playbills. The museum takes a serious approach to this slice of history with neither animation nor the voices of the dummies.

Passing through Vincennes, Indiana, you might want to have a laugh and visit the Red Skelton Museum of American Comedy. It turns out that Vincennes is the hometown of the vaudeville performer who became a movie star. As you would expect, the museum is devoted to the clown of many roles, with documents and films recording his life and contribution to American humor.

In Hastings, Nebraska, half a floor of their local museum is devoted to Kool-Aid. It seems that the small-town entrepreneur Edward Perkins came up with the drink in Hastings. Who knew?

There may even be a reason to visit the town of Gibsland, Louisiana, with its population of 773. It features the Bonnie and Clyde Ambush Museum in the cafe where the outlaw couple ate their final meal, close to the road where they were finally ambushed. It features historical weapons, Clyde’s rifle and Bonnie’s hat!

The state of Idaho is best known for its potatoes, supplying 33% of those grown in this country. I guess it is not surprising that there is a museum devoted to this state’s primary export. The Idaho Potato Museum can be found in the town of Blackfoot. I doubt there are many museums where you can consume the product that they are exhibiting, but in this museum café, The Potato Station, you can “enjoy some wonderful potato treats created by our excellent café staff”.

When I was a kid, I loved the books about the defense lawyer Perry Mason as well as the TV series based on the character. The author was a lawyer, Erle Stanley Gardner, who lived on a ranch, Rancho del Paisano, in Temecula, California. Following my youthful enthusiasm, I visited the Temecula Valley Museum, which holds his archive and features a permanent exhibit about the author with objects that belonged to him installed in a recreation of his study.

Remind me to someday look at some of the odd museums in other parts of the world, such as The Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb, Croatia!

Is There Too Much Art Out There?

Recently, a friend sent me a Business Week article, “Boomers are Leaving Behind More Art than Anyone Wants” by Felix Salmon, making me aware of this concern. Who knows if the author or editor picked that title, but my reaction was that there are also too many clothes in some parts of the world, and too much of it is thrown out.

Image generated by A.I.

The author is a British/American financial journalist who writes about culture and money. He uses as an example for his thesis an artist to whom he is related by marriage, by the name of David A. Vaughan. Born in Selma, Alabama (1890-1975 Vaughan studied at Columbia University, the Art Students League of New York City, and in Paris at the Académie Colarossi. Reading his history, he seems an artist of some note but probably won’t make it into the lexicons of the great masters. No matter, there are and will be people who like his work. However, even if his art sells, is exhibited, or is donated to museums (one of his has been accepted into the collection of the LA County Museum but never put on view) or is just passed down through the generations, at some point the interest will slowly peter out. When this happens, his works will be stashed away, discarded, or lost.

One individual responding to the article online suggested giving old canvases away to artists who would be happy to use them. If an art historian resurrects Vaughan’s work, what was left would find the market, be prized, and the cycle would repeat itself. This is the normal cycle of life and art.

Artists need to create art, and many do a few exceptional works, but probably more of what they do you might not want to collect. Even Picasso will someday not be the icon he is today, and the doodle he created on a napkin for a friend or waiter as a tip will not be exhibited by a museum, but it also would not be thrown out. If there is a market, a museum may deaccession it, or a lesser work, and put it at auction in order to collect a work by a different artist.

People will always be inspired to make art, but the product has to be appreciated in order to be preserved, and that is not always the case. Painters, for their part, often discard what they have created or paint over it, which you can’t do with a drawing or a sculpture. The Brooklyn Museum, wishing to do something for the local artists’ community, announced an exhibition of artists currently living in Brooklyn. They received 4,000 submissions for the 200 spaces in the show. I have several friends who I consider good artists, and I appreciate their work, but most have not even been in one museum exhibition, much less in their collections.

There are about 35 paintings firmly identified as by the Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), with a few more attributed to him. Did he really paint only that number, or were some lost or actually thrown out by him or descendants of his 11 children?

In 2019, in Compiègne, France, an important 13th-century panel of Christ Mocked (c. 1280) by Cimabue was discovered in a kitchen during a house clearance. It had been considered just a nice religious icon until it brought almost 27 million dollars at auction. From this, you can draw various conclusions, but I like the idea that people thought it was worth preserving no matter the monetary value. If, on the other hand, it had been discarded and destroyed, no one would know that it had existed.

Remember, the worth of a painting is in the mind of the beholder. We don’t all like the same works, and taste may skip a generation or two. The work of art doesn’t change, just how we perceive it. In the process, there is always the hope of overlooked work being “rediscovered”.

Can A.I. Help Recover Nazi War Loot?

Here is a Missive that covers two of my interests ... 

Regarding A.I., I am fascinated by what it can do for the individual. Honestly, I am not sure how the advanced versions of A.I. work, but I marvel at all the advantages that can be derived from it. Yes, I know there is another side to it, but that is not for me to delve into now.

As far as Nazi war loot is concerned, my parents, their relatives, and art dealerships lost works of art during WW II. If you look on the internet for Guelph Treasure or Welfenschatz online, you will find a lot about my case that went to the Supreme Court (and lost).

Therefore, I became extremely interested when I saw an article titled “This New A.I. Chatbot Hunts Nazi-Looted Art” by Vittoria Benzine. The Center for Art Law estimates that during the Third Reich (1933-1945), Nazis stole or forced the sale of 650,000 works of art, though far more have been reported by other sources. You may have heard of the Monuments Men (and Women) who went into the salt mines and museums in search of Nazi-looted art. They identified a lot, but there was much more that was never found. It is estimated that roughly 100,000 works remain at large. Here is an image of an Édouard Manet discovered in a German salt mine.

Researchers at Santa Clara University (SCU) have created a Provenance Research Assistant, which is a chat box to help search through millions of records in order to figure out which items may be missing and where they are today. I can’t imagine how many works of art have changed hands over the past 81 years. So, individuals who have bought works of art in good faith might inadvertently have acquired Nazi War-Loot. Though many may have known, or come to suspect, that their families may still retain these works. Here is one such story which ended well ...

https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2018/10/nwl-nazi-war-loot.html

This image shows a trove of objects recovered ... the photo was probably taken in a museum storeroom. How can we know who they belonged to?

SCU professors Michael Santoro together with professors Haibing Lu and Michele Samorani have assembled this new data base using A.I. They began by mining the ERR’s database. The latter stood for Hitler’s art squad (1940-1945) which stored the loot from German, Austrian and French museums and private collections in the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris. Then they added other information that they learned along the way and will continue to do so.

The database is already publicly available, and one can ask questions if one knows what one is looking for. I have not yet tried it out, but I look forward to doing so. 

http://ec2-18-222-187-17.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com:8501/ 

Here is an image of General Dwight D. Eisenhower viewing some of the art that was retrieved by the Monuments Men.

In her article, Ms. Benzine quotes Professor Lu, “Our goal wasn’t to replace provenance researchers. It was to make decades of complex archival records much easier to explore through natural conversation.” Remember, these culled records would be in several languages with abbreviations and terms that might not have been understood by the Nazi’s themselves.

Just believing that an object may have been taken is not the evidence needed to retrieve it. This is just the first step in repatriation. The database can only point the way to a long process I traced in the story included in the first link of this Missive.

The Lightning Boy Championships

Although I have mentioned Hoop Dancers over the years,

https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2022/08/the-hoop-dance-and-lightning-boy.html

I want to look at it from a different perspective, i.e., what it takes to participate in the annual “Youth Hoop Dance Championship” in Santa Fe and how it works. I have posted a number of videos; understand some are brief and some are not. Watch as much as you wish of each.

The Lighting Boy Foundation offers aspiring Native Americans from ages 2 to 17 an opportunity to learn the art of hoop dancing. That not only requires the dedication of the teachers but that of the students who need energy, stamina, and a great deal of willpower. Training consists of the traditional hoop routines, rhythm, and basic footwork. What I would think would especially bond the young dancers to their craft is that they also get instruction in making their own hoops and regalia. The process introduces kids to their roots and traditions, and it is wonderful to see how the little ones take to it.

The Championship is organized by age into four divisions. The cutest are obviously the Tiny Tots, which are defined by the organizers as 0 to 5 years old, though I have yet to see any O-age dancers! Then there are Youth (6-12), Teen (13-18), and Collegiate (19-26) divisions. Cash prizes are awarded in the last three categories, ranging from $100 to $750 for the youth, $100 to $900 for the teens, and $500 to $1,000 for the Collegiate. The Tiny Tots prize is not competitive, but $300 is split among them so they have all won. The dancers come mostly, though not necessarily, from the Southwest, but the prizes won’t cover travel expenses for most. Here we have examples of the Tiny Tots and the Youth.

The event takes place for two consecutive days in Milner Plaza on Santa Fe’s Museum Hill. A team of drummers, who also sing, surrounds a huge drum to provide traditional music. An emcee introduces the dancers. Three judges are positioned around the circular sanded dance floor. They score all but the Tiny Tots on five criteria: Precision, Timing/Rhythm, Showmanship, Creativeness/Originality, and Speed.

Precision is important in the required moves. Hoops must not unintentionally fall to the ground. As an example, when a hoop is thrown in the air (which is common), it must be caught.

Timing/Rhythm counts as the dancers’ feet must continuously move with the drum beat. The dancers must have bells, tinklers, and deer hooves on their person to help the judges assess their rhythm. Transitions between movements must be smooth.

Showmanship is how the dancers present themselves to the audience. Of course, the more difficult the moves, the more they count.

Creativeness/Originality is credited for new designs that dancers come up with to make with their hoops

Finally, Speed is directly related to the rapid drum and dance coordination.

Each contestant has 5 or 7 minutes to dance, with the older dancers given more time. They may dance less, but points are deducted for dancing any longer. When you watch the dancers' faces when they have done a particularly tricky move or missed one, you can almost tell they already have a pretty good idea of what their score will be.

It is history, it is art, it is performance and sport. I can’t say that I understand it all, but the enthusiasm and dedication make one feel part of it all.

If you did not catch the best which was in the link at the beginning of this Missive, watch an entire dance by the champion who is sadly not with us anymore, referred to in first link.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Not really a vacation; we were just out of town for a few days to visit some museums in Los Angeles and the grandchildren in Long Beach.

Of course, we had to visit the Los Angeles County Museum (aka LACMA). Their old wing with the 20th-century painting and drawings has traditional galleries showing their wonderful collection in depth. Particularly notable were all the Giacometti sculptures, with even a few that were not his usual skinny individuals. The Picassos from early till late, paintings and drawings, are extraordinary, even with a large painting from his Blue Period which is not shown much in museums anymore. Here is his portrait of his friend Sebastià Junyer Vidal.

The new Geffen wing has very interesting concrete architecture that spans the nearby thoroughfare. The galleries are all on the upper level with the continuous glass walls curtained with a UV-protective material invented to protect the art from fading. There are a few small, enclosed galleries in the center,  but the entire perimeter is flowing open space occupied by sculpture and objects, with paintings relegated to the interior cement walls. Varied works from different aspects of the permanent collection are presented, and it is hard to follow any storyline.

I did find one object that my gallery had sold to LACMA many years ago, a gilded terracotta bust of Pope Alexander VIII by Domenico Guidi (Rome 1625-1701). Created in 1691. One advantage of the installation is free-standing pieces without plexiglass cases. One can see the works from all sides, including, as with this bust, the back, but one often sees the front against the light from the glass walls.

We wanted to see 18th-century paintings and French decorative arts. Couldn’t find them. The guard explained that the galleries were arranged by Ocean! We tried the area designated on the map as Atlantic with no luck.

We got our fill, however, at the Getty Center. Unfortunately, much was closed for renovation and updating, such as the air-conditioning system and wiring for new technology. There was, however, plenty to feast our eyes on. We had a special treat in that we met up with an old friend, Charissa Bremer-David, who was for many years the curator in the Getty Department of Sculpture and Decorative Arts. I enjoyed seeing a lot of other old friends (objects that is) that we had sold to the museum and Mr. Getty personally. If you want to know my Getty stories, just type his name into the search engine and scroll down.

We then went to a new museum called DATALAND. It describes itself as “the world’s first Museum of AI Arts and digital ecosystem where human imagination meets the creative potential of machines”. No, I cannot explain it further. They do put a watch of sorts on your wrist, and some contraption around your neck to add sensory odors, and the watch measures your biometrics. Here is a still photo from one of the rooms and a s 3-dimensional video I found effective in another. (Image Still and Video choice 1 or 2)

Needless to say, it was great being with the grandchildren in Long Beach, and we got to go with the family to a museum that was new to us, the Bowers in Santa Ana, Orange County. It was so well done. They have expanded from the original 1932 building, which houses their early 20th-century California artists' paintings, to a modern wing of Asian and Pacific art. Each object is sensitively presented with clear, understandable labels. I found their Art of the Pacific Islands most interesting, particularly because I know so very little about it. The object, however, that I found haunting loomed out of the darkness in the gallery of Chinese art. It was a Tomb Demon from the Warring States period to the Western Han Dynasty (1475BCE-9CE). These were placed inside tombs to ward away malevolent spirits, protect the deceased’s soul, and deter tomb robbers. Unfortunately, I did not take a photo there, so here is an image without the magic of its installation.

We packed a lot into an exhilarating few days!

The Smithsonian Under Fire

Why speak again about the Smithsonian as I did briefly before? Because it represents the issues that every other museum has, i.e., the President says to toe the line. The Smithsonian represents the American People as a country.

Why do I say that? The Smithsonian includes 21 museums and galleries plus the National Zoo and, as important, 14 education and research centers. These include The National Portrait Gallery, The National Museum of African American History and Culture, The Museum of the American Indian and the Archives of American Art. Two more museums are in development: the National Museum of the American Latino and the American Women’s History Museum. From the Museum of African American History and Culture, here is an exhibit from the Slavery and Freedom Gallery. A set of wrought iron leg shackles dated before 1860.

Most of these institutions are in the Capital of our country, Washington, D.C., which attracts many tourists from this country and abroad. I would venture that at some time in their lives most Americans have visited.

In March of 2025, the President, Donald J. Trump, signed an Executive Order titled, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”. It turns out that by which he meant just the opposite. If you doubt this, read the Executive Order for yourselves: 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/restoring-truth-and-sanity-to-american-history/

For one thing, he wanted any DEI offices shuttered. What was he scared of? Black people, Hispanics, Native Americans, Latinos, Women? He asked for a comprehensive review of eight Smithsonian museums to ensure they align with a focus on “American Exceptionalism”. Even if you believe in American Exceptionalism, that can only be ascertained by showing all our faults as well … the massacres of Native Americans, slavery, and the denial of the right to vote to women until 1920. What about the mistreatment of the African Americans after the Civil War? I remember being told by my father when I was a small boy, and we visited Florida, that I was not allowed to go into the public toilet or drink from the fountains marked “Colored” or (“For Colored Only”). I had to use the one marked "Whites" (or "Whites Only"). I can still visualize where I was standing and the confusion I felt. How can we become exceptional if we do not understand where we came from?

With approximate statistics from the web, over 40% of this country consists of non-white ethnicities, and 50% of the people in this country are women. Why should we fear the other when the other made this country the most powerful in the world, not just militarily but by innovation and creativity? Just watch a financial channel on television and listen to CEOs of the top companies in this country and note the foreign accents you hear of immigrant Americans. Even Elon Musk, possibly the richest man in the world, is an immigrant from South Africa. No matter what you think of what he has done for good and bad, he has brought about technological innovation that can be admired.

Claiming that the past decade has cast America’s “founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light,” the Executive Order proclaims that museum visitors should “not be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history.” It promises additional actions to remove such “improper ideologies” from federal museums, parks and monuments.

Following the Administration’s misogynistic, whitewashed narrative, Pete Hegseth is “clearing out the debris” in the military. In his purge, he denies the contributions of African Americans and women by selectively removing their names from the vetted list for one-star generals, claiming they were recommended by people who were “too woke.”

Trying to rewrite history can only do harm by building a cocoon from which everyone loses except for the very few who have created it.

Laws Paved with Good Intentions

Even well-intentioned laws are open to regulation, interpretation, and execution, and there’s the rub!

The case I wish to address limits research, education, commerce, and even history. In my career as an art dealer, I have had two opportunities to testify before Congress representing an art association. The issue was the passage of a ban on the import of works of art containing ivory. The intent was to save the African Elephant from rampant poaching, obviously a noble cause. As an art dealer, I made my living through commerce, but I also care passionately about art of all kinds and art history. Why should a 13th-century ivory figure of a Madonna not be allowed into our country? It’s been a lot of years since that elephant died!

Victoria & Albert Museum, London

A similar situation now exists as far as Native American spiritual items and works of art are concerned. Recently, I came across a long article with 8 pages of footnotes by Elizabeth Weiss, Professor Emeritus at San José State University in California, titled “The Reburial of the Southwest: Closing off Native History and Archeology”. Published by the Goldwater Institute in Tucson, Arizona, it makes the argument from an archeologist’s point of view.

NAGPRA (The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act), enacted in 1990, is seemingly clear. It requires museums, universities, and federal agencies to return Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and items of cultural patrimony to their respective lineal descendants, Native American tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations. At the time, there were many objections, but since the wording of the legislation did not hamper scientific study or collecting either by institutions or private parties, as long as they were not handling artifacts delineated in the law. However, in 2023, the Department of the Interior published new regulations elaborating that any new research could only be carried out with tribal consent. The regulations go so far as stating the opening of a box to find out its contents could be considered research.

NAGPRA, however, does not cover human remains so many thousand years old that cannot be identified with a present-day tribe. Additionally, remains have been uncovered that are so many thousands of years old that those tribes no longer exist. Since it is generally accepted that at one time there was a land bridge between Asia and Alaska, there is no way to know where these human remains might truly belong. Now even that line of study has been closed off. If a tribe does reclaim human remains for reburial, scientific tests like radiocarbon dating cannot be done, making it impossible to learn part of the history of humankind.

The Return

Museums are also hindered in their role of public education as they cannot exhibit artifacts associated with burials (not referring to remains) without prior informed consent from lineal descendants. In many cases, they cannot be found.

As far as commerce is concerned, certain types of objects that are considered by one tribe or another as religious have been subject to seizure and repatriation even though the work was made for sale. One example can be found in Hopi and Zuni katsina dolls; carvings depicting spirit beings much like Christian saints have long been, and continue to be, made for sale. This has not just affected dealers and collectors but Native American artists themselves, unsure of changing prohibitions.

The original law required substantial evidence that the items claimed for repatriation were actually from that tribe, but this consideration has fallen by the wayside before complaints that it unduly slowed the process of repatriation. Activists have pursued a requirement for consultation with the tribes about what can be exhibited, and insisted on what they deem the proper way to take care of works in institutions. I find this to be understandable and positive, but it has also been carried to an extreme. According to Dr. Weiss, in some cases, even access for study purposes has been denied to scholars and scientists because they were female.

As activist pressure has led to regulations expanding way beyond NAGPRA’s original targets of grave robbing, religious items, and theft, museum officials have removed purely secular works from view and closed galleries during the lengthy process of tribal consultation. I know of situations where tribal representatives have declared a work in a museum collection is not to be shown to the public, but won’t take it back because they too are not allowed to see the object due to its religious significance.

In her conclusion, Dr. Weiss writes, “NAGPRA began as a compromise to allow scientific research and museum exhibits to be preserved, excluded works made for sale and display, and yet also enabled federally recognized tribes to obtain their most culturally valuable materials, funerary objects along with ancestral human remains.” That this is no longer a compromise is amply demonstrated by one of the examples Weiss cites: “The Navajo tribe recently sought to halt a NASA flight on the grounds that the moon is sacred to the tribe.”