Michel van Rijn Hates Smugglers of Dugup Nok Sculptures

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The real Michel van Rijn and at least one probable fake one, do not like the smugglers of looted dug up Nok terracottas, this is how he explains it in the interview by Jake Hanrahan:

Things changed later when I went to the Jos Plateau in Nigeria. I saw these incredible Nok terracotta heads that they bury in the graves for their ancestors. They were potentially million-dollar pieces and I was there to buy them. But then I met the people—the Jos Plateau is very cold at night so we sat around campfires—and they hardly had anything to eat, yet they sit up all night to protect their ancestor’s culture from vultures who want to come and dig and steal and kill to get the terracottas. That touches your heart. You can’t deal with those things. You don’t want to have people dying for art. It was all just a game, but then I was on top of that hill and suddenly confronted with reality. If that doesn’t change you, you aren’t a human being.

After that I knew there were a lot of stolen Nok pieces that were going to be exhibited at a gallery in London—all worth around $400,000—sold to some of the wealthiest people in the world. I could’ve easily made a lot of money for myself by approaching the dealer and saying, “Give me 100 grand to keep my mouth shut about where they came from,” and I would’ve gotten it in a nanosecond. But instead I went to the Nigerian embassy and convinced the ambassador there about these stolen Nok pieces. We went with the police and about 20 Nigerians into the gallery the day before the opening. There were all of these [...] posh people sipping champagne, and in we came to shut it down. You should’ve seen their [...]ing jaws! I made a statement: “Don’t touch the heritage of these people!” And it’s not that I was a white knight—not at all. But I began to come across certain things that I just couldn’t step over.