Dynamite Doug Podcast Seen from the "Art" World

      Project Brazen       

The six-part "Dynamite Doug" podcast hosted by Ellen Wong and produced by Project Brazen and PRX 28th Feb to 5th April 2023 still seems to be attracting a bit of attention (see my comments on Edna Bonhomme's review in April). Now the Art Newspaper has its say (Alice Proctor, "Dynamite Doug podcast is a pioneer in ‘looted heritage’ genre — but not its peak" the Art Newspaper 9th June 2023).

The new podcast Dynamite Doug tells the story of how Douglas Latchford and his collaborator Emma Bunker illegally removed hundreds of sculptures from Cambodia, often by faking provenance records and export licences, to fill the galleries of museums in the West. Latchford was charged for antiquities trafficking in New York in 2019 but died the following year.

Again, the issue is raised of complicity of collecting institutions:

The question of how deeply museums are invested in, and benefit from, the trade in stolen art could be given more space. Why was the art world so willing to turn a blind eye, even when Latchford and Bunker regularly contradicted themselves about the provenance of statues? The auction houses Sotheby’s and Spink and Son that sold such looted works were presented with ample evidence of looting, through both the sketchy provenances and the physical condition of the statues they sold. These were not brilliant criminal masterminds: they were enabled.

It is good that the issues involving the antiquities market are getting wider publicity. As the reviewer points out here is scope for much more of this.