Exhibition: More re Brooklyn fakes

According to Edna Russman, curator of Egyptian, classical, and ancient Middle Eastern art at the Brooklyn Museum, experts have long harbored reservations about the 31-piece collection. After a three-year inquiry conclusively revealed that some of the sculptures were fakes – and most had been significantly retouched – Dr. Russman began planning a large exhibition at the museum's recently renovated Brooklyn campus.

"The sculptures had been in storage for decades, but they were very popular when they were first exhibited. I was impelled to put together another exhibition," Russman said in an interview. "And if I'm going to put them out there again, I have to put out the fakes too. This story has to be told if we're going to show this material at all."

Russman's decision, first reported in the London-based Art Newspaper and carried breathlessly by a wide range of media outlets here, calls into question the authenticity of similar artwork in institutions across the world. As the Art Newspaper noted, "[M]useums which acquired Coptic sculptures in the past 50 years are likely to face similar problems."

But more intriguingly, say many experts, the firestorm has helped expose an important evolution in the relationship between museum and patron. "In the past, no one wanted to admit their mistakes. It was part of the anonymous museum – that stone wall," says Graham Beal, director of the Detroit Institute of Art (DIA). "Now there's a real sense that the museum needs to be humanized and given a level of transparency. It represents a shift in attitude. It used to be that when things were faulty, they were wished away, never to be seen again."