Treasure of Lima: A Buried Exhibition

Treasure of Lima: A Buried Exhibition is an art project curated by Nadim Samman for Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Academy, taking place on a remote, protected island in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Costa Rica. Works by forty renowned artists were placed inside a chest designed by Aranda\Lasch and then buried in a secret location on Cocos Island, the place whose pirate history inspired Robert Louis Steven’s Treasure Island. The project was both an expedition and an exhibition, bringing artists, marine biologists, collectors, scientists, and sailors together to engage the conservation issues of the site while reexamining the history of piracy, treasure hunting, and the economy and politics of access and exclusion, art object and commodity in the sphere of contemporary art.

Contributing Artists

Marina Abramovic, Doug Aitken, Darren Almond, Aranda/Lasch, Julius von Bismarck, Angela Bulloch, Los Carpinteros, Julian Charriere, Phil Collins, Constant Dullaart, Olafur Eliasson, Oscar Figueroa, John Gerrard, Kai Grehn, Noemie Goudal, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Alex Hoda, Pierre Huyghe, Antti Laitinen, Sharon Lockhart, Lucia Madriz, Carsten Nicolai, Olaf Nicolai, Raymond Pettibon, Finnbogi Petursson, Lari Pittman, Jon Rafman, Andrew Ranville, Matthew Ritchie, Ed Ruscha, Hans Schabus, Chicks on Speed, Daniel Steegmann, Ryan Trecartin, Suzanne Treister, Janaina Tschäpe, Chris Watson, Lawrence Weiner, Jana Winderen

The Treasure

An intervention on Cocos Island – the paradigmatic ‘treasure island’: A vacuum sealed container containing numerous artworks by forty leading artists, buried at a secret location and left behind. This ‘exhibition architecture’ (a contemporary treasure chest), created by New York-based architects Aranda/Lasch, was designed to maintain the physical integrity of art (including works on paper, sculpture, vinyl LPs, digital video and audio files) underground or below water to a depth of 6.7 kilometres. Its outer shell is takes the form of a truncated tetrahedron made of stainless steel that opens, like a geometric oyster, to reveal a second spherical container made of glass. Within this vacuum-sealed sphere there are a series of aluminium boxes housing the artworks.

The GPS coordinates (or ‘map’) of the exhibition location were logged at the site of burial. These coordinates were then given to the Dutch artist Constant Dullaart, who worked with a leading cryptographer to encode them. The resulting string of code was then made physical, as a 3D printed steel cylinder.

This physical ‘map’ will be sold at auction, encased within a second edition of the treasure chest, with proceeds donated to the marine protection of Cocos Island under the auspices of the ACMIC (Area de Conservation Marina Isla Del Coco). These funds will be specifically earmarked for a sustainable research and conservation project devised by TBA21-Academy in collaboration with our local partner FAICO (La Fundación Amigos de la Isla del Coco).

The buyer will take receipt of the ‘map‘ without the decryption key, along with the chest.

The Legend

Isla del Coco (Cocos Island) is the historical source of many foundational legends relating to buried treasure. The best known of the treasure legends tied to the island is that of the Treasure of Lima: In 1820, with the army of José de San Martín approaching Lima, Viceroy José de la Serna entrusted the treasure from the city to British trader Captain William Thompson for safekeeping until the Spaniards could secure the country. Instead of waiting in the harbour as they were instructed Thompson and his crew killed the Viceroy’s men and sailed to Cocos, where they buried the treasure. Shortly afterwards, they were apprehended by a Spanish warship. All of the crew bar Thompson and his first mate were executed for piracy. The two said they would show the Spaniards where they had hidden the treasure in return for their lives – but after landing on Cocos they escaped away into the forest.

Hundreds of attempts to find treasure on the island have failed. Several early expeditions were mounted on the basis of claims by a man named Keating, who was supposed to have befriended Thompson. On one trip, Keating was said to have retrieved gold and jewels from the treasure. Prussian adventurer August Gissler lived on the island for most of the period from 1889 until 1908, hunting the treasure with the small success of finding six gold coins.

Expedition

On May 1, 2014, collector and patron Francesca von Habsburg lead the expedition to bury a new treasure on Isla del Coco with curator Nadim Samman, travelling 550 kilometers by sea from Costa Rica on board the Dardanella - the vessel that serves as an operations platform for TBA21–Academy. The team was composed of artists and marine biologists and is the first to bury a treasure on Coco in more nearly two hundred years. They were assisted by the last man to ever work on an official treasure excavation project, and in order to prevent damage while burying the exhibition they worked closely with the Costa Rican National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC) and an appointed biologist park ranger.

Burial team:

Implications of the buried exhibition

An exhibition that might only ever be virtually accessed (through documentation, narrative etc.), but which could – in principle, though not without a great deal of effort and luck – be experienced/uncovered first hand: The real entombed within a virtual crypt(ography) and an actual buried treasure.

A challenge to the practice of ownership: Purchasing the (encrypted) map may afford the buyer a better chance of accessing the exhibition than other persons. However, it does not legally or practically guarantee their priority. Does it underwrite an ownership claim on the artworks contained in the box? Auctioning a digital file is also a challenge to the pre-eminence of the physical object in the art market.

The exhibition title Treasure of Lima highlights the maritime and colonial history of Central America. The original Treasure of Lima consisted of precious metals and artefacts requisitioned by the Spanish from their Central and South American dominions. Though ‘stolen’ from them by Thompson, their legitimate ownership of the trove is disputable. The project’s concern with pseudo-ownership echoes this problematic history.

By adding a new treasure to Isla del Coco the regulations restricting human access to this protected area (on ecological grounds) are highlighted. The project challenges these regulations: In order for the exhibition to be experienced in real life (by the map holder or other ‘treasure’ seekers) access must be had. This will only be possible if the protection laws are abolished or if their enforcement fails. The recovery of the buried treasure (trash?) will then mark the loss of greater (natural) bounty. Perhaps this project represents an attempt to bury our hubris.

Burying a contemporary treasure on Isla del Coco is more than an incursion within a geographical location. It is an intervention within the narrative and legal construction of a place. Stories relating to historical events on Isla del Coco have developed into legend, inspired novels and genre fantasies for more than a century. If, as some argue, the Treasure of Lima was never buried on Isla del Coco then perhaps this project can breathe new life into the utopian function of treasure fantasies and secret knowledge. The following questions guide our enterprise: How can a scheme for an exhibition add to this imaginary while interrogating and challenging models of spectatorship, audience, ownership etc.? How can it create its own legend?

The ‘treasure chest’ is made of inert natural material that will not harm the environment that it is buried in. The burial was supervised by a biologist proposed by the national park authorities – to ensure that we do not disturb native flora or fauna. The location of which will remain absolutely secret.

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