[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/H4404-L439307717_original.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Mexican Ministry of Culture has demanded the suspension of an auction in Colorado, reports the Latin American news channel TeleSUR. Organized by Artemis Fine Arts in Louisville, Colorado, and scheduled for today, the sale, titled \u201cFine\/Visual Art, Ancient, Ethnographic Art,\u201d includes 80 artifacts of Mexican origin. The works were flagged by Mexico\u2019s federal agency, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), one of whose roles is to protect the country\u2019s cultural heritage.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOur heritage is not an object of profit,\u201d Culture Secretary Claudia Curiel de Icaza said. \u201cIts defense is a permanent commitment to the memory and cultural sovereignty of Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tUnder Mexican federal law, artifacts such as the ones on sale today are the property of Mexico, and their export has been prohibited since 1827. In the eyes of Mexican authorities, therefore, any artifacts found outside of Mexico are considered to have been illegal extracted. However, American dealers such as Bob and Teresa Dodge, the owners of Artemis Fine Arts, operate under a variety of U.S. and international laws, including the 1970 UNESCO Convention, codified into U.S. law, which allows for the legal sale of artifacts with a clear provenance.<\/p>\n
\n\tSince 2018, working under a restitution campaign known as \u201cMi Patrimonio No Se Vende\u201d (My Heritage Is Not For Sale), the Mexican government has recovered about 16,500 cultural artifacts through diplomatic efforts and legal action, as well as through challenging sales of pre-Columbian and ethnographic pieces at auctions in the U.S and Europe. Artemis has drawn its attention several times in the past, notably in 2024 and 2025; in those cases the Dodges refused to halt the auctions or repatriate any of the items offered.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn 2024, when interviewed by Artnet<\/em>, Teresa Dodge railed at news reports about repatriation efforts that don\u2019t offer clarity on what is legal to sell. And when asked if critics might not be concerned with the gallery\u2019s sales beyond their legality, her husband told the magazine, \u201cMexico wants everything back. To what end? Because it\u2019s theirs? When it was made, there was no Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/mexico-demands-a-halt-to-colorado-auction-1234788427\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/H4404-L439307717_original.jpg?w=1024″] The Mexican Ministry of Culture has demanded the suspension of an auction in Colorado, reports the Latin American news channel TeleSUR. Organized by Artemis Fine Arts in Louisville, Colorado, and scheduled for today, the sale, titled \u201cFine\/Visual Art, Ancient, Ethnographic Art,\u201d includes 80 artifacts of Mexican origin. The works were flagged by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1976038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1976038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1976038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1976038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1976038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}