Reactions to the Culture Forum at LSE

I recommend Tom Flynn's comprehensive overview of the cultural panel which took place Tuesday at LSE. It sounds like it was much of the same kinds of polite disagreements which these kinds of events typically produce.  Here's a flavor of Tom's reaction:

Cuno's highly political presentation — which, paradoxically, sought to criticize what he saw as the politicisation of culture by source nations — was followed by a few short comments from Tatiana Flessas. 

Professor Flessas sought to point out that many encyclopedic museums are themselves national creations and are thus also instruments of nationalist agendas — actors taking up nationalistic positions by claiming the power to interpret, contextualise and assign meanings to the objects in their collections. "That building up the road is not a branch of museums UK plc, it is The British Museum", she said, drawing one the few ripples of laughter in an otherwise rather po-faced evening. 

Terrific Event on Culture at LSE on Tuesday

Those of you in and around London should strongly consider attending "Who owns culture?" on Tuesday Nov. 17th. The strong panel will include Dr James Cuno, Dr Maurice Davies, Dr Tatiana Flessas, and Dr Tiffany Jenkins.  These are some prominent folks, and they should present some interesting different opinions.  I'd be very keen if any folks who attend would send me any impressions of the event.

Here are the details:

Who owns culture?

Tuesday 17 November, 6.30pm until 8.00pm, London School of Economics Satellite Events

Venue: Thai Theatre, London School of Economics, New Academic Building, 54 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, WC2A 3LJ
Tickets: £7.50 (£5 concessions) per person. Tickets are available from the Institute of Ideas website.

---

For the past two centuries, the West has acquired treasures of the ancient world to fill its museums, so that visitors to the British Museum in London for example can see historic artefacts from all over the world. In recent years, though, various countries and even ethnic communities within countries have begun to demand the return of artefacts. Several North American museums were recently rocked by claims from countries including Italy that objects in their collections had been acquired illicitly. In response they returned over a hundred objects. Meanwhile a former curator of antiquities from the prestigious Getty Museum is currently on trial for conspiracy to traffic in illicit antiquities. In response to this controversy, UNESCO has encouraged the development of policies and laws which state that artefacts excavated after 1970 belong to the nation states in which they were found.

Where do treasures from the past rightly belong, and why? Should they be housed in the country of origin where locals as well as visitors can see them in their historic context, or in an institution with objects from everywhere? Often it is not clear what it means to say something belongs to a particular country. The Parthenon Marbles pre-date by millennia the formation of the Greek state, for example, while terracotta Nok sculptures found in Nigeria have little to do with that country’s culture today. Some argue the policy of repatriating such objects, along with ‘nationalist retentionist’ policies, promote divisive identity politics over a universalist appreciation of objects of art as part of world history. But is this just a self-serving argument on the part of Western institutions who already have much of the best ‘stuff’ from world history? Some argue museums should return objects or at least consult with the relevant communities as a form of reparations for colonialism. But does this unhelpfully politicise museums in the here and now? Others argue contentious artefacts should be entrusted to an international nongovernmental agency. But who might sit on this suggested nongovernmental agency and what power should they have? So are things best left where they are, or returned whence they came in the interests of fairness?

Holocaust (Stolen Art) Restitution Act takes effect

New legislation which took effect on Friday will allow national museums in England and Scotland to act to return works of art, based on the recommendations of the Spoliation Advisory Panel.  The panel resolves claims arising from the loss of objects to the Nazis.  There have been nine instances of wrongful takings in which claimants were compensated, yet the national institutions have been forbidden from returning objects outright.  The only remedy was payment.  This is a welcome change, and allows UK museums to do the just thing.  Andrew Dismore, MP sponsored the act, and said:

It shows what could be achieved by a determined backbencher: by rolling out my sleeping bag and sleeping on the floor of the Public Bill Office overnight, I was able to become the first in the queue to apply for Second Readings after the balloted Bills, and this tactic paid off.

While I do not envisage the Act having to be used very frequently, this is an important moral step, to ensure that we can close yet a further chapter on the appalling crimes of the Holocaust.

1. UK museums can return looted art, BBC, November 13, 2009.

Another Munch Theft

Art thieves must love Edvard Munch.  In yet another theft of his works, Historien, a lithograph by Munch has been stolen.  A man smashed the window of the Nyborg Kunst gallery in Oslo late Thursday and stole the work.  Police are speculating that this may have been a theft by order, as the thief's vehicle had been reported stolen 10 days earlier, and this unique work will be impossible to sell on the open market.  AFP reminds us of some of the recent Munch thefts:

In 2004, two armed masked men burst into the Munch museum in Oslo in broad daylight and stole the "Scream" and the "Madonna" paintings before making off in a getaway car.
Ten years earlier, another version of the "Scream" was stolen from Oslo's national gallery on the same day as the opening of the Lillehammer Winter Olympics.

AFP: Munch artwork stolen from Oslo gallery, November 13, 2009.

5,000 and Counting

The BBC reports on the increasingly-aggressive efforts by Egypt to secure the return of objects from the British Museum and Germany's Neues Museum.  Zahi Hawass claims to have arranged for the return of some 5,000 artifacts:

Later this month Egyptian archaeologists will travel to the Louvre Museum in Paris to collect five ancient fresco fragments stolen from a tomb in the Valley of the Kings in the 1980s, but there are many other "stolen" antiquities which they also want back, reports the BBC's Yolande Knell in Cairo.

One of the first artefacts that visitors see on entering the pink neoclassical facade of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo is a fake.

"This is a replica of the Rosetta Stone. It is the only object in the museum that is not real," announces a tour guide, his voice echoing through the high-domed hall."The original is kept in the British Museum." Before leading his group on to the lines of old-fashioned cabinets filled with ancient treasures, he explains the significance of the basalt slab, which dates back to 196BC and was key to the modern decipherment of hieroglyphics.

The Rosetta Stone presents an interesting case.  Would we think much of the stone if it hadn't been for Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion who managed to decipher the hieroglyphic writing?  If so, doesn't the British Museum have a closer connection to the stone, where it has been almost-continually displayed since 1802.  Of course it was discovered by the French in 1799, and there is certainly a compelling case that those kinds of removals were wrongful.

The quest to regain Egypts antiquities, BBC, Nov. 11, 2009.

Light Posting

Apologies for the light posting of late, I hope to resume early next week.  I've been finalizing my preparations for the AALS Hiring Conference in Washington DC this weekend.  Joni will be joining me as well, and if any readers or former students are up for dinner or drinks, drop me a line:  derek.fincham "at" gmail.com.

Museums and Restitution Conference at the University of Manchester

Call for papers for a conference on Museums and Restitution in July:

Museums and Restitution
International Conference
8-9 July 2010, University of Manchester
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/museumsandrestitution/

Museums and Restitution is a two-day international conference organised by the
Centre for Museology and The Manchester Museum at the University of Manchester.
The conference examines the issue of restitution in relation to the changing
role and authority of the museum, focussing on new ways in which these
institutions are addressing the subject.

Restitution is one of the most emotive and complex issues facing the museum
world in the twenty first century. Its current high profile reflects changing
global power relations and the increasingly vocal criticisms of the historical
concentration of the world's heritage in the museums of the West. The 2002
Declaration of the Importance and Value of Universal Museums, which was signed
by the directors of eighteen of the world's most powerful museums, pushed the
subject to the forefront of debate as never before.

Over recent years, the issue of restitution has taken on a new complexion with
different processes emerging. We have seen an increasing emphasis on museums
working with source communities, and with new forms of restitution other than
object restitution - such as visual and knowledge restitution. The language of
discussion too has changed, with the term 'reunification', for example, rather
than 'repatriation' now often being used in relation to the Parthenon Marbles.
The opening of New Acropolis Museum in Athens in June 2009 has added a further
dimension to the debates. We are also seeing new countries gaining increasing
prominence in restitution debates: for example, the official response from the
government of the People's Republic of China to the Yves Saint Laurent auction
of Chinese looted bronzes at Christie's in Paris in March 2009. This is a trend
clearly set to continue.

This conference will bring together museum professionals and academics from a
wide range of fields (including museology, archaeology, anthropology, art
history and cultural policy) to share ideas on contemporary approaches to
restitution from the viewpoint of museums.

Possible themes

• New museums, new developments
• Visual, knowledge and digital repatriation
• Authority and power: voices listened to, voices heard
• Beyond ownership? Loans, travelling exhibitions, exchanges
• Reflections on returns

Please send a title and a short proposal of no more than 300 words and
biographical details to Louise Tythacott louise.tythacott@manchester.ac.uk and
Kostas Arvanitis kostas.arvanitis@manchester.ac.uk

Deadline for Abstracts: Friday 11th December 2009

Update on Yale's Cultural Heritage Lawsuits

 The Yale Daily News updates two disputes involving Yale University.  The first is a dispute involving the Night Cafe by Vincent Van Gogh:

 Pierre Konowaloff, the descendant of a Russian aristocrat who once owned the painting, claims it is rightfully his because the Soviet government expropriated it from his family in 1918.
The Soviet government seized “The Night Café” from Konowaloff’s great-grandfather Ivan Morozov as part of the government’s mass nationalization of private property in the early 20th century. Konowaloff claims this constitutes a theft, delegitimizing any subsequent sale or purchase. Therefore, Konowaloff claims, Stephen Clark 1903, who bequeathed the painting to Yale in 1960, never actually owned it.
Clark was a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the early 1930s, he acquired the painting from the Knoedler Gallery in New York City, which had purchased it from the Matthiesen Gallery in Berlin, Germany; it was the Matthiesen Gallery that originally bought the painting from the Soviets.
Yale first responded to Konowaloff’s claims of ownership in May 2009, filing a lawsuit to assert the University’s ownership. Konowaloff responded with a counterclaim in March 2009, requesting the return of the painting and over $75,000 in damages.
Yale’s Oct. 5 motion argues that “it is well-established that a foreign nation’s taking of its own national’s property within its own borders does not violate international law,” and that the Soviet government’s original acquisition — and also Yale’s subsequent acquisition — of the painting was legal.
The motion also argues that Konowaloff’s claim came too late, since the statute of limitations for a dispute of ownership of this nature would have expired in the 1960s, three years after Yale publicized its acquisition of the painting.

The second is a dispute involving objects removed by Hiram Bingham from Machu Picchu:

 

In the case of the Inca artifacts, Yale is arguing it first gained control of the items when they arrived in New Haven in the 1920s, describing them in several Yale publications as part of the museum’s permanent collection.
“Decade after decade, Peru was content to let Yale hold itself out to the world as the owner of the objects,” the Oct. 16 motion reads. “[Peru] disregarded the reasonable time limits imposed by law for bringing its claims.”

1. Nora Caplan-Bricker, Yale moves to drop museum suits, Yale Daily News, October 27, 2009.

The Met Returns Object to Egypt

Curious story involving the Met and Egypt. It seems the museum will return a fragment of a red granite shrine purchased from an antiquities collector in New York last October "so that it could be returned." It seems the Met purchased the object specifically to return it to Egypt. Curious to say the least, why couldn't ICE agents or the NYPD have gotten involved? Perhaps because it was a prominent unnamed collector? There are more questions than answers at this point.

Here's a part of the AP story:

The piece arrives in Egypt Thursday, the statement said. Egle Zygas, senior press officer for the Met, confirmed the museum's decision.
SCA head Zahi Hawass hailed the Met's move as a "great deed," singling it out as the first time a museum has bought an item for the sole purpose of repatriating it.
The fragment belongs to the naos honoring the 12th Dynasty King Amenemhat I, who ruled 4,000 years ago, which is now in the Ptah temple of Karnak in Luxor.
It's the latest coup for Hawass, Egypt's assertive and media-savvy archaeologist, who has been on an international lobbying campaign to reclaim what he says are stolen Egyptian artifacts from the world's most prestigious museums.
He says so far he has recovered 5,000 artifacts since becoming antiquities head in 2002.

1. Joseph Freeman, The Met returns Egyptian artifact, The Associated Press Oct. 27, 2009.

Banks as Art Museums?

Interesting piece from the New York Times on banks and their art collections:

Deutsche Bank is believed to own the largest corporate collection in the world, with some 60,000 pieces of contemporary art. UBS owns 40,000 pieces, and JPMorgan Chase 30,000. Combined, that approaches the Museum of Modern Art’s trove. Banks have various explanations for their hoarding instincts: lots of walls to cover, clients to impress, corporate identities to build. Or perhaps just some past director was a devoted patron.
If banks were temples of culture rather than lucre, the collections would be easy to justify. As a financial asset, however, much of the art is of dubious value. Some 400 works owned by Lehman Brothers, including ones by Roy Lichtenstein, are expected to fetch only about $1 million at a coming auction. And it’s hard to believe Andy Warhol or Damien Hirst ever helped get an initial public offering off the ground.
At least some banks take care of their treasures. JPMorgan, whose collection was started a half-century ago by David Rockefeller at Chase Manhattan, has a well-regarded curator. But many banks don’t even know what’s boxed up in the basement, having inherited artwork in takeovers.
Some do make an effort to share their artistic wealth. Monte dei Paschi di Siena of Italy invites the public to see some of its impressive collection, which stretches back to the Renaissance. The Swiss bank UBS lets the Tate Museum of Britain select from its collection. But these efforts don’t often come to much. The Tate currently has only three of UBS’s pieces on display.

The authors tie these large collections to the financial bailout.  I'm more interested in comparing these banks to art museums.   It make When banks purchase massive amounts of art, it becomes harder for museums to compete with the economic clout of banks.  Though the piece is critical of this ownership of works of art, I suspect one main reason these works of art are held is to wait until their value escalates and banks can trade them for tax exemptions.

1. Jeffrey Goldfarb & Lauren Silva Laughlin, Banks Hoard Troves of Art, The New York Times, October 26, 2009.

"It's about emotion, not airtight logic and consistent policy."

So argues Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times in describing the recent calls for repatriation of works of art.  He takes as examples the recent repatriation claims made by Egypt against Germany and France.  He makes two points that I'd like to draw out of the article.

First, he claims that globalization has intensified "cultural differences" between nations.  This allows nationalism to "exploit culture".  He may be correct in some cases, but he fails to note that the frescoes returned by the Louvre had been purchased recently, with little history.  Given what we know about the antiquities trade, this means they were likely illegally exported or looted. 

Second, he argues these claims are often based on emotion.  That is certainly true in some cases, because after all works of art are often designed to convey emotion.  One example of this would be Scotland's desire for the return of the Lewis Chessmen.  But not all of these claims are without merit.  Moreover, why is it that only claimant nations are "emotional".  Are not museums and other groups "emotional" when they make arguments that works of art should stay where they are currently situated?  Kimmelman makes the argument that justice has shifted.  But I think that is a good thing.  We are closer to better justice for all nations, not merely the wealthier market nations via International treaties like the 1970 UNESCO Convention, and important decisions like the Schultz and Barakat decisions in the United States and the United Kingdom.   

Michael Kimmelman, When Ancient Artifacts Become Political Pawns, The New York Times, October 24, 2009.

Sotheby's Refuses to Disclose Executive Bonuses

Sotheby's auction house is refusing to disclose to government regulators how much its executives receive in bonuses.  They defend the refusal by noting that if Christie's (which as a private corporation does not have to disclose the same information) were to learn the bonuses, they could lure away these executives.  Any follower of the art trade will hardly be surprised by the hesitancy to disclose this information, but Jeremy Telman at the Contracts Prof blog outlines pokes three holes in Sotheby's argument:

1. Sotheby's and Christie's are undoubtedly at the top of the heap in the art dealing industry.  Based on my circle of acquaintances, which includes many unemployed or underemployed artists, art curators and art experts, it seems likely to me that Sotheby's and Christie's benefit from being in a buyer's market when it comes to hiring executives.  If both companies under-compensated their executives, where would those executives go?  And if they left, so what?  Couldn't Sotheby's and Christie's easily find highly competent replacements who would work on paint fumes just for the honor of getting those great auction houses on their resumes?
2. But even if I'm wrong about that, if Christie's were really interested in luring executives away from Sotheby's, couldn't they just ask the executives about what sort of compensation package it would take to motivate them to move?  Is there a number one rule of Sotheby's Club that you don't talk about Sotheby's Club?
3. In any case, didn't Sotheby's waive its right to whine about the hassles of disclosure when it went public?

Daniel Wakin, Sotheby’s Keeps Its Executive Bonus Plan Under Wraps - ArtsBeat Blog - NYTimes.com.