by Marc Masurovsky
A Parisian curator once said about the Vichy regime: It was the revenge of good taste. You could apply this statement to Nazi cultural policy from 1933 to 1945. Restoring good taste in a society corrupted by Jews, Freemasons, Bolsheviks and sexual perverts, according to Nazi propaganda. La revanche du goût. The leitmotiv for State-sponsored plunder of art objects from collectors and dealers mainly of Jewish origin. This plunder lasted for 12 years and stretched throughout Europe, going hand in hand with persecution, racial extermination, and world war.
Why are we still talking about looted art today? Because there really was no justice at the end of WWII for the vast majority of victims of cultural plunder.
Why was there no justice at war’s end? Because the emphasis of restitution was on “cultural treasures”, on those art objects that reflected “good taste” and the cultural heritage of the despoiled nations at the hands of the Nazis and their local collaborators. Who owned those items, those “treasures”? The elite vicims of Nazism. All told, 5 to 10 per cent of the population of victims. What happened to the rest? They either received a check in the mail or their claims were never honored. Simple. It was not worth the effort of postwar governments, then and now, to search for their works of art because they did not rise to the standard of “treasure.” Who was in charge of the investigations? Curators, directors of museums, art historians, culture ministry officials, even art market players. Those responsible for shaping the cultural sphere of postwar societies.
What does that tell us about justice following a genocide?
If your art did not rise to the esthetic standard set by the government and the leadership of the art world and cultural institutions, it would never be recovered and instead would recirculate in the private art market with no chance for you to recover your family’s treasures.
The law protects the current possessor. No law has ever been passed to treat victims of genocidal plunder with respect. There are no laws today that allow victims to recover their property. As it turns out, government officials and museum professionals are beholden to collectors and private art market operators. They refuse to take actions against them that might disrupt the free flow of art within and across borders.
What does this tell us? Theft of art in the context of mass killings and genocide pays for itself. Restitution policies are shaped by perceptions of art and belie governments and elites’ obsession with what they perceive to be “high art” as the highest form of expression of who we are as “civilized” human beings. What really is an art “treasure” ? To date, no one can actually come up with an answer to that question.
Art ownership is forever transformed by acts of plunder and genocide. The demand for restitution clashes with dominant ideas about the value and meaning of art in society, especially for those who have been given the power to shape the esthetics of our society. Woe on those who dared own art objects that did not fit the ruling definition of acceptable art which was then plundered and becomes forever lost in the maelstrom of the global art market for others to enjoy at the expense of the victims. We can legitimately posit that the global art market has been contaminated since the late 1930s with looted, unrestituted art,, coming from both Europe and the Far East.
Can we then deduce that the art world tolerates plunder in the name of beauty and its possession? Perhaps, because, more than 30 billion of euros worth of unprovenanced art changed hands without anyone worrying whether it was stolen or not.
We need to ask ourselves, therefore. Why do we behave in this manner with art? Why do we tolerate the worst excesses and abuses in order to own, view, and enjoy art objects?
What is so complicated about the physical return of a stolen object to its rightful owner? Why does that very act generate so much passion, so much venom especially from the irate current possessor who feels more victimized than a survivor of genocide and victim of cultural plunder?
Is it a symptom of irrepressible narcissistic behavior that seems to pervade today’s elites?
What is it about art that it can generate so much irrationality amongst those who own it, those who curate it, those who steward it? Why does their ethical compass go haywire in the presence of an object that they covet, even if it origins clearly betray acts of illicit transfers of ownership due to conflicts, social upheavals, international conflagrations or outright acts of genocide?
WHY?
Why do governments do nothing to set examples and enforce ethical behavior in the art world?
Thou shall not possess, display, or trade in stolen art. That should be the mantra and yet it is rarely applied.