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.
Showing posts with label current possessors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label current possessors. Show all posts
04 February 2024
16 November 2019
Historians vs. lawyers
by Marc Masurovsky
The past two decades have witnessed hundreds of restitution cases whose purpose is to reclaim the return of objects looted during the Nazi era. Although the claimants are located around the world, the legal actions are concentrated in so-called market nations, namely in North America, Europe and occasionally in Japan.
These cases set out to fix, to repair historical wrongs. Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat came up with what turned out to be an enduring catch phrase to describe such actions: “just and fair solutions”. It’s anyone’s guess, frankly, what constitutes “fair” and “just” solutions. They vary greatly whether you are the current possessor or the victim’s heir/heiress.
Still, the wrongs being repaired took place during a historical act of genocide that spanned the greater part of 12 years, from 1933 to 1945. It was aimed principally at the citizens of European countries of Jewish descent. Thus, art restitution is an act of justice seeking to repair a historical wrong.
To establish the facts and circumstances surrounding the “historical wrong”, lawyers—who are not trained historians—rely on those who have made it their career to examine the historical past, understand its many sinews and meanders and interpret it for a larger public. Hence, lawyers need historians to compile evidence and build a persuasive case to convince a current possessor of the looted object either through mediation or before a judicial authority that the looted object should be returned to his/her client.
If lawyers need historians, historians do not need lawyers.
The past two decades have witnessed hundreds of restitution cases whose purpose is to reclaim the return of objects looted during the Nazi era. Although the claimants are located around the world, the legal actions are concentrated in so-called market nations, namely in North America, Europe and occasionally in Japan.
These cases set out to fix, to repair historical wrongs. Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat came up with what turned out to be an enduring catch phrase to describe such actions: “just and fair solutions”. It’s anyone’s guess, frankly, what constitutes “fair” and “just” solutions. They vary greatly whether you are the current possessor or the victim’s heir/heiress.
Still, the wrongs being repaired took place during a historical act of genocide that spanned the greater part of 12 years, from 1933 to 1945. It was aimed principally at the citizens of European countries of Jewish descent. Thus, art restitution is an act of justice seeking to repair a historical wrong.
To establish the facts and circumstances surrounding the “historical wrong”, lawyers—who are not trained historians—rely on those who have made it their career to examine the historical past, understand its many sinews and meanders and interpret it for a larger public. Hence, lawyers need historians to compile evidence and build a persuasive case to convince a current possessor of the looted object either through mediation or before a judicial authority that the looted object should be returned to his/her client.
If lawyers need historians, historians do not need lawyers.
And yet…
The variegated ways by which art objects were forcibly removed from the ownership and control of their rightful Jewish owners can give us pause. Here are some, not all by any means:
-forced sales
-duress sales
-confiscations
-seizures
-sales while fleeing the site of persecution (flight sales or fluchtgut).
These complex “transactions” were deemed illicit by Allied powers fighting the Axis (Germany, Italy, and Japan) in a series of declarations during and after WWII making it clear that those responsible for aiding, abetting and/or provoking such illicit acts of forcible removal would be held accountable after the Allied victory over the Axis.
These illicit acts, in the eyes of those who study them—the historians—need to be clearly defined and all of their possible variations fully delineated and outlined so that their many permutations can be factored into legal proceedings.
By some perverse twist, American lawyers have increasingly opposed historians’ efforts to come up with clear definitions and delineations of these historical wrongs because any definition might impair their ability to successfully prosecute a claim against a current possessor.
The world is a strange place especially when, in order to repair a historical wrong tied to an act of genocide, a historian is asked to be silent on the exact details of these illicit acts.
Let’s be very clear here: historians need to do their jobs which is to apprehend the complexities of the past and explain them to the public in order to promote greater knowledge and enlightenment about what human beings do to other human beings so that, hopefully, we might not repeat such heinous acts in the future. Nice thought, I know.
Likewise, lawyers must do their job and protect their clients’ interests. For that, they need historians and other specialists to help them harness the facts of a case.
One thing they cannot do is order historians to censor themselves, just like historians do not ask lawyers to censor themselves.
Therefore, historians and researchers steeped in the tangled webs of persecution and exploitation of Jewish members of national communities between 1933 and 1945 will continue to study, examine, share in public and in private their findings and publish them where appropriate so that the many can have access to such knowledge.
Lawyers are intelligent people; they will surely find a way to adapt to such a state of affairs. After all, they cannot control the dissemination of knowledge anymore than governments can. And should not, under any circumstance.
Facts, ma’am, just the facts.
Some of the main Allied declarations:
The variegated ways by which art objects were forcibly removed from the ownership and control of their rightful Jewish owners can give us pause. Here are some, not all by any means:
-forced sales
-duress sales
-confiscations
-seizures
-sales while fleeing the site of persecution (flight sales or fluchtgut).
These complex “transactions” were deemed illicit by Allied powers fighting the Axis (Germany, Italy, and Japan) in a series of declarations during and after WWII making it clear that those responsible for aiding, abetting and/or provoking such illicit acts of forcible removal would be held accountable after the Allied victory over the Axis.
These illicit acts, in the eyes of those who study them—the historians—need to be clearly defined and all of their possible variations fully delineated and outlined so that their many permutations can be factored into legal proceedings.
By some perverse twist, American lawyers have increasingly opposed historians’ efforts to come up with clear definitions and delineations of these historical wrongs because any definition might impair their ability to successfully prosecute a claim against a current possessor.
The world is a strange place especially when, in order to repair a historical wrong tied to an act of genocide, a historian is asked to be silent on the exact details of these illicit acts.
Let’s be very clear here: historians need to do their jobs which is to apprehend the complexities of the past and explain them to the public in order to promote greater knowledge and enlightenment about what human beings do to other human beings so that, hopefully, we might not repeat such heinous acts in the future. Nice thought, I know.
Likewise, lawyers must do their job and protect their clients’ interests. For that, they need historians and other specialists to help them harness the facts of a case.
One thing they cannot do is order historians to censor themselves, just like historians do not ask lawyers to censor themselves.
Therefore, historians and researchers steeped in the tangled webs of persecution and exploitation of Jewish members of national communities between 1933 and 1945 will continue to study, examine, share in public and in private their findings and publish them where appropriate so that the many can have access to such knowledge.
Lawyers are intelligent people; they will surely find a way to adapt to such a state of affairs. After all, they cannot control the dissemination of knowledge anymore than governments can. And should not, under any circumstance.
Facts, ma’am, just the facts.
Some of the main Allied declarations:
"Inter-Allied Declaration on Axis Acts of Dispossession" (London Declaration) of 5 January 1943
Bretton Woods Resolution VI of 20 July 1944
Bretton Woods Resolution VI of 20 July 1944
25 October 2016
Peace? An unabashed biased view
by Marc Masurovsky
South Korea hosted the 6th International Conference of Experts on the return of Cultural Property (ICECP), a forum which it helped create in 2011. The three-day conference was held from October 18 to October 20, 2016, at the Hilton Hotel in Gyeongju, a historic city situated at three hours train ride south of Seoul.
The conference host was the Korean Overseas Cultural Heritage Foundation, an affiliate of the Korean Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA). It invited specialists and government officials from China, Cambodia, Greece, Turkey, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Several speakers, including Ieng Srong, director of movable heritage and museums section at UNESCO, and Keun Gwan Lee, a law professor and dean of planning and coordination at Seoul National University, called for peaceful solutions to be sought in the resolution of cultural heritage disputes worldwide. These conflicts regularly pit current possessors, i.e., museums in recipient nations, whether State-owned or privately-owned, against aggrieved communities or source countries from which the cultural property was illegally removed either as a result of colonial rule, military conflict, civil strife, or good-old fashioned commercial theft. Their presentations were complex, rich, and raised more questions than they themselves could answer. Thoughtful, they encapsulated the complexity of source nations’ attempts to recover the cultural property lost to predatory practices implemented by uninvited guests, invaders, colonizers, State-sponsored thieves backed by significant force and armies. Decades later, their treasured property remains displayed in the halls of “global” museums which pride themselves on providing to their loving public the result of their illicit purchases and acquisitions, indifferent to the twisted provenances that these objects carry with them.
Yes, negotiations can be fraught and frayed between aggrieved nations and the current possessors, self-described “internationalist” institutions which support a “global” view of displaying cultural objects, regardless of origin, licit or illicit. The strategies that source nations must consider using when attempting to recover their property can have direct consequences on their foreign relations, cultural, commercial, political, with the nations where their objects rest on display.
At what price must these negotiations be conducted, short of declaring war, to recover sacred and cultural objects, prized possessions that are an integral part of their cultural and spiritual heritage? What are the costs of maintaining a durable peace when the current possessors flaunt their acquisition and retention of title to these looted objects which source nations and aggrieved communities have asked to be returned to them out of respect for their heritage and the meaning, symbolism, and (non-monetary) value which they imbue in those objects. These arguments invariably fall on deaf ears, as the current possessors refuse to acknowledge them, so sure they are of their right to maintain title to the stolen property, obtained in “good faith”, mind you.
What does peace really entail when negotiations become protracted, drawn out in order to ensure the return of these looted cultural assets to source nations? Peace subsumes lengthy exchanges, endless mediations provided by international organizations, specially designated committees and individuals to present the arguments that will lead to some kind of resolution. Is it worth waiting for 20 years? And why does it have to take an average of 20 years to recover stolen cultural objects?
This is where it gets interesting. The spokespersons for aggrieved nations reason differently than the individual claimant victims stripped of their property as a result of acts of genocide, like Holocaust victims and their families. Source nations’ attachment to the cultural, spiritual, national significance of their lost objects carries with it a different sense of responsibility which compels varied strategies in how these objects will be recovered.
A brief tour of Korean cultural and sacred sites was enough to make anyone’s blood boil at the immensity and scope of the crimes committed by the Japanese occupying authority against the culture of millions of Korean citizens for close to half a century. It was as heartbreaking to see what no longer is there than to visit ruined Jewish settlements overgrown by forests and bushes, the bare remnants of thriving communities before the Nazis sowed their genocidal wrath against them.
The same reactions would obviously apply to China which suffered unspeakable violations and depredations for fifteen long and endless years at the hands of the Japanese imperial army and its allies. This is history, it happened. And there is no denying it. The scars are still visible. The discussions of this history continue to be awkward and painful, unresolved, an objective history of these tortured events remains a difficult task to accomplish. And it is in this context that the recovery process of the lost cultural and sacred heritage of these aggrieved nations must take place. Korea and China are but two examples of similar crimes perpetrated in other countries around the world. And each time, the fortunate recipients of these crimes—wittingly or unwittingly—are museums and other cultural institutions residing in Western nations. This is not meant to be an anti-Western diatribe but the facts are as they are. Those countries most willing to absorb cultural and sacred material looted from non-Western nations lie mostly to the West of the Oder River and between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, with the exception of Japan and its absorption of Chinese and Korean cultural material.
How does one achieve peace in this context? It is almost impossible to ask victims to be peaceful. But it is worth noting that the aggrieved parties have maintained, in most instances, the high ethical ground against the apparently selfish, self-righteous and self-aggrandizing motives put forth by the current possessors as justification to retain title to their looted property.
In that regard, calls for peace to resolve cultural heritage disputes echo the “just and fair solutions” developed as of the late 1990s by international diplomats and their allies in the museums community to achieve peaceful, non-litigious compromises between Holocaust victims’ heirs and the current possessors of their looted property, without the latter ceding title to the looted assets. The victims are asked to be reasonable while their painful legacy is explicitly acknowledged. The same appears to hold true in the recovery of looted cultural property illegally removed from source nations. Their painful heritage and history is readily acknowledged, empathy evenly distributed, but title must remain with the current possessor. Conflict arises when the source nation rejects that rationale, complaints are filed and some form of mediation ensues which can last for years, if not decades, which will require intervention by policymakers, politicians and experts from many countries and international bodies. Why waste all of this time and energy when the facts underlying the thefts and illegal removals are clear? Even if they are somewhat muddy and blurry, the obsession that current possessors have with retaining title borders on obsession and pathology. What would happen if current possessors ceded title to a long-sought object embodying far more meaning to the claimant than it could ever have to the current possessor? Without a fight, swiftly and efficiently. Would the world fall apart? No, the present and future role of museums as global institutions might be redefined, that's all.
For now, let’s stop here and ponder.
We will return to this discussion in forthcoming dispatches, inspired by the Sixth International Conference of Experts on the Return of Cultural Property (ICECP) which took place in Gyeongju, South Korea, from October 18 to October 20, 2016.
South Korea hosted the 6th International Conference of Experts on the return of Cultural Property (ICECP), a forum which it helped create in 2011. The three-day conference was held from October 18 to October 20, 2016, at the Hilton Hotel in Gyeongju, a historic city situated at three hours train ride south of Seoul.
The conference host was the Korean Overseas Cultural Heritage Foundation, an affiliate of the Korean Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA). It invited specialists and government officials from China, Cambodia, Greece, Turkey, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Several speakers, including Ieng Srong, director of movable heritage and museums section at UNESCO, and Keun Gwan Lee, a law professor and dean of planning and coordination at Seoul National University, called for peaceful solutions to be sought in the resolution of cultural heritage disputes worldwide. These conflicts regularly pit current possessors, i.e., museums in recipient nations, whether State-owned or privately-owned, against aggrieved communities or source countries from which the cultural property was illegally removed either as a result of colonial rule, military conflict, civil strife, or good-old fashioned commercial theft. Their presentations were complex, rich, and raised more questions than they themselves could answer. Thoughtful, they encapsulated the complexity of source nations’ attempts to recover the cultural property lost to predatory practices implemented by uninvited guests, invaders, colonizers, State-sponsored thieves backed by significant force and armies. Decades later, their treasured property remains displayed in the halls of “global” museums which pride themselves on providing to their loving public the result of their illicit purchases and acquisitions, indifferent to the twisted provenances that these objects carry with them.
Yes, negotiations can be fraught and frayed between aggrieved nations and the current possessors, self-described “internationalist” institutions which support a “global” view of displaying cultural objects, regardless of origin, licit or illicit. The strategies that source nations must consider using when attempting to recover their property can have direct consequences on their foreign relations, cultural, commercial, political, with the nations where their objects rest on display.
At what price must these negotiations be conducted, short of declaring war, to recover sacred and cultural objects, prized possessions that are an integral part of their cultural and spiritual heritage? What are the costs of maintaining a durable peace when the current possessors flaunt their acquisition and retention of title to these looted objects which source nations and aggrieved communities have asked to be returned to them out of respect for their heritage and the meaning, symbolism, and (non-monetary) value which they imbue in those objects. These arguments invariably fall on deaf ears, as the current possessors refuse to acknowledge them, so sure they are of their right to maintain title to the stolen property, obtained in “good faith”, mind you.
What does peace really entail when negotiations become protracted, drawn out in order to ensure the return of these looted cultural assets to source nations? Peace subsumes lengthy exchanges, endless mediations provided by international organizations, specially designated committees and individuals to present the arguments that will lead to some kind of resolution. Is it worth waiting for 20 years? And why does it have to take an average of 20 years to recover stolen cultural objects?
This is where it gets interesting. The spokespersons for aggrieved nations reason differently than the individual claimant victims stripped of their property as a result of acts of genocide, like Holocaust victims and their families. Source nations’ attachment to the cultural, spiritual, national significance of their lost objects carries with it a different sense of responsibility which compels varied strategies in how these objects will be recovered.
A brief tour of Korean cultural and sacred sites was enough to make anyone’s blood boil at the immensity and scope of the crimes committed by the Japanese occupying authority against the culture of millions of Korean citizens for close to half a century. It was as heartbreaking to see what no longer is there than to visit ruined Jewish settlements overgrown by forests and bushes, the bare remnants of thriving communities before the Nazis sowed their genocidal wrath against them.
The same reactions would obviously apply to China which suffered unspeakable violations and depredations for fifteen long and endless years at the hands of the Japanese imperial army and its allies. This is history, it happened. And there is no denying it. The scars are still visible. The discussions of this history continue to be awkward and painful, unresolved, an objective history of these tortured events remains a difficult task to accomplish. And it is in this context that the recovery process of the lost cultural and sacred heritage of these aggrieved nations must take place. Korea and China are but two examples of similar crimes perpetrated in other countries around the world. And each time, the fortunate recipients of these crimes—wittingly or unwittingly—are museums and other cultural institutions residing in Western nations. This is not meant to be an anti-Western diatribe but the facts are as they are. Those countries most willing to absorb cultural and sacred material looted from non-Western nations lie mostly to the West of the Oder River and between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, with the exception of Japan and its absorption of Chinese and Korean cultural material.
How does one achieve peace in this context? It is almost impossible to ask victims to be peaceful. But it is worth noting that the aggrieved parties have maintained, in most instances, the high ethical ground against the apparently selfish, self-righteous and self-aggrandizing motives put forth by the current possessors as justification to retain title to their looted property.
In that regard, calls for peace to resolve cultural heritage disputes echo the “just and fair solutions” developed as of the late 1990s by international diplomats and their allies in the museums community to achieve peaceful, non-litigious compromises between Holocaust victims’ heirs and the current possessors of their looted property, without the latter ceding title to the looted assets. The victims are asked to be reasonable while their painful legacy is explicitly acknowledged. The same appears to hold true in the recovery of looted cultural property illegally removed from source nations. Their painful heritage and history is readily acknowledged, empathy evenly distributed, but title must remain with the current possessor. Conflict arises when the source nation rejects that rationale, complaints are filed and some form of mediation ensues which can last for years, if not decades, which will require intervention by policymakers, politicians and experts from many countries and international bodies. Why waste all of this time and energy when the facts underlying the thefts and illegal removals are clear? Even if they are somewhat muddy and blurry, the obsession that current possessors have with retaining title borders on obsession and pathology. What would happen if current possessors ceded title to a long-sought object embodying far more meaning to the claimant than it could ever have to the current possessor? Without a fight, swiftly and efficiently. Would the world fall apart? No, the present and future role of museums as global institutions might be redefined, that's all.
For now, let’s stop here and ponder.
We will return to this discussion in forthcoming dispatches, inspired by the Sixth International Conference of Experts on the Return of Cultural Property (ICECP) which took place in Gyeongju, South Korea, from October 18 to October 20, 2016.
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