Utopian thoughts on a lazy, snowy Friday

by Marc Masurovsky

Museums
Acquisitions of objects are limited to those objects with no taint whatsoever on title. Under-provenanced objects with significant gaps and riddled with uncertainties as to past ownerships and locations must not enter a museum.

The museum’s research budget allows for a team of full-time researchers whose sole purpose is to keep the museum “honest.” 

Louvre, Paris

If problems emerge in the ownership history of objects in the permanent collection, all measures must be taken to clear title by submitting the object to a detailed, forensic analysis. If additional research reveals illicit activity that might have resulted in an illegal transfer of ownership, the museum will right the past wrong, seek out the heirs of the rightful owners and work out a proper solution to fix the historical wrong as long as it reflects the wishes of the aggrieved parties (those who suffered the loss of the objects).

As a matter of course, the museum will make available to the general public all information about the history of each object in its permanent collection without judgment or preconceived notions. That information will be freely and readily accessible.

When a museum possesses a large inventory of objects obtained from indigenous communities, former colonies, and conflict zones, it will:

Humboldt Forum, Berlin

         

1/ identify the rightful owners of these objects, whomever they may be;

2/ take the necessary steps to contact their representatives and consult them as to how to treat these objects;

3/ if repatriation is in order, the museum will abide by this decision and return the objects;

4/ if other solutions are envisioned, they too shall be respected and implemented as long as they reflect the wishes of the aggrieved parties (those who suffered the loss of the objects).

Auction houses

Recognizing the fact that there are thousands of auction houses worldwide, it is almost impossible to regulate their activities without imposing severe constraints on the global art market. Still, auction houses are the main purveyors of looted and otherwise stolen cultural property.

To stanch the in- and out-flows of stolen cultural goods, governments will establish oversight bodies whose sole purpose is to ensure that auction houses comply with rules and standards that will rid the market of unprovenanced, under-provenanced goods whose origin cannot be explained either by the consignor or the seller. If this is unreasonable, at the very least, auction houses will post “buyer beware” notices for un-and under-provenanced objects that they offer for sale. The goal is to inform consumers much like government agencies issuing product alerts. If art objects are commodities, they should be regulated in the same way that pharmaceutical, cosmetics, food and other products are.

Christie's

Hôtel Drouot

Collectors, dealers, and brokers

Private handlers of cultural goods are an important cog in the global machinery of recycling and dissipation of looted and otherwise stolen cultural objects around the world.

Without them, looters, plunderers and thieves find it challenging to “fence” their loot and to make quick money off of it, thus increasing their risk and disincentivizing the act of plunder and theft.

These handlers must be prohibited from offering any object which is un-or under-provenanced or whose past history shows clear signs of dislocation and illicit transfers of title. If they do, criminal penalties must be imposed on them and their accomplices.

Can privateers be deterred from acquiring objects with dubious provenance information that casts a cloud on title? They will, no matter what any government says or does. Realistically, their activity cannot be completely deterred but their quest to sell these objects on the open market must be interdicted.

Does this open the door to the creation of a parallel art market which operates under the radar? That market already exists and probably always will. Wars, conflicts, crises, laissez-faire governments and regimes enable its existence an allow it to thrive under their very noses and, to some extent, with their complicit assent. The fact that national and international elites sustain its existence complicates the task of any regulator to restrict its expanse and depth. Any attempt to clamp down on the parallel market is politically dangerous for those in positions of power and influence.

Good faith defense

Civil law and common law countries will rethink how good faith serves as an almost-impenetrable defense against relinquishing looted objects to claimants. One possibility is to create exceptions to the good faith defense which remove that protection from those who acquire and sell stolen or plundered goods, even if they were unaware of the true origin of the objects which they acquired. This measure will allow restitution claims to proceed without claimants worrying that the current possessor will resort to good faith as a reason not to restitute their property.  Ignorance is not a defense. Those who dabble in the art market must exercise proper due diligence before acquiring, selling, displaying, donating, loaning cultural goods. Failure to do so must have legal consequences.

Ethical collecting

Can people build an ethical collection of art objects, viz., a collection of objects whose history is not tainted by ambiguous claims to ownership as a result of civil unrest, war, and genocide?

They can and they do. The thrill of seeking out beautiful objects whose acquisition becomes controversial because of the circumstanced surrounding the object (coercion, illegal extraction, outright theft, etc.) is the ultimate drug that fuels thrill-based acquisitions. If you’re skeptical, read about Thomas Hoving, Douglas Latchford, and many others in the museum and art worlds who took pride in their reckless manners and methods to secure “beautiful and unique” objects.



Photos:

Christie's-courtesy of Artisera.com

Hôtel Drouot--courtesy of Drouot.

What does restitution mean to me?

by Marc Masurovsky

[Editor's note: this is an opinion piece which reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily commit those of others to what is argued hereunder.]

For our purposes, I will limit my comments to Jewish losses and restitutions to people of Jewish descent who either were persecuted or were blood relatives of victims of anti-Jewish persecutions between 1933 and 1945.

In plain English, (I am not a lawyer) as often repeated on the blog of the Holocaust Art Restitution Project and elsewhere, restitution is the physical return of an object stolen or misappropriated as a result of racial, ethnic, political, religious, and other forms of persecution perpetrated against individuals or groups of individuals because of their faith, ethnicity, beliefs, and/or sexual orientation.

Most commonly, the notion of restitution has been associated in the minds of both the public and legal practitioners and policymakers with anti-Jewish persecution.

The actual physical return of the looted object affirms the transfer of legitimate title to the stolen/recovered property to the rightful owner/claimant.

National governments, their agencies, and international organizations, view the word “restitution” in a different light. It would be easier to use words like “return” or more aptly “transfer.” Indeed, after WWII ended, Allied governments detailed cultural specialists to recently liberated territories in Europe and the Far East to sort out the origins of cultural and religious objects discovered by troops on the march and during their occupation of captured sites.

Once they identified the origin of the objects, as in the country from where the objects had been forcibly removed by the occupying power’s representatives—civilian and military—these cultural specialists, referred to in popular culture as “Monuments Men”—had the objects inventoried, marked as “restituted” and shipped back to the country of origin where they assumed that the returned objects would be then physically restituted to their rightful owners. Here, restitution is a bureaucratic word that holds a specific meaning distinct from the physical return of the object to the rightful owner.

Now that I have ascertained in a “nutshell” what restitution is all about and how it differs in meaning depending on who or what uses the word, what happens when an object is actually not restituted but when some kind of agreement is reached that results:

1/ in an exchange of money from the current possessor to the claimant and
2/ the maintenance of legal title in the hands of the current possessor?

Ever since the end of WWII, government officials overseeing the restitution programs of postwar nations had to contend with current possessors of the objects suspected of being looted who had to respond to claims filed by the aggrieved parties. Very quickly, they sought alternative ways of resolving what were viewed essentially as property disputes over who has good title to an object of art. In other words, the debate over restitution shifted away from the righteousness to apply in concrete terms a responsibility to restitute an object stolen during a genocidal undertaking.

The current possessors pushed back almost immediately after Victory Day. They hid behind national and local property laws that upheld their good faith in the way that they had come into possession of the looted object. The act of restitution was, in effect, held hostage to property laws which regulate who gets to hold title to an object and under what circumstances. Genocide did not figure in the equation. It was simpler that way and continues to be that way today. Good faith is almost like a religion.

As a result of a societal predisposition to invoke good faith arguments when challenges to ownership occur resulting from Holocaust-related events, restitution—meaning the physical return of the looted object to its rightful owner—has become a complex, difficult  and almost insurmountable goal to achieve for thousands of claimants, victims or relatives of victims of acts of plunder committed during the Nazi/Fascist era.

Financial settlements—indemnification or compensation for loss of the claimed property—have been the rule of thumb for most claimants until today and the preferred way of “restituting” practiced by the art market and governments alike. In other words, the looted objects remain in the possession of those who have acquired them either on the art market or by inheritance or by exchange for other objects or obtained them directly through the commission of crimes against humanity. Legal title is not transferred to the rightful owner.  In defense of many claimants who choose financial settlements over the arduous challenges posed by restitution, a settlement can be rationalized as a tacit, unspoken (words are dangerous, especially written ones) acknowledgment of the wrong that produced the loss of the object in the context of persecution and genocide.

Nevertheless, theft committed during unspeakable acts against individuals and groups pays for itself as long as one’s good faith can be upheld.

Nowadays, financial settlements are referred to as “fair and just solutions.” Based on the above, you can figure out rather quickly for whom those solutions work best.

It’s up to you to decide whether a financial settlement can help right the wrongs of the past. For me, the physical return of the object to the rightful owner and the transfer of legal title to said owner, are the only true form of restitution. The rest is a rewrite of history, a sanitized approach to the byproduct of unspeakable crimes so that trade can continue and good faith can remain as a pillar of protection of private property for those who stand to profit the most from the act of possession of those un-restituted objects. Most "current possessors" feel no guilt or remorse over their ownership of objects tainted by genocide. Instead, they can be rather offended that a claimant can show up at their door decades after the events and ask for the object back.  Genocide is not barred by statute.  However, its byproduct of plunder and theft is shielded by antiquated property laws regarding good faith and title to the property.

In the end, this is not just about losses incurred during anti-Jewish persecutions and the Holocaust. The debate over restitution applies just as well to any theft of objects plundered during the commission of crimes against humanity regardless of where they were committed and by whom.