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overview
This
page provides an overview of questions about the identification,
collection, destruction, theft and repatriation of cultural
heritage.
It covers -
Later
pages offer a more detailed discussion of spoliation, the
repatriation of cultural artifacts and human remains, and
key international agreements and protocols regarding cultural
heritage.
The note supplements discussion elsewhere on this site regarding
censorship, human rights and indigenous intellectual property
rights. It is complemented by notes on indigenous authenticity
or origin mark schemes, figures on the sale of art and other
collectibles, and debate about issues such as the descration
of cultural symbols (eg national flags) and blasphemy.
introduction
Movable cultural heritage - artefacts that range from wicker
baskets and patchwork rugs to Old Master canvasses, Baccarat
paperweights, antique motor cars and scientific manuscripts
- has come to be seen as an embodiment of national greatness,
achievement that transcends political borders and something
with a tangible financial value in markets that value beauty
or merely uniqueness.
Seizure of movable cultural heritage has been a theme of political
conflict and aggrandisement during at least two millennia,
echoed in the destruction or desecration of non-movable heritage
such as churches, mosques, temples, graveyards and other entities
that have special significance in the eyes of victims and
perpetrators.
Acquisition of some items has clearly involved theft by individuals
or governments and has sometimes belatedly resulted in restitution
efforts. The status of other items, particularly antiquities,
may be problematical. Some governments for example claim ownership
of all archaeological items found in their territory, seeking
return of new finds under international agreements. Some have
sought repatriation of items, such as the Elgin Marbles, that
have been in the collections of different nations for several
centuries.
That has been dismissed as impractical or even illegal and
as undesirable, with figures in the UK for example commenting
that the Marbles are now as integral a part of British culture
as the San Marco bronze quadriga (originally in Constantinople)
are of Italian culture. Kwame Appiah for example argues that
art embodies a global human heritage that should not be "hoarded"
by Turkey, Italy, Nicaragua, Egypt, Peru or any other nation
with treasures in its soil.
Other governments, such as Australia and the UK, have adopted
a more laissez-faire approach, restricting export of a small
number of items that are considered to be significant but
otherwise allowing a free market. At an international level
they have sought to draw a line between historic and contemporary
acquisitions.
Indigenous peoples have increasingly claimed that incorporation
of ethnographic material and human remains in museum collections
is a breach of human rights that should be addressed through
return of such material to 'traditional' custodians, a return
contested by curators and scholars who articulate different
values regarding access.
The shape of disagreements about the repatriation of cultural
heritage - and about its identification and preservation -
offer insights regarding political relationships, national/international
law, markets and human rights.
terms and concepts
Terminology for characterising cultural expression and commodification
is contentious.
Broadly, restitution is generally taken to
refer to return of an object from a museum or private collection
to a party that has been found to have a prior and continuing
relationship with the object. That relationship overrides
the claims of the institution or other entity with current
custody of the object, even though that entity may have acquired
the object in good faith.
Restitution is sometimes contrasted with repatriation,
taken to refer to the return by a curatorial institution (eg
a museum) or government of an object of cultural patrimony
to an entity found to be the traditional guardian or owner
of that object. That patrimony might take the form of an artifact
or human remains, including biological specimens in medical
research institutions, bones in anthropological or archaeological
collections and bodies or shrunken heads.
Spoliation denotes the looting of cultural
property, including artworks, books, manuscripts and scientific
instruments. Such property might have been a personal or institutional
possession.
Cultural property, according to the 1970
UNESCO Convention discussed in later pages of this note, comprises
property that on secular or religious grounds is specifically
designated by a nation as being "of importance for archaeology,
prehistory, history, literature, art or science".
That property encompasses
a
Rare collections and specimens of fauna, flora, minerals
and anatomy, and objects of palaeontological interest;
b property relating to history, including the history
of science and technology and military and social history,
to the life of national leaders, thinkers, scientists and
artists and to events of national importance;
c products of archaeological excavations (including
regular and clandestine) or of archaeological discoveries;
d elements of artistic or historical monuments
or archaeological sites which have been dismembered;
e antiquities more than one hundred years old,
such as inscriptions, coins and engraved seals;
f objects of ethnological interest;
g property of artistic interest, such as:
i) pictures, paintings and drawings produced entirely by
hand on any support and in any material (excluding industrial
designs and manufactured articles decorated by hand)
ii) original works of statuary art and sculpture in any
material
iii) original engravings, prints and lithographs
iv) original artistic assemblages and montages in any material
h rare manuscripts and incunabula, old books, documents
and publications of special interest (historical, artistic,
scientific, literary, etc) singly or in collections
i postage, revenue and similar stamps, singly or
in collections
j archives, including sound, photographic and cinematographic
archives
k articles of furniture more than one hundred years
old and old musical instruments.
commerce and criminality
Trade in the fine arts, antiquities, books, handicrafts and
other items exists because there is a demand for such entities
and because money is to be made in catering to that demand.
The ethics of those handling paintings, Hellenistic sculptures,
Benin bronzes or Asmat carvings are often less beautiful than
the items themselves.
It is clear from studies of the art trade that some major
intermediaries have colluded in or actively breached national
and international law. Critics have not spared curatorial
institutions, arguing that the trade in stolen antiquities
would be fundamentally crimped if leading galleries and museums
were rigorous in dealing with questions of provenance and
refused to accession items that are likely to have been illegally
sold or excavated. Such criticisms have been echoed in comments
that museums were lax about returning works looted during
the Holocaust and indeed, as in the case of Austria, have
deliberately breached their own guidelines in recurrent denials
for repatriation of paintings by Klimt.
A range of institutions have called on the Russian and Ukrainian
governments to return 'spoils of war', including artworks,
libraries and public/private libraries. Some of those items
had originally been seized by Nazi Germany and its allies;
many are not currently accessible and are in need of conservation.
commodification and collecting
Individuals, institutions and nations collect for a wide range
of reasons, including -
- status
(signalling that the individual or nation 'has arrived',
that the collector has the financial or aesthetic 'capital'
required for acquisition)
- investment
- research
- personal
pleasure (ranging from atavistic joy in having an upmarket
version of the childhood teddybear through to the delight
conferred by waking up to a Rothko each morning).
Some
indigenous activists have criticised collecting - and the
underlying commodification - as an appropriation of culture,
a dessification and annexation that alienates communities
from their spirit or what makes them unique.
orientations
The following pages of this note highlight academic and other
studies of particular value for understanding legal frameworks,
the trade in movable cultural heritage, repatriation of human
remains and spoliation.
The literature on particular aspects is large but often very
uneven and sometimes polemical. The following items offer
points of entry.
For legal perspectives and some practicalities see Who
Owns The Past? Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the
Law (New Brunswick: Rutgers Uni Press 2005) edited by
Kate Fitz Gibbon.
The outstanding work on repatriation remains Jeanette Greenfield's
The Return of Cultural Treasures (Cambridge: Cambridge
Uni Press 1996). It might be supplemented by Elazar Barkan's
The Guilt of Nations: Restitution & Negotiating Historical
Injustices (New York: Norton 2000), Robert Bevan's The
Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War (London: Reaktion
2005) and Claiming the Stones/Naming the Bones: Cultural
Property & the Negotiation of National and Ethnic Identity
(Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute 2003) by Elazar Barkan
& Ronald Bush. For some ethical questions see Phyllis
Messenger's The Ethics of Collecting Cultural Property
(Albuquerque: Uni of New Mexico Press 1999), The Imaginary
Museum (London: Secker & Warburg 1967) by André
Malraux and the feisty Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World
of Strangers (New York: Norton 2004) by Kwame Anthony
Appiah.
The psychology of collecting is explored in The Cultures
of Collecting (Melbourne: Melbourne Uni Press 1994) edited
by John Elsner & Roger Cardinal. Works on curation and
collection include Making Representations: Museums in
the Post-Colonial Era (London: Routledge 2001) by Moira
Simpson. For perspective on the markets see Peter Watson's
cogent From Monet To Manhattan: The Rise of the Modern
Art Market (New York: Random House 1992), Karl Meyer's
The Plundered Past (New York: Atheneum 1973), Stealing
History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers, and the Looting of the Ancient
World (New York: St Martins 2004) by Roger Atwood and
Lynn Nicholas' sobering The Rape of Europa: The Fate of
Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World
War (New York: Vintage 1995). Other works are highlighted
in discussion of the collectibles
market and issues such as art fraud, indigenous origin marks
and droit de suite.
Works on human rights are noted here.
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