Author: Derek Fincham

The Menil and the Lysi Frescoes

Interior view of the Byzantine Fresco Chapel showing dome fresco depicting Christ Pantokrator. Courtesy the Menil Collection, Houston. Photo: Paul Warchol
Interior view of the Byzantine Fresco Chapel showing dome fresco depicting Christ Pantokrator. Courtesy the Menil Collection, Houston. Photo: Paul Warchol

I’ve posted on SSRN a short paper discussing the Menil Foundation’s stewardship of the Lysi Frescoes. Given how much art is in jeopardy in the middle-East at the moment, it may be worth revisiting the Menil Foundation’s courageous decision to purchase, restore, and return these frescoes. It highlights that permanent acquisition is not the only way for museums to acquire new material.

From the abstract:

The return of works of art by museums to nations of origin has generated considerable scholarly response, yet there has been little engagement with the potential role museums could have as responsible stewards for works of art that are at risk. One important example can be seen in the actions of the Menil Foundation. The Menil, with the permission of the Church of Cyprus, conserved a series of frescoes and created a purpose-built gallery on the Menil campus in Houston to safely house them. It was a novel solution to the problems caused by the situation in Cyprus. Acquiring and saving these thirteenth century frescoes gives an important template for the rescue and conservation of works of art that are at risk, but also exposes similarly-situated actors to the moral dilemma of purchasing looted art with the consent of the original owner.

The Rescue, Stewardship, and Return of the Lysi Frescoes by the Menil Foundation (September 10, 2015). 22 International Journal of Cultural Property 1, 1-14 (2015). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2661091

CBS report: Antiquities Smuggling from Syria to Istanbul

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CBS News has some terrific first-hand reporting of antiquities smuggling from Apamea to Istanbul in a video report. Nothing here comes as much of a surprise sadly, but it confirms what we all suspect has been happening. A Roman mosaic, and various other portable objects, including some Roman glass (some of which the report points out may have been fakes).

Continue reading “CBS report: Antiquities Smuggling from Syria to Istanbul”

Registration Open for DePaul’s Cultural Heritage Law Competition

The Ilissos sculpture, on display in London, originally adorned the Parthenon
The Ilissos sculpture, on display in London, originally adorned the Parthenon

Applications are now open for the terrific Cultural Heritage Moot Court competition. This is a very well-run competition, and a lot of fun every year: Continue reading “Registration Open for DePaul’s Cultural Heritage Law Competition”

Vadi on Global Cultural Governance

The Old Town Cathedral, Vilnius, Lithuania
Does a parking garage belong under this?The Old Town Cathedral, Vilnius, Lithuania

Valentina Vadi, a reader in Law at Lancaster University has published an article in the Boston University International Law Journal titled “Global Cultural Governance by the Investment Arbitral Tribunals: The Making of a Lex Administrativa Culturalis“. It highlights some interesting contradictions between the promotion of cultural heritage and the legal constraints of international investment law.

From the Abstract:

The protection of cultural heritage is a fundamental public interest,closely connected to fundamental human rights and deemed to be among the best guarantees of international peace and security. Economic globalization has spurred a more intense dialogue and interaction among nations, potentially promoting cultural diversity. However, this phenomenon may also jeopardize cultural heritage. Foreign direct investments in the extraction of natural resources have the ultimate capacity to change cultural landscapes and erase memories. Foreign investment in cultural industries can induce cultural homogenization. However, international investment law constitutes a legally binding and highly effective regime that requires that states promote and facilitate foreign direct investment. Does the existing legal framework adequately protect cultural heritage vis-à-vis economic globalization? This Article investigates the distinct interplay between the promotion of foreign direct investment and the protection of cultural heritage in international law, addressing the question of whether a lex administrativa culturalis, or cultural administrative law, has emerged. In particular, this Article questions whether international investment law and arbitration can be a tool for enforcing international cultural law and whether arbitral tribunals can promote good and effective cultural governance.

Op-Ed: Syria will need its culture

The Temple of Baal Shamin, in kappier times
The Temple of Baal Shamin, in happier times Photo: Joseph Eid

In yesterday’s Houston Chronicle, I argued that Museums and arts patrons need to follow the example of the Menil Foundation and offer safe harbor for works of art: Continue reading “Op-Ed: Syria will need its culture”

Bonneau on nonrepresentational art

Most agree that Jackson Pollock's "Number 5" should be afforded First Amendment protection, but why?
Most probably agree that Jackson Pollock’s “Number 5” should be afforded First Amendment protection, but why?

Sonya G. Bonneau, a Professor of Legal Research and Writing at Georgetown, has posted a working paper: “Ex Post Modernism: How the First Amendment Framed Nonrepresentational Art” to SSRN. Here’s the abstract:

Nonrepresentational art repeatedly surfaces in legal discourse as an example of highly valued First Amendment speech. It is also systematically described in constitutionally valueless terms: nonlinguistic, noncognitive, and apolitical. Why does law talk about nonrepresentational art at all, much less treat it as a constitutional precept? What are the implications for conceptualizing artistic expression as free speech?

This article contends that the source of nonrepresentational art’s presumptive First Amendment value is the same source of its utter lack thereof: modernism. Specifically, a symbolic alliance between abstraction and freedom of expression was forged in the mid-twentieth century, informed by social and political influences that have now disappeared. What remains in its wake is a vague artifactual referent, historically untethered and conceptually reduced. This article reveals modernism’s invisible yet surprisingly tenacious hold on the relevant legal discourse, demonstrating how an embrace that appears both expansive and central to artistic expression is actually narrow and anachronistic. It obscures the big picture. To realign First Amendment theory and jurisprudence with artistic expression, the law should acknowledge the changes wrought by postmodernism.

 

Marion True Resurfaces

MARION TRUE, curator of the Getty Museum. LA Times photo by IRIS SCHNEIDER. 10/24/99
MARION TRUE, curator of the Getty Museum. LA Times photo by IRIS SCHNEIDER. 10/24/99

Geoff Edgers managed to snag an interview with Marion True, former curator of antiquities at the Getty Museum, and the subject of an antiquities-trafficking trial in Rome. A trial that even Paolo Ferri admits was only to “show an example of what Italy could do.”

I don’t imagine many will change their view of True based on the reporting or her comments. There is nothing especially revelatory here—perhaps its best viewed as a reporting coup by Edgers in getting access to True. But its also an initial first step by True in seeking to get her own book published. The piece even links to a few small excerpts of her memoirs. Here are the handful of paragraphs which stood out to me:

A decade after her downfall, True knows that she was singled out, with Hecht, by the Italians to strike fear in American museums. The strategy worked. The Getty and others, fearing prosecution, returned hundreds of objects worth millions of dollars.

True was never found guilty — the trial ended in 2010 without a judgment – and the curator maintains her innocence. But today, for the first time, she is talking openly about the way she and her museum world colleagues operated. Yes, she did recommend the Getty acquire works she knew had to have been looted. That statement, though, comes with a qualifier:

If she found out where a work had been dug up from, she pushed for its return. In contrast, many of her colleagues did little, if anything, to research a work’s source. None of them were put on trial.

The pursuit of True was aided by raids of dealers and a massive leak of internal Getty documents to a pair of Los Angeles Times reporters. That paper trail linked looted sites in Italy to the museum’s Malibu galleries.

True plainly did recommend the acquisition of looted material. A revelation that few if any in the museum community have acknowledged publicly. But the fact that Edgers fails to acknowledge in his reporting is the damage done to future sites. The sums of money paid by the Getty fueled more looting.

  1. Geoff Edgers, One of the world’s most respected curators vanished from the art world. Now she wants to tell her story., The Washington Post, August 19, 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/the-curator-who-vanished/2015/08/19/d32390f8-459e-11e5-846d-02792f854297_story.html (last visited Aug 20, 2015).

Metal Detecting Permits up in Greece

Two illegally excavated ancient male statues recovered from antiquities smugglers in southern Greece are displayed at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Tuesday, May 18, 2010. Greek authorities say two farmers have been arrested for allegedly illicitly excavating the statues, which date between 550 and 520 BC, and trying to sell them to a foreign buyer for euros 10 million. Police are seeking a third suspect. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
Two illegally excavated ancient male statues recovered from antiquities smugglers in southern Greece are displayed at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Tuesday, May 18, 2010. Greek authorities say two farmers have been arrested for allegedly illicitly excavating the statues, which date between 550 and 520 BC, and trying to sell them to a foreign buyer for euros 10 million. Police are seeking a third suspect. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Nick Romeo reports for National Geographic that the economic downturn in Greece may be leading to a spike in looting of ancient sites. Apparently there has been an increase in the applications for permits to use metal detectors:

As the Greek economic crisis has intensified over the past five years, police detectives with the Greek Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage have noticed not only that illegal excavations and thefts of archaeological artifacts increased, but also that the typical profile of looters has changed.

Before the crisis, many looters were members of criminal networks that also trafficked in guns and narcotics. Now it appears that regular people with access to tools for digging are unearthing pieces of Greece’s past and selling them for quick cash.

This surge comes at a time when agencies charged with protecting the country’s antiquities are underfunded and understaffed because of government budget cuts.

“We need more staff, more people,” said Evgenios Monovasios, a lieutenant in the Security Police Division of Attica. He estimated that in all of Greece there are roughly 60 employees who work exclusively to prevent and disrupt looting. While cooperation with local police departments across Greece expands this capacity, it’s difficult to monitor more than a fraction of the country’s vast and varied landscape, which ranges from the mountainous north to hundreds of islands in the Aegean and Ionian Seas.

“It would take an army to catch everything,” said Elena Korka, the Director General of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage. “It’s impossible not to find antiquities in Greece; they are literally everywhere.”

The increase in looting in Greece can be connected to the economic stagnation there, and also the limited resources the heritage officials have to combat this destruction. How much both of these factors contribute to looting is debatable. What is not debatable is the appetite of the antiquities trade for ancient works of art without documented histories continues to lead to the loss of context and damages Greece’s (and our) heritage.

  1. Nick Romeo, Strapped for Cash, Some Greeks Turn to Ancient Source of Wealth National Geographic News, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150817-greece-looting-artifacts-financial-crisis-archaeology/ (last visited Aug 18, 2015).

Chechi on human rights and restitution

Roman ruins with a prophet, by Giovanni Pannini, 1751.
Roman ruins with a prophet, by Giovanni Pannini, 1751.

Alessandro Chechi, a post-doctoral researcher at the Art-Law Centre in Geneva has published a thoughtful discussion on human rights and restitution. From the abstract:

The legal and political discourse over cultural heritage is today dominated by a number of sophisticated conceptions. First, the term cultural heritage is used to focus attention on the manifestations that do not assume tangible form but that represent evidence of the way of life and thought of a particular society. Such a shift of interest witnesses the perception of culture as a human centred, socially constructed legacy belonging to all mankind. Secondly, cultural heritage can be seen as part of the physical public space that we normally call the ‘environment’ or the ‘landscape’. This approach takes into account the interactive link of such heritage with the life of people inhabiting it. Thirdly, cultural heritage may also be seen as a powerful tool to build a sense of nation. It is a fact that, since the 19th century, nations have used representative cultural treasures as means for supporting or legitimising claims to self-determination and independence or for creating a cohesive national identity. Fourthly, cultural heritage today can be seen as the object of individual as well as collective rights. In this sense, cultural heritage becomes an important dimension of human rights.
Chechi, Alessandro. Safeguarding the human rights dimension of cultural heritage through restitution [online]. Human Rights Defender, Vol. 24, No. 2, Jul 2015: 11-12. Availability: <http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=376874607084084;res=IELHSS>ISSN: 1039-2637.