Author: Derek Fincham

Is Cultural Heritage a Human Right?

One of the horses from a four-horse chariot group

The Guardian reported over the weekend that Turkey plans to petition the European Court of Human Rights for the return of sculptures from the mausoleum of Helicarnassus, currently held by the British Museum.  Norman Palmer is quoted in the piece, “I have not heard of it [human rights] being used to raise a claim for the specific restitution of particular tangible objects … This would be a novel claim.” That strikes me as exactly right, I’ don’t see a direct human right to specific cultural objects. And my initial reaction is skeptical of attempting to use a rights-based approach for repatriation. One difficulty that this principle will have is in application. How would a court decide what should be repatriated and what should not. Are all objects from a region tied to that people’s human rights? And is this right only related to the original situs of the object. Could Londoners argue that they have a corresponding human right in some of the objects in the British Museum which is created because of the display and care of the objects. Lots of interesting questions, and this will be a legal challenge to follow closely. The Guardian makes sure to note that Turkey has had its own human rights record challenged by the Strasbourg court.

The mausoleum sculptures were first removed from what is now modern Turkey in 1846 by the British ambassador to Constantinople and others were taken in subsequent excavations by archaeologist Charles Thomas Newton.

The piece also notes that the mere act of announcing a challenge will raise questions about the British Museum’s ownership of the sculptures, and will of course cause similar questions to be asked of other bits and pieces of the ancient 7 wonders which are currently held by the British Museum.

  1. Dalya Alberge, Turkey turns to human rights law to reclaim British Museum sculptures the Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/dec/08/turkey-british-museum-sculptures-rights (last visited Dec 10, 2012).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Salt mines, graffiti and the mysteries of Kansas

The world has 7 wonders. But Kansas has 8. The effort to promote and advertise the beautiful, weird and historic corners of the state was an effort to, I guess, encourage some state pride and promote some prairie tourism. Despite the folksiness, the list is delivered free of irony. Many of the sites are indeed worth seeking out. The list is incomplete though.

Graffiti Train
Imagine 200 of these flashing by 

The periodic accidental graffiti shows are one wonder I would have nominated. The spaniels and I experienced this by accident one humid August morning. Graffiti has started to earn the distinction of esteem. And I guess I’ve started appreciating more as well. But I’m not sure I realized its ability to really have a transformative effect until you are confronted with it in the last place you’d expect—a gravel road in small town Kansas. The French Spaniels didn’t think much of it, and at first I was a little frustrated our little  treated to a free rapid fire show of the stuff. The locals may not think much of their cluttered grain and cattle cars, but for those who think this is an art form, the contrast is a real trip. And who knew our food travels in such style.


So despite the omissions, the only wonder we were able to fit in to our last Kansas visit was an attraction known to the locals as the Underground Salt Mine. I had heard that groups as diverse as the Koch brothers, hollywood studios, and the National Archives have contracted to store documents, artifacts, film and other objects which their caretakers feel need to be secure but don’t need to be used. It’s not billed as such, but it must be among the the most secure storehouses in the world.

Joni and I sporting breathers and hard hats

The mine itself is 650 feet below ground. When you take the tour you receive your very own hard hat and breather (just in case something happens). After a wait in a gift-shop area, and a short video of the history of the mine itself, visitors crowd into elevators and enter the elevator that takes us down to the mine.  Despite the safety warnings that are an ominous beginning, the mine itself was surprisingly comfortable. It is lit and open and has a pleasant feel. Despite a few hours spent at the various exhibits, none of our little group was in a hurry to leave. That may have something to do with the fact that the temperature in the mine is a constant 68 degrees all year long. And at our August visit the ‘surface’ temperature was nearing 100. The mine itself is a museum carved out of one of the largest rock salt deposits in the world. At the tour we learned the mine has produced rock salt (not for eating as we were repeatedly told on the tour, I think to prevent visitors like me from licking the walls). The salt is removed in a large checkerboard pattern where large square pillars of left to support the rock above and to allow fresh air to circulate in the mine.

At the tour, we are reminded that what goes down in the mine stays there. So trash and newspapers are left there. The mines purpose was to blow up walls and extract industrial-quality rock salt. Its purpose is not for eating, but rather for use in ‘preserving hides and for use in road salt’. On the tour we are told the demand for the salt isn’t what it used to be. And current mining operations take place many miles from the museum, and the blasting of the walls to produce workable removable salt rock only takes place late at night.

Another treat is an electric tram which visitors are told is a “dark ride”. An ominious title that I wasn’t too keen to participate in. I imagined a fast and scary ride, but the tour was quite pleasant. But the main draw for me was a glimpse at the underground vaults. And I guess it makes sense that we weren’t really allowed to see much of this part of the mine. On the tour we were often reminded that the mine has a perpetual 68 degrees and 40 percent humidity. Perfect conditions for preserving lots of documents.

The company which operates this massive underground storehouse is named ‘Underground Vaults and Storage’. It has original film negatives of films like Gone with the Wind and Ben Hur, oil and gas charts, health records, and other assorted things. According to the company’s history the company was incorporated in 1959 when a group of Wichita businessmen, no doubt influence by Cold War concerns, decided to make use of the space, environment and conditions that was being created in the Carey Salt Mine. During World War II of course forces on both sides used salt mines to safeguard and hide works of art from the enemy.

When many of these works were seized by allied forces that led to the strange juxtaposition of American GI’s, mine cars, and works of art.

Pictured here are American GI’s at the Merkers salt mine in central Germany and Manet’s In the Conservatory. Robert Edsel of course has been collecting the stories of these Monuments Men, which accounts for the work of these soldiers between D-Day and V-E Day.

I’m not sure if the Wichita businessmen would have been veterans of the war, or if they would have been familiar with the use of these mines to store works of art—but its seems very likely. At present the mine has a lot of the folksy charm of a goofy populist museum. But in the storage areas are objects from museums, governments, businesses, and others. The imagination wanders at the scope of material which might be collected there, and what might be lost. We know about the rediscovered libraries like the now strewn to all corners of the globe Cotton library, or even the tradition of preservation of islamic texts in Timbuktu (which is now at risk). Will the massive archive in Hutchinson and its other locations in Kansas City and elsewhere be forgotten or neglected, taken up by some future researchers or looters?

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Student note on using the first amendment to protect uncommissioned graffiti

Some art by Ack! here in Houston, now painted over

Margaret Mettler, a JD candidate at Michigan Law has posted her student note on SSRN: Graffiti Museum: A First Amendment Argument for Protecting Uncommissioned Art on Private Property, 111 Michigan Law Review 249 (2012). From the abstract:

Graffiti has long been a target of municipal legislation that aims to preserve property values, public safety, and aesthetic integrity in the community. Not only are graffitists at risk of criminal prosecution but property owners are subject to civil and criminal penalties for harboring graffiti on their land. Since the 1990s, most U.S. cities have promulgated graffiti abatement ordinances that require private property owners to remove graffiti from their land, often at their own expense. These ordinances define graffiti broadly to include essentially any surface marking applied without advance authorization from the property owner. Meanwhile, graffiti has risen in prominence as a legitimate art form, beginning in the 1960s and most recently with the contributions of street artists such as Banksy and Shepard Fairey. Some property owners may find themselves fortuitous recipients of “graffiti” they deem art and want to preserve in spite of graffiti abatement ordinances and sign regulations requiring the work’s removal. This Note argues that private property owners who wish to preserve uncommissioned art on their land can challenge these laws under the First Amendment, claiming that, as applied, regulations requiring removal are unconstitutional because they leave the property owner insufficient alternative channels for expression.

An interesting paper. As the value of graffiti increases, the law must catch up to help landowners who want to hold on to it. An idea which runs counter to the municipal ordinances which want to clean it up. The idea of who owns something that has value, but has no owner challenges a lot of the our underlying assumptions about property.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Dallas Museum of Art Announces 6 Repatriations

The Orpheus Mosaic, once looted and now returned to Turkey

In a press conference today Max Anderson, the new director at the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) announced an agreement with Turkey to return this 2nd Century AD Roman Mosaic, and other objects. The mosaic was acquired in 1999 at a public auction at Christie’s in 1999 for $85,000. According to the DMA, after noting on Turkey’s cultural heritage ministry website that there had been an Orpheus mosaic missing, Anderson contacted Turkish officials. He was given photographic evidence showing the and comparing the mosaic with a border, being removed by looters near ancient Edessa, modern Sanliurfa in Southern Turkey.

In announcing the return, Anderson also announced a new initiative called ‘DMX‘ which attempts to seek loans and exchange agreements. A move that if successful would position the museum to pioneer the ideals of a universal museum while also respecting the laws and restrictions placed on objects by their nation of origin.

But other objects were also revealed. The DMA officials also announced that they had uncovered objects in their collection from Edoardo Almagià, an on-again/off-again antiquities dealer who has been tied to looted antiquities by Italian officials. The other objects may be more interesting, including:

  • a pair of bronze shields decorated with the head of the man-bull deity Acheloos, dating from the 6th century B.C.E;
  • a red-figure krater, designed for the burial of Greek nobles in southern Italy, dating from the 4th century B.C.E;
  • the head from an antefix, dating from the 6th century B.C.E; 
  • and a calyx krater, dating from the 4th century B.C.E.
The volute krater, 4th century B.C.E. its
provenance was “English collection”

Almagià is an interesting figure. In a 2010 interview with the Princeton alumni magazine, he is boldly critical of Italy’s heritage laws, and the agreements between Italy and the United States:

You are immediately equated with a criminal nowadays by being a collector. You have in Italy hundreds of thousands of people that have antiquities at home. They might have inherited them or bought them. In my youth, there were flea markets, and you could buy every antiquity you wanted. All those people that bought things – are they all criminals? It’s like Prohibition in the United States – there’s a criminal underworld. Italian law leads to crime. By legalizing the market in antiquities, you destroy the black market and eliminate the incentive to make forgeries.

He has been investigated by the public prosecutor in Rome since 2006, and his New York apartment has also been searched by U.S. Customs officials. Chasing Aphrodite points out that the returned material has ties to the usual suspects: Gianfranco Becchina, Robin Symes, and Giacomo Medici. And also notes other museums have similar objects. Given Turkey’s increasingly muscular calls for repatriation, the DMA has positioned itself to create favorable agreements with foreign nations, and also set itself apart from other institutions with similar material with insufficient histories. When I see these objects at a museum, with a scant or nonexistant provenance listed, I assume it must be looted. Forward-thinking museums are increasingly doing the same. And despite what value there may be in viewing the object in a ‘universal’ museum, that probable criminal history increasingly renders the display of these objects unjust.

  1. Michael Granberry, Dallas Museum of Art returns rare work of Roman art, signs memorandum of understanding with Turkish government for international exchange Center Stage, Dallas News (Dec 3, 2012).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

UNESCO Director General Bokova on Protecting Cultural Heritage during conflict

Damage in Aleppo, Syria

In an op-ed for the IHT UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova discusses the damage done to cultural sites in northern Mali, Syria and elsewhere. She argues that “Culture stands on the frontline of conflicts, deliberately targeted to fuel hatred and block reconciliation.” That’s exactly right I think. The challenge will be what the rest of the world can do to prevent and repair this destruction.

She outlines the concrete steps UNESCO is taking: crafting an international legal framework, building stronger culture coalitions, and use culture to prevent conflicts:

Unesco works across the globe to harness the power of culture to bring people together and foster reconciliation. I saw this personally when Unesco helped restore the Old Bridge in Mostar, Bosnia Herzegovina, destroyed during the war in the 1990s. We saw the same power during the restoration of the Koguryio Tombs complex in North Korea, undertaken with the financial support of South Korea. This might sound high-minded compared to the terrible news we hear every day from conflict zones. And it is true that culture alone is not enough to build peace. But without culture, peace cannot be lasting. The world thought big when the convention was adopted in 1972. We need to think big once again, to protect culture under attack. We often hear that protecting culture is a luxury better left for another day, that people must come first. The fact is, protecting culture is protecting people — it is about protecting their way of life and providing them with essential resources to rebuild when war ends. This is why, for culture also, there is a responsibility to protect.

  1. Irina Bokova, Culture in the Cross Hairs, The New York Times, December 2, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/opinion/03iht-edbokova03.html (last visited Dec 3, 2012).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Gold Hand Sculpture Stolen from Christie’s

Auction houses are often in the news for the fantastic sums their works achieve, or for protesting they didn’t know this or that work was looted or stolen. It’s not often they are the victims of theft. This work by Turner prize-winner Douglas Gordon has been stolen from Christie’s auction house. There are fears it is likely going to be melted down for its scrap value. Given the work is solid gold, that scrap value is considerable, likely £250,000. Apparently Christie’s was not forthcoming about details of the theft to the artist, who was also the sculpture’s owner:

He said Christie’s only told him about the disappearance of the sculpture after he had spoken about the theft elsewhere. Gordon, who owns the work, said: “It is like someone borrowing your car, and then you finding out from a neighbour that it has been crashed,” he said. “It looks like I am the last person in the chain to know.” Gordon said he had first heard of the theft second-hand, from a curator, last week; a Christie’s representative contacted him on the morning of 29 November, 16 days after the crime was reported to the police. Scotland Yard confirmed it was “investigating the alleged theft of a piece of artwork from a secure warehouse in the King Street area of Westminster. The incident was first reported to police on 12 November”. A Christies’s spokesman said: “This matter is under investigation and we are in contact with all parties involved. We cannot comment further.” A source at the auction house said Gordon’s gallery had been informed right away, and that a Christie’s representative had attempted to contact the artist on 28 November. The theft from Christie’s storage facility – which claims on its website “world-class security, management and expertise” – is likely to cause significant reputational damage for the auction house. A spokesman declined to comment on arrangements at the storage facility, citing the need to keep security measures confidential. A source said: “Given the sheer volume of works of art that come in, this as an extraordinarily rare thing to happen.”

There are no reported details about the theft from the storage facility.

  1. Charlote Higgins, Turner prize-winner’s work stolen from Christie’s, http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/nov/29/turner-sculpture-stolen-christies (last visited Nov 29, 2012).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Montreal MFA Repatriates Maori Remains

Last week the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts returned a Toi Moko to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington. The Toi Moko is a tatooed and mummified Maori head. This repatriation is the latest in a series of repatriations the Maori have successfully achieved in the past two decades. There is a lot of hard work and negotiation involved in these returns, so the ultimate return is a welcome occasion. At the ceremony the head was not permitted to be filmed or photographed. The head was laid “under a sheer black cloth, it was wrapped in cellophane and packaged in a series of protective boxes for transport. All the while, a group of Maori chanted, prayed and sang during an emotional ceremony”. The Globe and Mail, reporting on the ceremony reported:

In the 19th century, Europeans became enamoured with the heads and the Maori began using them almost like currency to trade for muskets and other coveted objects. While some were sold and traded, others were stolen because of their value as curiosity items. “Before, they were received as works of art. They were people and they are people,” said Michelle Hippolite, co-director of the Museum of New Zealand. “In our culture, remembering that they are people first is what is most important.” The head that ended up in Montreal was obtained by F. Cleveland Morgan in 1949 at the Berkeley Galleries in England, before being donated to the museum. The Maori estimate that they have retrieved about 320 of the 500 known remains around the world, located in 14 different countries. That doesn’t count private collections, but some collectors have come forward after hearing about the campaign to repatriate the heads.

  1. Sidhartha Banerjee, Canadian museum gives back mummified Maori head, The Globe and Mail, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canadian-museum-gives-back-mummified-maori-head/article5546908/ (last visited Nov 28, 2012).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Shearing on Australia’s Heritage Law Framework

Susan Shearing, a Lecturer at the Australian Centre for Climate and Environmental Law at the University of Sydney has authored “Reforming Australia’s National Heritage Law Framework” in Volume 8(2) of the Macquarie Journal of International and Comparative Environmental Law (2012). (PDF) From the abstract:

It is argued that while some useful initiatives have been adopted in response to the review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, the overall response of the Government has been disappointing, focusing on refining procedural frameworks to facilitate a streamlined approach to heritage assessment and approvals rather than substantive reform to the EPBC Act. Further, there has been limited progress in reforming national laws dealing with indigenous heritage, movable heritage and historic shipwrecks.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Olympia Antiquities Recovered

Recovered objects stolen from a museum in Olympia, Greece in February (24 Nov)
Some of the recovered objects from Olympia

In February of this year armed men stole 80 small objects from a museum in Olympia dedicated to the Olympic games. They were armed, were able to overcome a lone security guard, and smashed the display cabinets and stole close to 80 small objects. At the time there was speculation by the Mayor of Olympia and others that Greek austerity measures had led to diminished security, making the theft easier to execute. After an undercover operation with an officer posing as a buyer, all of the objects have been recovered, most of them buried in a field only 3 km from the museum.

Given such a high-profile theft, in an olympic year, it is safe to assume that Greek authorities made recovering these stolen objects a high priority. A task which at the time was seemingly more difficult as there was speculation that these small, portable objects would have been easily shipped abroad or smuggled across the Adriatic to organized criminal networks in the Balkans. But it seems the objects did not make it far away from Olympia.

On Sunday authorities in Greece announced three Greek men were arrested in the city of Patra after an undercover officer posing as a potential buyer was offered one of the highlights of the theft, a Bronze Age gold ring. The remaining objects were found in a field near Olympia, where they had been buried inside a sack. So congratulations are in order for Greek law enforcement. And given the context of the theft, it is noteworthy that the Greek Public Order MInister Nikos Dendias told reporters on Sunday that “Despite the difficult economic situation we are not being lax on security issues, especially over our cultural heritage.”

 Here is some video of the press conference and the recovered objects from Al Jazeera:

 

  1. Greek police recover stolen Olympia artefacts, , http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2012/11/2012112582211277291.html (last visited Nov 26, 2012).
  2. Greek police recover stolen Olympia artefacts, arrest three, Reuters, November 24, 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/24/us-greece-olympia-idUSBRE8AN08H20121124 (last visited Nov 26, 2012).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com