Tag: International Journal of Cultural Property

A Return to Illicit Cultural Property

It has been a while. I’ve been writing here at Illicit Cultural Property since 2006, which has somehow made this blog one of the longer-running habits of my professional life. The site has been quiet for the last few years while I took on a big administrative role at my law school. That work was rewarding in its own way, but I’m very happy to be stepping back from it and returning to this corner of the internet.

So this is a bit of a welcome back, and a bit of a statement of purpose. For now, I’m going to aim for weekly posts: short roundups of developments in cultural heritage, art crime, restitution, museums, the antiquities trade, along with the occasional oddity.

There is, unfortunately, no shortage of material.

A recent Guardian piece on the side hustles of artists felt like a fitting way back into things after my own administrative detour. I’ve spent the last few years buried in meetings, spreadsheets, and the assorted dignities of academic administration, so it was a pleasure to be reminded of some people’s extracurricular labors, some legal, some not. French writer Jean Genet, for example, allegedly stole books from family, from friends, and eventually became remarkably skilled at it, reportedly even devising a special briefcase for taking valuable books and reselling them after he had read them.

Cultural sites in Iran have sustained damage during recent American and Israeli strikes. The Art Newspaper reported damage to Tehran’s Golestan Palace. Located near Arg Square in Tehran’s historic district, the 400-year-old palace reportedly suffered shattered windows, debris strewn across the complex, and damage to its distinctive mirror work. UNESCO joined other United Nations bodies and senior officials, including Secretary-General António Guterres, in condemning the strikes which also have allegedly struck a girls school. These episodes tend to expose just how fragile legal and institutional protections for heritage become once armed conflict accelerates.

Debris at the historical monument Golestan Palace after it was damaged in an Israeli and U.S. strike, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 3, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS.

The damage in Ukraine also continues to mount. UNESCO’s running tally now reports 523 cultural sites verified as damaged as of 11 March 2026, including religious sites, museums, monuments, libraries, archaeological sites, and an archive. The scale of that number is numbing.

On the art-crime front, The Art Newspaper reports that Yves Bouvier will stand trial in Paris over the alleged disappearance of dozens of Picasso works belonging to Catherine Hutin, Picasso’s stepdaughter. The case has been grinding along for years.

The empty frame which once held “Storm on the Sea of Galilee” at the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum

March also brings the annual return of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft to public attention. Tom Mashberg rounds up the current state of the likely theories and speculation. The theft remains one of the foundational myths of American art crime, and it has now been thirty-six years since those works were taken.

And in a fitting anniversary of another kind, a major Brazilian museum theft from 2006 remains unsolved just as the legal window for prosecution has expired. As The Art Newspaper notes in its report on the Museu da Chácara do Céu heist, works by Monet, Matisse, Dalí, and Picasso were stolen in Rio two decades ago and have still not been recovered. No one, it seems, will serve prison time for the theft.

By Claude Monet – Scanned from MCM catalogue (1996), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3413164 This painting was stolen from the Museu Chácara do Céu, Rio de Janeiro, in 2006, together with three other works by Pablo Picasso (A dança, 1956), Salvador Dalí (Os dois balcões, 1929) and Henri Matisse (Jardim de Luxemburgo, 1903). The paintings haven’t been recovered yet.

The International Journal of Cultural Property has now published Volume 32, Issue 4, and the issue includes a number of open-access pieces worth a look. These include an article on underwater cultural heritage in the World Heritage framework by Arturo Rey da Silva, Elena Perez-Alvaro, Martijn Manders, Mariano J. Aznar, and Christopher Underwood; an essay by Alberto Frigerio asking whether cultural heritage might be understood through the language of legal personhood; and an article by Errol Francis, Chloe Asker, and Victoria Tischler on ethical disagreement over ancestral human remains in museums. The issue also includes reviews of recent books by Maud Webster, Patty Gerstenblith, and Shea Elizabeth Esterling.

I also want to keep an eye on current fights over the built environment and public symbolism. PBS NewsHour recently ran a piece on efforts to slow the Trump administration’s sweeping redesign ambitions for federal buildings in Washington, including interventions touching places like the Kennedy Center and even the White House itself.

And one final note: assuming I can navigate the TSA shutdown, survive the reportedly epic airport lines, and actually make it to Newark, I’ll be speaking this Friday, March 27, at the Rutgers International Law and Human Rights Journal symposium, Law, Heritage, and Identity: International Legal Frameworks for Cultural Preservation. I’ll be joining Anne-Marie Carstens and James K. Reap on a panel on “Trafficking, Destruction, and Institutional Protection of Cultural Property,” and the day also features a keynote by Matthew Bogdanos and panels on intangible cultural heritage and ocean heritage. The event is free and available by Zoom if you are not in the area.

In any event, I’m glad to be back. Thanks for still being here.

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Mason Currey, Shoplifting, Sex Shows and Sheepdog-Breeding: Great Artists and the Side-Hustles They Did to Get By, the Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/mar/24/artists-side-hustles-john-cage-jean-genet-kathy-acker-shoplifting-sex-shows-sheepdog-breeding, archived at https://perma.cc/N43N-42C9 (last visited Mar. 25, 2026).

Farnaz Fassihi, Strikes on Iran Damage Cultural Heritage Sites, Infuriating Iranians, The New York Times (Mar. 11, 2026), https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/world/middleeast/iran-heritage-sites-damaged.html.

Tom Mashberg, Got an Idea About Who Robbed the Gardner Museum? Get in Line., The New York Times (Mar. 18, 2026), https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/arts/design/gardner-museum-heist-theories.html.

Deadly Bombing of Iran Primary School ‘a Grave Violation of Humanitarian Law’: UNESCO | UN News, United Nations, https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/03/1167063, archived at https://perma.cc/B26H-3NXX (last visited Mar. 25, 2026).

Tehran’s Unesco-Listed Golestan Palace Reportedly Damaged by US-Israeli Strikes, The Art Newspaper – International art news and events, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/03/03/us-israeli-strikes-damage-unesco-listed-golestan-palace-tehran?fbclid=IwY2xjawQT5NNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeY5canXmpJAol6Tp2X-yRcTAW1NVzIp94iyOreGnfibYNbuxcsuYHrrj0XtA_aem_PLVrty3ueJmU8pgEMoNIGw&ref=pasts-imperfect.ghost.io, archived at https://perma.cc/3K5C-DQYC (last visited Mar. 24, 2026).

Major Brazilian Art Heist Still Unsolved as Statute of Limitations Expires, The Art Newspaper – International art news and events, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/03/05/museum-heist-2006-museu-chacara-ceu-rio-statute-limitations, archived at https://perma.cc/AVV8-XB62 (last visited Mar. 24, 2026).

Dealer Yves Bouvier to Stand Trial in Paris over Missing Picassos, The Art Newspaper – International art news and events, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/03/13/yves-bouvier-to-stand-trial-in-paris, archived at https://perma.cc/97MH-2EWD (last visited Mar. 24, 2026).

Damaged Cultural Sites in Ukraine Verified by UNESCO | UNESCO, https://www.unesco.org/en/ukraine-war/damaged-cultural-sites?hub=180699&ref=pasts-imperfect.ghost.io, archived at https://perma.cc/UL6L-QWP5 (last visited Mar. 24, 2026).

US-Israeli Strikes Damage Iran’s Cultural Heritage Sites, dw.com, https://www.dw.com/en/us-israeli-strikes-damage-irans-cultural-heritage-sites/a-76350565, archived at https://perma.cc/3U4F-PMBE (last visited Mar. 24, 2026).

New Issue of the International Journal of Cultural Property

The new issue of the International Journal of Cultural Property is available now, with contributions discussing deaccession, the status of fauna as cultural property, the role Sotheby’s has played in the collection of Maya antiquities, the fascinating case of the Buddhist Mummy, and other contributions. Here is the table of contents with abstracts:

Mann, D. (2017). To Have and To Hold … Or Not? Deaccessioning Policies, Practices, and the Question of the Public’s Interest. International Journal of Cultural Property,24(2), 113-159. doi:10.1017/S0940739117000091

Shockwaves echoed through the media and the arts community when the Delaware Art Museum chose to deaccession pieces from its collection and when the public learned that the Detroit Institute of Arts might be forced to do the same. Further concern arose when financial troubles compelled the Corcoran Gallery of Art to merge with the National Gallery of Art and George Washington University. An examination of the climate and legal battles surrounding these events shows how these institutions chose to cope with the financial adversity that put their collections at risk and illustrates the precarious position of works in a museum’s collection when that museum experiences financial distress. This article explores the ethical, judicial, and legislative frameworks currently governing deaccessioning and ultimately advocates for new legislative solutions to guide the deaccession process in order to provide the opportunity to maintain these works in the public sphere.

Continue reading “New Issue of the International Journal of Cultural Property”

Bauer on the Implications of the Destruction in Syria and Iraq

Thge Temple of Bel complex in Palmyra Syria, taken in 2010, one of the best-known at-risk sites in Syria
The Temple of Bel complex in Palmyra Syria, taken in 2010, one of the best-known at-risk sites in Syria

Alexander Bauer, Chief Editor of the International Journal of Cultural Property has written an editorial arguing the destruction in Iraq and Syria though tragic also allows new approaches which can move beyond the old entrenched cultural property arguments. From the introduction:

In the dozen years I have edited the IJCP, I have chosen not to write editorials, as I have preferred to let the content of the journal speak for itself. As this issue was going to press, however, a series of events unfolded that I felt needed to be addressed. Over the past months, the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (“IS”)—an armed militia with neo-medieval political aspirations in war-torn Syria and Iraq—has undertaken a direct assault on the archaeological remains of northern Mesopotamia, claiming that such art is idolatrous and thus forbidden in Islamic law. While looting of archaeological sites has been widespread and systematic in the region for at least the past two years, the destruction garnered international headlines in February and March 2015 when IS put sledgehammers to Assyrian statues and other artifacts in the museum of Mosul, then proceeded to bulldoze and ransack the spectacular sites of Nineveh, Nimrud, and Hatra, among others. The wantonness and scale of these destructive acts have been shocking, and certainly for anyone concerned with the preservation of cultural heritage, a terrible tragedy. This almost immediately brings to mind parallels with the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, whose destruction fueled a resurgence of arguments in favor of Western museums’ collection of antiquities in order to “save” them from a similar fate. Of course, the Bamiyan episode was not so straightforward, and in some ways, the efforts of Western organizations to intervene on the Buddhas’ behalf may have made matters worse.  Arguably, the destruction in Iraq and Syria is even more widespread, insidious, and complicated. It is thus difficult to know how best to respond to it, and what the implications of any responses will be.

In spite of the complexity of the situation, I want to address and critically confront three reactions that are likely to develop or be reinvigorated within current debate on how to respond to such destruction. It is my hope that we can use these terrible events to discuss new ways of approaching the issues of heritage acquisition and preservation rather than fall back into old and counterproductive positions.

It’s an important statement, and one that the Journal has made publicly available free of charge.

Alexander A. Bauer, Editorial: The Destruction of Heritage in Syria and Iraq and Its Implications, 22 Int’l J. of Cultural Prop. 1 (2015).

 

 

 

The Semiotics of Cultural Discourse


Alan Audi has an interesting Feature Article titled A Semiotics of Cultural Property Argument in the latest issue of the International Journal of Cultural Property. The article is here, but I’m afraid is free only for University folks and those with institutional access. Here’s the abstract:

This article applies the tools of legal semiotics to examine the terms, modalities, and conventions of legal argument in the cultural property context. In a first instance, the author re-enacts Duncan Kennedy’s study of recurrent patterns within legal argument to illustrate the highly structured nature of most cultural property argument. This mapping exercise shows how legal concepts draw their meaning in part from their place within a broader linguistic system, and as a result cannot by themselves form an adequate basis for ethical positions. Following this, the pervasive Elgin Marbles controversy is shown to resemble a myth (in Roland Barthes’s sense of the term) behind which a series of value judgments and support systems are embedded into cultural property argument. The conclusion presents a number of observations sketching a framework centered on restitution as a starting point for resolution of cultural property disputes.

There are then responses from some of the best cultural property writers around, including Patty Gerstenblith, Daniel Shapiro, Yannis Hamilakis and perhaps the best response was from Barton Beebe. In a final rejoinder Audi engages in an entertaining, if perhaps unhelpful scholarly kerfluffle with Prof. Gerstenblith’s critiques.

I’m a newcomer to the field of semiotics. If I understand Audi’s arguments correctly, he believes many cultural property scholars have unwittingly used canned responses to a number of the same recurring debates. This dialectic does not promote a better legal framework and renders many arguments stagnant. I think this may be exactly right in some cases. The problem is Audi does not define what he means by a cultural property debate. It seems he is speaking in the main about restitutions of objects such as the Elgin Marbles. Some of his more general arguments about the law are perhaps diminished by his failure to discuss the current state of the law, as Prof. Gerstenblith rightly points out.

I think he is exactly right about the arguments being made about these kinds of objects, but there is settled law for other classes of objects; for example for newly and illicitly excavated antiquities. For these objects there is not a problem of discourse, but rather a problem with implementing the law because the market effectively evades regulation.

I think perhaps one of the most insightful comment on the cultural property trade was made by Kurt Siehr,

If pieces of visual arts were treated like other commodities traded in international commerce, we would have to talk about letters of credit, charter parties, import and export regulations, embargoes, dumping, most-favoured-nation clauses, GATT and arbitration. It is interesting to observe that none of these terms are in fact used in the field of international art trade, except for … import and export restrictions.

There are gaps in the regulation, and strong conflicts in the ongoing debate. Audi I think does show how many legal arguments can be classified as maxims and countermaxims. However good legal analysis should get to the root of that tension, and show the policy at play on both sides, and effectively evaluate the state of the law. Unfortunately he doesn’t incorporate enough of the cultural policy-making scholarship into his analysis on “cultural property debates” as he calls it; which he seems to only believe can encompass the intractable dilemmas posed when the law has nothing to say for claimants in situations like the Parthenon marbles.

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