Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-rdgjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-07T09:30:59.015Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Art Historians and Cultural Property Internationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 August 2005

Nora Niedzielski-Eichner
Nora Niedzielski-Eichner
Affiliation:
Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University. Email: nmne@stanford.edu
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article responds to John Merryman's article on cultural property internationalism in the last issue of the International Journal of Cultural Property (IJCP). It considers the increasing, although still limited, role that art historians working out of universities play in the debates around the ownership of cultural property. Although there are a number of principles embedded in cultural internationalism that are still widely supported, art historians seem to be moving away from cultural property internationalism. One reason for the increasing critique of cultural property internationalism is the rise of scholarship that questions traditional art history and its relationship to colonialism.

Information

Type
RESPONSE ARTICLES
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , May 2005 , pp. 183 - 200
Copyright
© 2005 International Cultural Property Society

John Merryman's article in the last International Journal of Cultural Property (IJCP) addressed the idea of cultural property internationalism primarily as it has been debated in the law and archaeology fields—the two arenas where the idea has been most hotly contested. Increasingly, however, cultural property internationalism and its legacy are under scrutiny in other fields as well. This article addresses the emerging role of academic art historians in this ongoing debate.

Art historians working at universities are distinguished in this article from both archaeologists and museum curators, despite the obvious overlaps in individual careers. Taken as a collective, academic art historians are very different from these two groups in their perspectives on and involvement with issues around cultural property internationalism. A major source of these differences is the fact that academic art historians rarely deal with the objects themselves, at least for longer than the length of their research trips. Thus, issues of internationalism as it pertains to cultural property normally arise only in limited circumstances for most art historians. Unlike archaeologists, whose close ties with and obligations to the source nations in which they work were discussed by Merryman, most art historians do not actively advocate for stronger laws limiting exports. Conversely, because universities do not have their money and prestige invested in the display of cultural objects in the way museums do, academic art historians are far more likely to study and criticize the colonial and capitalist history of museums and, thus, question their rights to certain objects. Of much greater concern for most art historians is the free flow of people and information across national boundaries. That said, certain subfields, notably African, Classical, Eastern European, and Pre-Columbian art history, have become more involved in cultural property issues in recent years and, as will be detailed later, the concerns of these subfields are beginning to be heard across the discipline. How, and how often, academic art historians think about cultural property may shift in the next few years, particularly as a younger generation of scholars, very critical of the discipline's history and assumptions, gains increasing prominence.

Ownership of cultural property is a term about which, for both practical and theoretical reasons, academic art historians spend little time thinking. On a practical level, few university art historians are themselves serious collectors. Further, dealers and collectors who would like the advice of an art historian for the authentication of an object tend to approach museum personnel or auction houses first. Academic art historians are increasingly rarely trained in the kind of connoisseurship that confident attributions require. Thus, an art historian who has little interest in the object qua object may finish her career having never been required, even by circumstance, to give serious thought to the ethical issues surrounding collecting and ownership.

At the more theoretical level, academic art historians display a strong reluctance to acknowledge the ways in which art objects function as commodities, and when art historians do so, it tends to be in abstract terms that fail to consider their own role in the art market. According to Michael Fitzgerald, who, unusual for an art historian, has written on the art market,

“As far as I can gather, our conceptions of economic and political systems bear little resemblance to the situations discussed by economists, Wall Streeters, and politicians, or even curators and art dealers. When addressing art's relation to commerce, art historians often appear so unsympathetic to capitalism (and so naïve about commercial experience) that our analyses are easily dismissed by people who earn a living in business, as most workers do in the increasingly numerous market economies. Perhaps because we have such a small stake in that world and, if we are successful, are protected by tenure, we see things very differently.”1

Fitzgerald, “Next Year's Models,” 10. Pierre Bourdieu, noted sociologist of cultural structures, offers substantially more cynical and sinister takes on the art world's investment in denying the commodity status of art objects. “To these forms of legitimate accumulation, through which the dominant groups or classes secure a capital of “credit” which seems to owe nothing to the logic of exploitation, must be added another form of accumulation of symbolic capital, the collection of luxury goods attesting the taste and distinction of their owner…The world of art, a sacred island systematically and ostentatiously opposed to the profane, everyday world of production, a sanctuary for gratuitous, disinterested activity in a universe given over to money and self-interest, offers, like theology in a past epoch, an imaginary anthropology obtained by denial of all the negations really brought about by the economy.” Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, p. 197. Dealing consciously and consistently with art as a commodity would disrupt the careful illusion of “a sacred island,” and might reveal too much of the power structures such illusions hide. See Bourdieu's further elaborations of this idea in Distinction and The Love of Art.

Although there are certainly many advantages to a disinterested and distanced position, such naivety means that art historians may fail as individuals or as a professional collective to have much voice in discussions that may profoundly affect the objects of their field of study.

Given this lack of sustained engagement with the topic, it is difficult to speak of how art historians, in general, think about cultural property internationalism. Whereas certain individuals have developed strong positions on the subject, many others have never given much thought to it. The closest approximation of a representative position might be that of the College Art Association (CAA), the major professional organization of art historians in the United States. CAA has dealt at greater length with this issue than other national or international art historical associations have to date.2

The Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art, for instance, has not considered the topic in recent years according to correspondence with Françoise Forster-Hahn, the United States representative to CIHA (received October 14, 2004) and with Ruth Phillips, current president (received October 24, 2004); nor has the Universities Art Association of Canada, according to correspondence with Catherine Harding, current president (received October 29, 2004). The Association of Art Historians (Great Britain) does include a single provision concerning ownership of cultural property in their Guidelines for the Professional Practice of Art History. It does not differ significantly in outlook from the CAA code of ethics, although it is much less specific. “4.7 As far as possible, scholars should seek to establish the legal ownership and proper location of any items, particularly for material from other countries which may have been exported in contravention of national laws. Members should do nothing to facilitate the illegal removal of cultural items from their countries of origin. The Hague Convention of 1954 and UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (Paris, 1970, not ratified by Britain) are commended. Members should note that the UK is subject to the European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage (March, 1973, Cmnd. 224).” Martin Kemp, “The Guidelines for the Professional Practice,” 247–8.

Moreover, as CAA is composed of members from every subfield and includes both academic and museum-based art historians as well as working artists, its discussions have necessarily had to consider many points of view before endorsing any given opinion. For these reasons, the history of CAA's positions around cultural property internationalism will serve here as an approximation of the field's position.

What a sustained look at art history's position on cultural property reveals is an overall move away from cultural property internationalism. This rejection has been slower and less wholesale than that of the archaeologists and may represent an interesting model for productive compromise between source nations and those in market nations who are interested in the former's cultural property. This article first considers CAA's position on some of the crucial topics where cultural property internationalism is being debated. It then considers the issue of access and why this is of far greater concern to art historians. Finally, it places this debate in the context of larger debates within art history to shed some light on why cultural property internationalism is an increasingly difficult position for academic art historians to endorse.

DESTRUCTION

In many cases, the impetus for the development or publication of positions on who owns or is responsible for cultural property has sprung directly or indirectly from its destruction. Consistent with the origins of the cultural internationalist perspective in attempts to protect art from theft and destruction in times of war, the destruction of cultural property generates protests from the art-history community, as it does from everyone involved in the arts. It is in these fairly clear-cut cases of irreparable damage that the strongest statements of cultural property internationalism appear. For instance, CAA issued this statement protesting the failure of the U.S. military to protect the National Museum of Iraq from looting during its invasion of Baghdad:

The College Art Association registers its outrage at the failure of government and military forces, including those of the United States, to protect the National Museum and National Library of Iraq. These institutions housed the artistic and cultural heritage not only of the people of Iraq, but also of the world. We call upon you to take immediate action to prevent further looting, to protect the remaining artistic and archeological sites of Iraq, and to initiate an aggressive campaign to restore the contents of the National Museum and other cultural institutions to the people of Iraq.3

A copy of the related press release can be seen at 〈http://www.collegeart.org/caa/news/2003/april03press.htm〉

The claim that “these institutions housed the artistic and cultural heritage of … the world” is an emphatic restatement of the internationalist claim of the 1954 Hague Convention that cultural property is “the cultural heritage of all mankind.” However, as will be apparent in relation to some of CAA's other positions analyzed later, this statement clearly functions more as a rhetorical device than as an actual endorsement of a cultural property internationalist position and all it implies.

ILLEGAL EXPORTS AND THE ROLE OF THE ART HISTORIAN

The reactive nature of art historians' interest in the issue of the ownership of cultural property means that the history of CAA's statements regarding export laws is tied closely to world events in this field. CAA supports all laws regarding the illicit export of cultural property in its standards for ethical behavior. At the same time, it has also advocated the release of more art objects from source nations. CAA seems here to be attempting what might be called a balanced culturally internationalist position, poised as it is between its museum constituency and its subfields strongly in favor of strict laws and dominated by a majority only marginally concerned with the issue. CAA's first statement on the issue of illegal exports was issued in 1973, when in response to the UNESCO Convention of 1970, the organization convened a group of associations to create a joint statement of ethical acquisition practices for museums, which these organizations were encouraged to adopt. Despite a nod to the culturally internationalist claims of the universal museum,

Recognizing that Museums, whatever be their specialty, have a communality of interests and concerns, which comes into particularly sharp focus in matters of ethics and professional behavior; that they are the custodian of man's material heritage and of that part of his natural heritage which he has collected for study and transmission to future generations …4

The entire statement is available at 〈http://www.collegeart.org/caa/ethics/for_cult_props.html〉

the statement goes on to fully endorse the development of export controls by source nations and urges all museums to abide by the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. In a shift of tone, the statement then goes on to say,

However, wherever possible, within the limits of national law, consideration should be given to legitimate and honorable means for the acquisition of cultural property. It is hoped that nations will release for acquisition, long term loan, or exchange, cultural property of significance for the advancement of knowledge and for the benefit of all peoples.5

〈http://www.collegeart.org/caa/ethics/for_cult_props.html〉

This balancing act of supporting the right of nations to control access to their cultural heritage, while at the same time hoping that they will not abuse that right, may best sum up the art historical perspective on cultural property internationalism. In this sense, many art historians may be in agreement with Merryman that excessive retention of art objects is not desirable. At the same time, academic art historians tend, as pointed out by Fitzgerald earlier, to be suspicious of the market; thus, we find the inclusion of loans and exchanges as acceptable alternatives to acquisition.

In 1995, CAA issued a revised version of its A Code of Ethics for Art Historians and Guidelines for the Professional Practice of Art History.6

The code is available at 〈http://www.collegeart.org/caa/ethics/art_hist_ethics.html〉 All quotes in this paragraph come from these guidelines.

A major difference is the addition of the third section, “The Illegal Traffic in Works of Art and Responsibilities of Art Historians to Discourage Illegal Traffic in Works of Art,” which includes and extends the 1973 statement. The additional material relates directly to the responsibilities of the individual art historian:

A. Art historians shall conduct their research and activities in such a manner that respects the protection and preservation of natural and cultural resources and discourages illicit trade in cultural property and stolen art works, cultural objects, and antiquities.

It shall be considered, therefore, unethical for any art historians to be knowingly involved in the illegal exportation of works of art from foreign countries and/or illegal importation of works of art into this country.

It shall be considered unethical for an art historian to acquire knowingly or allow to be recommended for acquisition any object that has been stolen or removed in contravention of treaties and international conventions to which the United States is a signatory or illegally imported into the U.S.

B. It shall be unethical for art historians to purchase or sell art works, artifacts or cultural objects that they suspect were stolen from excavations, architectural monuments, public institutions or individuals. To knowingly aid and abet the illegal exportation and importation of a work of art is professionally unethical and, more likely than not, illegal.

Art historians are often key players in the international trade in cultural property and have a responsibility to distinguish the licit trade from illicit trade and to suppress the latter. If an art historian is asked for advice by a museum about a prospective purchase that he/she has reason to believe may be coming from out of the country, the reasonable action for an art historian is to satisfy himself or herself that he/she is not contributing to looting. If an art historian is asked by an art dealer or a museum to write a catalogue or render an opinion about a work from antiquity or one from a living cultural tradition, similar inquiry should be made. The realities of the art world sometimes make it necessary for a museum or dealer to withhold disclosing the name of the seller; however, it is such secrecy that has contributed to the problem of the growing and flourishing international traffic in pillaged works of art. In many cases the art historian has placed his/her trust in the reputation of the dealer or museum. Without necessarily calling into question such trust, the art historian should undertake a rudimentary investigation to ensure herself or himself of proper provenance in each situation.

An art historian who has reasonable cause to believe that an item of cultural property has been the product of illegal or clandestine excavation or has been illegally exported will not assist in a further transaction of that object, including, exhibition, attribution, description or appraisal, except with the agreement of the country of export, nor will an art historian under these circumstances contribute to the publication of the work in question.

These standards clearly indicate that art historians are moving away from a cultural internationalist position toward a strong support for upholding the export controls of source nations. However, art historians are still far from advocating the position that Merryman describes as the archaeologists' ideal.

Every proposed acquisition or loan would now be treated as “illicit” unless proved to be “licit.” Some other cultural property world actors have since adopted this “guilty unless proved innocent” presumption. Archaeologists now feel free to condemn, as “looters” and worse, collectors who acquire and museums that display antiquities that no nation claims and that no one has shown to have been improperly acquired.7

CAA's code of ethics operates on the opposite presumption that most objects are not illicit, but that art historians need to be alert in case they encounter objects with a suspicious provenance. Investigation is called for when an art historian has a reason for concern, but it is not assumed that all objects are illicit until shown to be otherwise.

Given the strong emphasis on the responsibility of all art historians to stop the trade in illicit objects, it is not surprising that the code also calls for new international laws enforcing restitution of illegally removed objects.

Recognizing that the current international legal framework is largely unsuccessful in arresting illicit traffic in cultural objects, preventing the pillaging and looting of archaeological sites, and promoting the return of cultural objects, CAA supports the efforts of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) and the draft convention on the International Return of Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects. CAA supports the broad principle of a unified private law code for claims of an “international character” for the “restitution of stolen cultural objects” and for the return of “cultural objects” removed contrary to the laws regulating the export of such objects because of their cultural significance.

It is unclear from this passage precisely where CAA might fall in some of the most heated restitution debates about objects removed from their country of origin many years ago, but it is clear that CAA fully endorses countries' right to the return of cultural objects illicitly removed in recent years. The right of nations to prohibit the export of cultural objects as they see fit is also fully endorsed here. Although CAA may hope that nations will choose not to limit all international exchange, it does not contest their right to do so.

ILLICIT TRADE AND PUBLICATION

CAA's most recent decision concerning art historians and export law was issued in May 2004. CAA now requires authors to document as fully as possible objects acquired after 1972 in order to enable the appropriate editor to decide if the object should be published. In some situations, they may publish objects with problematic provenances, but this history will most likely will have to be explicitly acknowledged as the editor sees fit.8

Information regarding how CAA's publication guidelines are being put into practice was provided to the author by Eve Sinako, Director of Publications for the College Art Association, October 14, 2004, and October 25, 2004.

The College Art Association hereby expresses its condemnation of illicit or otherwise questionable practices in the obtaining of archaeological, artistic, and ethnic objects, whether these are by theft, excavation, export, trade, or the wrongful seizure from legitimate owners due to war, insurrection, or civil disturbance. Through the scholarly mission of its journals, The Art Bulletin, Art Journal, and caa.reviews, as well as through its programs and newsletters, the College Art Association remains committed to its role in the dissemination of information to its membership, and expects to contribute toward a dialogue and a better understanding of the issues of context and documentation of objects, and the historical circumstances of their ownership. As a result, the College Art Association discourages practices or procedures that might be construed as giving sanction to the acquisition, trade, and financial enhancement of cultural artifacts inappropriately excavated, collected, or appropriated. Authors submitting manuscripts for publication in The Art Bulletin, Art Journal, and caa.reviews should document, to the best extent possible, the provenance history of objects acquired since the UNESCO draft Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property of 1972. The Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with advisors and/or the Editorial Board, reserves the right to request further information from authors, when deemed necessary.9

CAA Statement on the Importance of Documenting the Historical Context of Objects and Sites May 2, 2004, available at 〈http://www.collegeart.org/caa/ethics/may04statement.html〉

In force for only a few months, these guidelines have not yet had time to demonstrate what, if any, effect they will have on the discipline. As the guidelines are seen by CAA as setting a standard for the discipline and art publishing in general to follow, however,10

Eve Sinako (Director of Publications for the College Art Association), in discussion with the author, October 14, 2004.

it is possible that many scholars who have never before considered provenance will soon have to confront the ownership history of objects in order to publish their work.

The statement speaks to the growing sense among art historians that publishing art objects without careful inquiries into their provenance is unethical. The reproduction of an inadequately documented object in a reputable journal can serve as a legitimation of its attribution and ownership, even if the scholar herself never intended to make a definitive statement on these issues. This is a concern particularly in fields such as African and Asian art, where the exact maker may be unknown. In such cases, an object will sell for a much higher price if it has been published, as publication is often taken by buyers as a guarantee of authenticity. Publishing a stolen object may increase the thief's reward and thereby encourage further looting. Many African art historians will no longer publish any objects not in public collections, because the looting situation in Africa has become so serious, and they are deeply concerned about contributing to the problem.11

This discussion of why scholars might want to limit publication is based on issues raised by Eve Sinako, October 14, 2004, and October 25, 2004. The reluctance of African scholars to publish objects from private collections, in part due to concerns about looting, was confirmed by Robin Poynor, former president of the Arts Council of the African Studies Association (received January 13, 2005).

In Western art history, art historians' responsibility to document provenance has received an unusual amount of attention in recent years because of a number of books published in the last decade on the Holocaust era loss of cultural property. These investigative authors found that the stolen property of Jewish collectors and dealers has made its way unacknowledged into major public and private collections. Of particular concern to the field was the implicit critique of the ethics of art historians, as these books revealed how many of these objects taken by the Nazis had been reproduced in major scholarly publications without anyone noticing or commenting on their history as stolen goods.12

See Nicholas, The Rape of Europa; Feliciano, The Lost Museum; Howard J. Trienens, Landscape with Smokestacks.

The question of whether authors should be required to document the provenance of objects that they publish has apparently been debated within the CAA publications department for years, but the impetus for finally creating a clear policy is spelled out in the preamble to the statement.

In 1993, the collections of the national museum of Afghanistan in Kabul were looted, destroyed, or dispersed. Just a year ago, during a military action, the National Museum of Iraq was looted and stripped. Archaeological sites in both countries are currently exposed to uncontrolled looting. Recently, a member of the CAA Board of Directors reported that 33 Byzantine and medieval churches in Kosovo have been looted, stripped, and/or destroyed. There is strong evidence that art objects and objects of cultural heritage from these and other places are being sold on the illicit art market. In the present political climate worldwide, cultural patrimony remains at great risk.13

CAA Statement on the Importance of Documenting the Historical Context of Objects and Sites, May 2, 2004, available at 〈http://www.collegeart.org/caa/ethics/may04statement.html〉

Information regarding CAA's process for developing the statement is from Sinako, October 14, 2004. According to the statement, “the authors of the statement are Prof. Suzanne Preston Blier, professor of the history of art and architecture and of African and African American studies at Harvard University; Carmen C. Bambach, curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Prof. Jeffrey Hurwit, professor of classical art and archaeology at the University of Oregon; and Prof. Steven A. Mansbach, professor of twentieth-century art at the University of Maryland, with a particular expertise in modern art of the Balkans and Eastern Europe.”

Although these tragedies may not be new in the history of the world, art historians' role in the system is increasingly acknowledged and questioned. It is no accident that the committee members who formulated the policy are those who work on art from areas that have suffered the greatest depredations in the last decade. (The committee included a professor of African art, a professor of Eastern European art, and a professor of Classical art as well as a museum curator.) Subfields such as African, Classical, Eastern European, Pre-Columbian, and early Asian are driving the discipline as a whole to greater awareness and hopefully more discussions about art history's role in the international art market.

CULTURAL INFORMATION INTERNATIONALISM

The cultural property provisions in the code of ethics and the publication guidelines should not necessarily be taken to indicate a strong awareness and involvement of most art historians in debates around the ownership of cultural property. A summary of recent activities by CAA suggests that the international exchange of people and information remains the core concern of art historians. Although there is certainly a strong kind of cultural internationalism here, it is a cultural information internationalism rather than a cultural property internationalism.

The first section of A Code of Ethics discussed earlier concerns open access to all publicly owned materials worldwide, access that scholars may ask CAA to lobby for on their behalf if they feel it has been unreasonably denied.

In the case of foreign repositories of research materials to which access seems unreasonably or capriciously denied, a scholar may request assistance from this Committee.14

The guidelines are available at 〈http://www.collegeart.org/caa/ethics/art_hist_ethics.html〉

CAA believes that as much as possible there should be full, free, equal, and nondiscriminatory access to research materials for all qualified art historians. All art historical research materials, including but not limited to works of art, photographs, diaries, letters, and other documents in the possession of publicly supported or tax exempt, non-profit, educational institutions, whether in the United States or elsewhere, where not legally restricted as to use, shall be freely and fully accessible to art historians for research and publication.15

The guidelines are available at 〈http://www.collegeart.org/caa/ethics/art_hist_ethics.html〉 The rest of the section reads:

B. An art historian has the moral obligation to share the discovery of primary source material with his or her colleagues and serious students. He or she is not obligated to share anything of an interpretive nature that has been done with the source material. The recipients of documents or any other form of information from an art historian should in turn give the finder a reasonable opportunity to be the first to publish the material in question. The finder should seek to publish research as soon as possible, thereby showing respect and appreciation of art historians of the past and present who have contributed to the profession and from whom he or she as benefited. In the words of Aby Warburg: “There are no reserved seats in scholarship.”

It was actually issues of access to materials, not of ownership, that prompted the original development of the Code of Ethics, according to an interview with Albert Elsen, the driving force in the development of the code in 1973.16

Mayer, “The new code of ethics,” 34.

Although traveling to visit an object or an archive may be expensive and difficult, as long as an art historian is assured of access to the information or object at the end of the journey, scholarship can proceed. It thus makes sense that legitimacy of ownership of the object has historically been of less concern than the willingness of the owner to allow access.

CAA's willingness to consider publishing objects with problematic ownership histories, in cases where the editor feels there is compelling scholarly reason to do so, speaks to the overriding importance of access and shared knowledge. If an object is not published, its existence and whatever valuable understanding it could contribute to scholarly discourse are lost to the field at large. That is not what art historians want, and a compromise position of publication with provenance allows objects to be published without fear that in doing so the art historian is unintentionally legitimating the object. Although this position is less strident than that of archaeologists as Merryman describes them, it may actually better serve the stated goal of reducing acquisitions of stolen or illicitly exported art. By explicitly stating that an object has a problematic history, the reader is made aware of the possibility that objects circulating on the art market might be stolen, and repeated encounters with such information might give the reader some sense of the magnitude of the problem. Knowing that an object acquired illicitly or with an ambiguous provenance will be reproduced with such information attached might also discourage collectors from acquiring such objects. CAA is prioritizing the sharing of knowledge over the rigid reinforcement of ownership rights, which is true to its historical mission and may be a more effective means of combating the problem of illicit removal of cultural property.

A major focus of last year's Arts Day, CAA's annual day of intensive lobbying of congressional members, was a reform of the visitor's visa process to expedite the applications of visiting artists who have been invited to conferences or performances in the United States.17

See 〈http://www.collegeart.org/news/2004/July/advocacyupdate.html〉

Similarly, the International Committee held a session at the 2004 CAA Conference, Going Global: Defining CAA's role in the International Community, which focused on international exchange programs, links to international agencies such as UNESCO, and creating more opportunities for international artists and scholars to attend the annual conference.18

See 〈http://www.collegeart.org/caa/aboutcaa/committees/pips/international/international.html〉 for information on the committee.

Finally, CAA also issued in May 2004 a Resolution on Art and Intellectual Freedom in Times of War, which decried limitations on international visitors and students coming to the United States.19

See 〈http://www.collegeart.org/caa/advocacy/04Resolutionintimesofwar.html〉 for a copy of the resolution.

All of these activities highlight how crucial the flow of people is to art historians concerned with increasing the quality and quantity of scholarship. Art historians work in dialogue with the scholarship of other art historians of the same object or period. The inability to converse with an artist or art historian who could otherwise provide valuable information is more likely to inhibit scholarship for most art historians than the illegal exportation, looting, or destruction of objects, as the majority of art historians work on objects already secured in major museums. Missing an important insight or archival record because the scholars who hold the different pieces of the puzzle never meet is a more common fear.

The practical reality is that for academic art historians investigating the flow of cultural property may be less important than protecting the flow of cultural information, creators, and scholars. Most art historians do not work in subfields where their art objects are currently threatened. Moreover, although there are reasons to suspect, discussed later, that many art historians would not be particularly sympathetic to a pure cultural property internationalism, such as Merryman describes, most art historians are not actively working on objects with disputed ownerships. The ownership and control of cultural property thus remains largely an abstract ethical concern in comparison to more immediate frustrations over lack of access. A cultural information internationalism might best describe art historians' position at this time, where the physical location and control of an object is of less concern than the international availability of information about the object.

CONTESTED TERRAIN

In many ways, cultural internationalism, including cultural property internationalism, was a foundational belief in the discipline of art history. Art history rests on the assumption that it is possible for someone to look at art from a time and place not her own and understand it. Taken to extremes, this assumption can erase cultural, social, and historical differences. Early art historians such as Heinrich Wölfflin created grand categorizing schemes into which all art could be placed based on certain characteristics such as linear versus painterly. Despite substantial archaeological evidence to the contrary, Johan Winckelmann and others insisted on the pure whiteness of classical marble sculpture in order that the sculptures could continue to serve as buttresses for their own aesthetic ideals. This was seriously detrimental to the Parthenon Marbles, some of which were cleaned to make them whiter. Even as late as the 1960s, art historians such as Clement Greenberg could confidently determine the quality of a work of art based on how closely it conformed to what he took to be the universal progression of art toward truth to its medium. Theoretically, the “cultural heritage of all mankind” was available to any art historian who could interpret its universal significance.20

Wölfflin, Principles of Art History; St. Clair, Lord Elgin and the Marbles, 289–290; Greenberg, The Collected Essays.

However, an enormous amount has been written in the last 30 years disputing in various ways this assumption that all art is universally legible or at least disputing that art will universally be interpreted in the same way. In essence, most art historians now acknowledge, to varying degrees and with varying emphases, the need to account for the social, cultural, historical, ethnic, economic, and gender background of both the maker and the viewer. Art historians working with non-Western art have acknowledged the authority of the object's makers or people of origin to speak about the meaning of an object. Marxist, feminist, postcolonial, and deconstructionist scholars have brought to the discipline an awareness of how class, gender, race, and ideology have impacted the creation and analysis of art objects. A random sampling of these new discourses about art history demonstrates the range of arguments being made. Linda Nochlin's groundbreaking article, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” argued that the limitations placed on women's artistic training were an unacknowledged but crucial counter to art historians' claim that women could not be artistic geniuses. T. J. Clark claimed in The Painting of Modern Life that the scandal of Manet's Olympia was all about the ambiguous class position of the naked woman pictured. Robert Farris Thompson asserted in Flash of the Spirit that African traditions and languages had survived the Middle Passage and were thriving, disguised as Christianity or hidden from white eyes, in creole forms throughout the Americas.21

Nochlin, “Why Have There Been”; Clark, The Painting of Modern Life; Thompson, The Flash of the Spirit.

Although these examples have little to do with cultural property, it is easy to see how a skeptical attitude towards claims of universal meanings might lead to a skeptical attitude towards the claims of the universal museum and cultural property internationalism.

The emphasis on historical and social specificity promoted by this type of scholarship could have an impact on how art historians respond to cultural property internationalist claims. Much Western and East Asian art was created with portability in mind, downplaying the importance of physical context and contributing to the historical cross-cultural circulation of such art objects for centuries. The history of a given art object is often already international, both in provenance and in terms of influences on the artist, and so art historians in these fields routinely cross international boundaries in their research. Thus, some of the examples Merryman cites of French or Italian export law seem likely to strike many art historians as slightly absurd, given the already international character of the art involved.22

The claim that art transcends national boundaries makes sense in relation to art created with that goal in mind. However, cultural property internationalism as it is pursued by the universal museum rests to a large extent on the assumption that all art is like Western art in this manner. When art historians begin to acknowledge that not all art serves the same function or was created out of the same historical and cultural conditions, they call into question the appropriateness of owning or displaying art that was not intended as art in the Western sense.

Many objects, particularly those created for religious or political contexts, were never intended for circulation, because their significance is tied to their place of origin. This idea has a long history in Western thought, although it has been taken much more seriously lately. In 1796, the French scholar Quatremère de Quincy published his great statement in opposition to Napoleon's removal of art from Italy. Merryman cites this work as an early articulation of cultural internationalism, which to some extent it is. What Quincy was actually arguing, however, is not that art should, therefore, be free to circulate internationally, but that Napoleon should leave the Italian paintings he coveted in the churches for which they were painted and to which their religious and cultural significance was tied.

The true museum of Rome, the one of which I speak, is composed of statues, colossi, temples, obelisks, triumphal columns, baths, circuses, amphitheatres, triumphal arches, tombs, stuccos, frescos, bas-reliefs, inscriptions, ornamental fragments, construction materials, furniture, utensils, etc. but it is no less composed of places, sites, mountains, quarries, ancient roads, the respective positions of ruined towns, relative geographical features, inter-relationships between objects, memories of local traditions, existing customs, parallels and comparisons that can only be made in the country itself. [My translation]23

Quatremère de Quincy, Lettres Sur Le Projet, 27–8. To briefly clarify for those interested in Quincy, what is commonly called Letters to Miranda was published under a variety of names, including Lettres Sur Le Projet D'Enlever Les Monumens de L'Italie and Lettres sur le préjudice qu'occasionneroient aux Arts et à la Science, le déplacement des monumens de l'art de l'Italie, le démembrement de ses Ecoles, et la spoliation de ses Collections, Galeries, Musées, etc. The most recent edition, edited by Edouard Pommier, uses the title Lettres à Miranda sur le déplacement des monuments de l'art de l'Italie. and was published in 1989. The edition referred to here is an 1815 reprinting of the 1796 Paris edition.

Even though these works belonged to all of Europe in Quincy's formulation quoted by Merryman, they were best seen in the place for which they were created.24

Context, including contemporary traditions that related to those of the past, is everything. Since these works belong to everyone, they should be seen where they will be of the most benefit to everyone, which is where they were originally created. Similarly, many art historians who work on non-Western art might now support discussions about repatriation of certain objects because they can best be understood in their original location.

This is particularly likely to be the case for art historians who came of age after the civil rights and anticolonial struggles of the mid-twentieth century. Such art historians are likely to be aware, to greater or lesser degrees depending on their fields and their interests, of how the history of the discipline is intimately tied up with the history of colonial oppression. It is not accidental that much of the best art from Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Native North American nations is found in European and American museums, typically with the best collection being housed in the nation that had colonial or pseudocolonial control over the peoples whose art is being studied.

Merryman briefly addresses these postcolonial concerns in the introduction to his article,

It seems right that objects of ritual/religious importance to living cultures remain with or be returned to the representatives of those cultures, as were the Afo-a-Kom and, under NAGPRA, American Indian artifacts. And finally, it is internationally important that the inhabitants of every nation, including the poorest survivors of colonial exploitation, have access to a fully representative collection of objects that represent their history and culture.25

In stipulating this as a well-understood and incontestable principle, Merryman downplays the extent to which it is the failure to return objects of religious significance, or a representative collection of the best works of a people, that calls the cultural property internationalist perspective into question. If the only export permits at stake were those forbidding an Italian to export a Van Gogh, the cultural property internationalist position might seem more appealing. However, the legacy of colonialism is not as easily escaped as simply declaring that everyone understands that trade in those sorts of objects should not go on.

Art historians of these postcolonial generations are also likely to have read critiques such as Franz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks or Edward Said's Orientalism, in which the language of colonial justification is specifically attacked.26

They may thus consider a cultural property internationalist position suspect to the extent that it is used as a justification for the removal and retention of objects from less developed or formerly colonized countries. Such scholars seem likely to suspect the underlying politics of wealthier nations versus poorer nations or Western nations versus non-Western nations in the claims that all art belongs to all mankind. Why this might be the case can be illustrated by examples of how two of the three kinds of activities that the UNESCO Constitution commits the organization to support actually play out in practice. These commitments are (1) conservation and protection, (2) recommending international conventions, and (3) encouraging international exchange. Goal one, conservation and protection, is often used as an argument for removal of an object by a wealthier nation and against its repatriation to a poorer nation (we took this object because you weren't taking care of it and we aren't going to give it back because you still can't take care of it like we can). This has historically been an important part of the British Museum's rhetoric regarding why it won't return the Parthenon Marbles.27

William St. Clair, Lord Elgin and the Marbles, 292–3.

Goal three, encouraging international exchange, has, in practice, historically often seemed to mean the removal of objects from poorer nations so that they might circulate among wealthier nations. For instance, major shows of African art might travel between Europe and America but will be seen nowhere on the African continent. What Cambodian collector can afford to bid at international auction for a fragment removed from Angkor Wat? Peru has requested that Yale return objects taken from Machu Picchu, a site highly prized by the Peruvians because it is among the least disturbed (by Spanish conquistadors or non-Peruvian archaeologists) Inca sites in Peru; Yale only has 5,000 objects.28

Atwood, “Peru Presses Yale,” 106.

In all of these cases, international exchange can be read as exploitation; no major museum or collector so far seems to have offered to send great works of Western art to museums in Africa or Latin America in exchange for the right to show African or Pre-Columbian art in Europe and the United States. The fully representative collections of their own works that Merryman agrees all peoples should have are just what many non-Western nations seem to feel they are lacking, and it is unquestionable that they do not have fully representative collections of Western works either.

Although the involvement of art historians in debates about repatriation or export limits has largely been a matter of individual commitments rather than discipline wide consensus,29

Barringer and Flynn, Colonialism and the Object; Steiner, African Art in Transit; Berlo and Phillips, “Our (Museum) World.”

there does seem to be evidence that many art historians are likely to be suspicious of cultural property internationalist claims. As a final example, a brief examination of the criticism related to contemporary global exhibitions like the Venice Biennale and Documenta reveals the correct exhibition and display of art objects in an international context to be hotly debated. Although not strictly related to cultural property, as ownership is not at stake, the way these exhibitions have been constructed and then critiqued offers some insight into how thoroughly art historians are currently engaged in analyzing the power relations between Western art history and the formerly colonized objects of that art history. In particular, art historians have wrestled with how contemporary art can be understood outside of the context in which it was produced, particularly if the art is intended as an intervention in local politics or as a mediation between a traditional culture and a more industrialized one. They have also been concerned about the appropriation of non-Western art into Western categories and arguments or, conversely, the denial of non-Western art and its influence on and dialogue with Western art. Finally, they have raised the concern articulated earlier, that claims for internationalism, multiculturalism, or globalization have “all too frequently served to reinforce dominant paradigms of circulation and to leave conventional institutional structures intact…”30

Amor, “Liminalities” Much of this critique has appeared in the form of reviews and criticisms of exhibitions that are, or purport to be, global in scope. Starting with the Pompidou Center's exhibition Magiciens de la Terre, issues surrounding the display and interpretation of non-Western art in contemporary art exhibitions have generated heated debate. See, for instance, Benjamin Buchloh, “The Whole Earth Show”; Jean Fisher, ed. Global Visions; Gerardo Mosquera, ed. Beyond the Fantastic; Ursula Biemann. “Outsourcing and Subcontracting”; Francesco Bonami, et al. “Global Tendencies”; Pamela Lee, “Boundary Issues,” and the catalogs and critical reception of any of the Biennales, Documentas, or other “global” exhibitions of the last decade, particularly Okwui Enwezor's Documenta 11, which tried to very thoroughly address the relationship between the West and the Rest.

These critiques could easily be turned against cultural property internationalism, as they are, at root, an attack on the rhetoric of universalism. The leap from challenging how museums discuss and display art to challenging how museums came to own art does not seem as if it would be a difficult one for many art historians to make.

CONCLUSION

To what extent these theoretical concerns will determine art historians' positions in the debates around the ownership and export of cultural property remains to be determined when more art historians join the debate. Although there seems to be evidence from some of the CAA's recent statements that art historians are moving toward a greater concern with the ownership of cultural property and greater support for limitations on the flow of objects, CAA's position also seems to be driven largely by a few committed individuals. In light of the lack of literature contesting cultural property internationalism written by university-based art historians and the lack of evidence that other art historical associations have taken up these debates as thoroughly as CAA, it seems fair to say only that art history as a field has yet to develop a unified position on cultural property internationalism. Except in cases of looting and destruction, which seems to unite almost all art historians in outrage, the question of who should control the cultural heritage of all mankind remains an issue, and art historians are mostly just beginning to join the debate. Even in its early stages, however, art history's attempt to find a middle ground, exemplified by CAA's positions on encouraging licit international exchange and publishing objects of scholarly importance with their problematic provenance attached if necessary, suggests a model of compromise that might better serve both sides of the export debate. It is to be hoped that more art historians will begin to take these questions seriously enough to apply their considerable analytical skills to the task and that a future report could offer a much clearer sense of the field's consensus.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank John Merryman and Robert Hallman for their constructive criticism of many drafts. I would also like to thank Elizabeth Cameron, Françoise Forster Hahn, Catherine Harding, Rebecca Nagy, Ruth Phillips, Robin Poyner, and Eve Sinako for their insights into the relationship between art historians and cultural property.

References

Amor, Monica, et al. “Liminalities: Discussions on the Global and the Local.” Art Journal 57, no. 4 (1998): 28–49.Google Scholar
Atwood, Roger. “Peru Presses Yale for Inca Objects.” ART News 103, no. 9 (2004).Google Scholar
Barringer, Tim, and Tom Flynn, ed. Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture and the Museum. London: Routledge, 1998.
Berlo, Janet, and Ruth Phillips. “Our (Museum) World Turned Upside Down: Re-Presenting Native American Arts.” Art Bulletin 77 (March 1995).Google Scholar
Biemann, Ursula. “Outsourcing and Subcontracting: Curatorial Practice in the Post-Colonial Space.” In Been There and Back to Nowhere, pp. 278–91. Berlin: b_books, 2000.
Bonami, Francesco, et al. “Global Tendencies: Globalism and the Large-Scale Exhibition.” Artforum, (November 2003).Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
Buchloh, Benjamin H. D. “The Whole Earth Show.” Art in America 77 ( May 1989).Google Scholar
Clark, T. J. The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers. New York: Knopf, 1985.
Enwezor, Okwui. Documenta 11, Platform 5: Short Guide. Ostfildern-Ruit : Hatje Cantz, 2002.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks, translated by Charles Lam Markmann. New York: Grove Press 1967.
Feliciano, Hector. The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art. New York: BasicBooks, 1997.
Fisher, Jean, ed. Global Visions: Towards a New Internationalism in the Visual Arts. London: Kala Press in association with the Institute of International Visual Arts, 1994.
Fitzgerald, Michael. “Next Year's Models.” Art Bulletin 79 (March 1997).Google Scholar
Greenberg, Clement. The Collected Essays and Criticism, edited by John O'Brian. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Kemp, Martin. “The ‘Guidelines for the Professional Practice of Art History’ Issued by the Association of Art Historians in Great Britain.” International Journal of Cultural Property 1, (1992): 239–251.Google Scholar
Lee, Pamela. “Boundary Issues: The Art World Under the Sign of Globalism.” Artforum (November 2003).Google Scholar
Martin, Jean-Hubert. Magiciens de la Terre. Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1989.
Mayer, Martin. “New Code of Ethics for Art Historians.” Art News 73 (Summer 1974).Google Scholar
Merryman, John H. “Cultural Property Internationalism.” International Journal of Cultural Property 12 (2005): 11–39.Google Scholar
Mosquera, Gerardo, ed. Beyond the Fantastic: Contemporary Art Criticism from Latin America. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996.
Nicholas, Lynn H. The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich, and the Second World War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.
Nochlin, Linda. “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Women, Art, Power: and Other Essays, 145–178. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.
Quatremère de Quincy, Lettres Sur Le Projet D'Enlever Les Monumens de L'Italie, Rome: V. L., 1815.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978.
St. Clair, William. Lord Elgin and the Marbles. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Steiner, Christopher B. African Art in Transit. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Thompson, Robert Ferris. Flash of the Spirit: African, and Afro-American Art and Philosophy. New York: Random House, Inc., 1983.
Trienens, Howard J. Landscape with Smokestacks: The Case of the Allegedly Plundered Degas. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2000.
Wölfflin, Heinrich. Principles of Art History: The Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art, translated by M. D. Hottinger. New York: Holt, 1932.