Monday, July 01, 2013 -
Cultural Plunder Database,Holocaust restitution,Holocaust Restitution Project,Jeu de Paume,Nazi-era looted art,Provenance Research Training Program
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From Inside Neolithic Walls: On Collaboration and Cooperation
Hong Kong police officer Toby Bull presents at ARCA's International Art Crime Conference in Amelia. (Photo by Illicit Cultural Property) |
by
Martin Terrazas, co-posting with plundered art
I have been asked about the quality of the program offered by the Association for Research
into Crimes against Art, similarly, the Provenance Research Training Program.
Why travel across the Atlantic Ocean despite such expense? Why attend postgraduate
certificate-based programs in unfamiliar cultures and societies?
Daily
moments of cross-cultural communication at Caffé Grande evoke inspiration:
Understanding the tone of a buongiorno is essential. The relationship
between customer and barista in implicit. Friendliness and attempts to become
more Italian are rewarded with pleasantries. The morning caffeine jolt is more
than a financial exchange; it requires mutual cooperation and collaboration.
Therein
lies lessons for preventing art crime and conducting provenance research. There
is little room for undue opposition and overly emotional outbursts as both are
forensic exercises, in which, ultimately, the objective is to determine who has
proper title to a stolen object. Research, investigation, analysis, and context
are essential. The desire to jockey into position for fame and fortune is
futile; ambition, in Amelia, Magdeburg, Zagreb, and future conference cities,
is better focused on becoming a more refined, cooperative and ethical professional.
The
existence of dishonorable participants in the art market is given; the larger
question is whether these individuals define the art market or rather the art
market defines them. Experience with “Cultural
Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg: Database of Art Objects at
the Jeu de Paume” and other
databases allows me to realize that greed marks a loss of power and reputation.
Rather than intrigue, the initials of Adolph Hitler and Hermann Göring on archival
documents eternally evoke disgust and failure.
In
saying benvenuto in the current “age of angst”, it is better to live in
an environment of mutual cooperation.[1] Amelia and the think tank that settles
into its crevices during the Mediterranean’s hottest months, similar to the periodic
week-long efforts as a result of the 2009 Terezín Declaration on Holocaust Era
Assets and Related Issues, empowers future generations to learn through discourse
and discussion.
[1] Joergen Oerstrom Moeller, “Welcome
to the Age of Angst,” Singapore Management University, 12 August 2012.
Martin Terrazas is
a student with the Association for Research into Crimes against Art. He is a
contributor to the Holocaust Art Restitution Project. He assisted in the
release and continues in the expansion of “Cultural Plunder by the Einsatzstab
Reichsleiter Rosenberg: Database of Art Objects” – a cooperation between the
Looted Art and Cultural Property Initiative of the Conference on Jewish
Material Claims Against Germany, World Jewish Restitution Organization, United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum, National Archives and Records Administration, Das Bundesarchiv,
and Ministère des Affaires étrangère et européannes. He participated in the
Provenance Research Training Program – a project of the European
Shoah Legacy Institute – hosted at the Koordinierungsstelle
Magdeburg.
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