Friday, July 19, 2013 -
Adele Bloch-Bauer,cultural property,Klimt,Melanesian wood carvings
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When is restitution a bad thing? The case of Melanesian wood carvings
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I
by Gustav Klimt. (1907).
Neue Galerie, New York.
Source: Verity Algar
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by Verity Algar, co-posting with Plundered Art
The Holocaust Art Restitution Project and
other organisations aiming to restitute Holocaust-looted art to its rightful
owners justifiably propose restitution to be a positive thing in this context.
However, my research has shown
that not all cultural groups want to re-possess their cultural heritage.
I recently spoke at the Association of
Research into Crimes Against Art’s 5th Annual Conference, where I
compared these two objects: the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I by Gustav
Klimt. (1907) and Malanggan from Northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea (collected in 1890).
Malanggan, from Northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Collected in 1890. Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, Cambridge Source: Verity Algar |
Why would I compare a twentieth-century
European painting with a nineteenth-century wood carving from Melanesia, I hear
you say?! Well, by comparing these different objects, I wanted to point out
that their original owners take vastly different approaches to the restitution
of these objects. Let me explain.
In Jewish communities, generally, the original
owners of the cultural objects and/or their heirs, feel the need to re-claim
their objects in order to gain a sense of closure on a traumatic past. As the
following excerpts demonstrate, the language of restitution claims suggest that
the Holocaust is not truly over until looted art objects have been restituted:
“The return of stolen art may be one of the last
acts of the Shoah”
(Dellheim 2000 cited in Glass 2004: 117)
“museums … are dealing with the unfinished
business of the Holocaust”
(editorial, Seattle Times 16 June 1999)
“Austria will move closer to closing the
book on a somber chapter in 20th-century history”
(Czernin 1998 cited in Glass 2004: 118)
The people of New Ireland in Papua New Guinea,
on the other hand, do not wish for the malanggan
which they themselves created, to be returned to them, despite malanggan being essential to their
culture. This may initially seem puzzling because they can often take more than
three months to carve (Küchler 2002: 1). Yet they are not made to be displayed,
treasured and revered as much of the art confiscated by the Nazis was. Malanggan are displayed for a few hours
during mortuary ceremonies, before being left to the elements to decompose
(Küchler and Melion 1991: 29). As money became increasingly important in New
Ireland, the sale of malanggan to
Western collectors became an attractive alternative (Küchler and Melion 1991:
29). More than five thousand malanggan
have been collected by Western museums (Küchler and Melion 1991: 27). As other indigenous groups began to
claim the objects that constituted their cultural memory from Western museums,
the museums considered restituting the malanggan
too.
This illustrates a fundamental
misunderstanding of the significance of malanggan
to Melanesian culture. During the
carving process, the sculpture is imbued with life force, which is
“symbolically killed” when ownership of the malanggan
is transferred from the deceased’s family to related kin in exchange for money
(Küchler and Melion 1991: 32). The image of the malanggan, however, is preserved as cultural memory and is
reproduced in future sculptures (Küchler and Melion 1991: 32). Susanne Küchler
and Walter Melion refer to the conflicting status of memory surrounding malanggan practice as “strategic
remembering and deliberate forgetting” (1991: 30). To restitute these objects
to the people of New Ireland would be to rekindle a specific aspect of their
cultural memory, thus interfering with the process of “deliberate forgetting”.
Whilst it is fundamentally important that
organisations such as ARCA and HARP continue to support research into
Holocaust-era looted art, it is equally important that we understand why
restitution can be incredibly problematic for some groups of people. Far from
interrupting or countering my pro-restitution tendency, the argument against
the restitution of malanggan can run
alongside this tendency. As a concept, restitution is neither good nor bad.
Rather, decisions about whether or not to restitute cultural objects need to be
made on a culture-specific basis.
Verity Algar
is a second year BA in History of Art student at University College London,
where she minors in Anthropology. She recently spoke on ‘Cultural memory and
the restitution of cultural property: Comparing Nazi-looted art and Melanesian
malanggan’ at the Association of Research into Crimes
Against Art’s 5th Annual Conference. She is hoping to complete the
ARCA Postgraduate Certificate before working in a field relating to cultural
heritage protection.