[MSN] FW: At odds on the art of possession

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The Sydney Morning Herald
At odds on the art of possession

January 19, 2008
It is argued that repatriation of works undermines cultural
understanding, 
writes Gabriella Coslovich


The movement of people across borders, be they migrants, refugees or
asylum 
seekers, has been a constant of history - a course fruitful and fraught.

Newcomers are not always readily accepted and debates rage about the 
relative benefits and tensions created by immigration, none more so than
in 
our times.

Yet a markedly different attitude is frequently shown towards art
objects 
that have moved from their place of origin to a new home. Cultural
objects 
that have crossed borders are often hotly contested - coveted by their
new 
owners as greatly as by their countries of origin. The most famous
example 
is the case of the Elgin Marbles, the ancient Athenian sculptures, which

continued to be owned by the British Museum despite persistent calls for

their repatriation by the Greek Government.

So where does an art object rightfully belong? Is there a moral
imperative 
for cultural patrimony, even when legally obtained, to be returned to
its 
country of origin? Or can it be argued that art objects that have
legally 
moved from one part of the world to another can be viewed as cultural 
ambassadors that promote understanding between people? Just because an 
object originated in Greece or Italy, is that its right and proper
resting 
place?

These were among the questions considered at the 32nd Congress of the 
International Committee of the History of Art, held in Melbourne this
week. 
Repatriation - or the process of returning cultural patrimony to its
country 
of origin - was a focal point, culminating with yesterday's keynote
address 
by the director of the British Museum, Neil McGregor.

What emerged was a desire among art historians for a more open-minded, 
generous and complex approach to the circulation of art objects made by 
other people in other times and places. "We need to promote
conversations 
across cultures now more than ever before in history," Ruth Phillips, a 
professor from Canada, told delegates on Monday night.

Also speaking at the conference, Michael Brand, the Canberra-born
director 
of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles - which has been embroiled in

repatriation claims in recent years - proposed the metaphor of art
objects 
as "de facto migrants".

He argued that while it was crucial that museums guard against the
illegal 
trafficking of art objects, it was just as important for "source"
countries 
such as Greece and Italy to think carefully about requesting the
restitution 
of art objects.

"While we all know that migration is the agent of great inspiration and 
transformation, it can also fuel the politics of nationalism," Brand
said.

"In the museum world, this is often expressed in the form of cultural 
patrimony claims. All museums must play their role in curtailing the
illegal 
trafficking of works of art and some works should be restituted.

"At the same time, the simplistic argument that all works of art should
be 
returned home is no better than one seeking to stop human migration in
the 
name of preserving supposedly pure ethnic borders."

The thorny issue of repatriation is one Brand has had to confront head
on. 
When he became director of the Getty in 2006, he inherited a dreadful
and 
well-documented mess, including the museum's former curator of
antiquities, 
Marion True, being tried in Italy and Greece on charges of acquiring 
illegally excavated antiquities. Brand made it his priority to resolve 
outstanding repatriation claims from Italy and Greece, signing
agreements 
with both countries last year involving the restitution of some objects.
But 
more on that later.

Australian museums and galleries have not had to endure such
high-profile 
and controversial repatriation claims as those faced by the British
Museum, 
the Getty or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

But there emerged at the conference a fascinating tale of a repatriation

claim that has been quietly bubbling away for six years between the 
Melbourne Museum and Canadian indigenous people known as the Mi'kmaq.

At the centre of the claim is an exquisitely crafted chief's coat made
by 
the Mi'kmaq, which arrived in Melbourne in the mid-19th century and was 
donated to the Melbourne Museum in 1879.

The coat and other Mi'kmaq artefacts were brought to Australia in 1852
by a 
white man who was well ahead of his time. His name was Samuel Douglass
Smith 
Huyghue, the son of a British army officer, who was born on Prince
Edward 
Island in 1861. Deeply sympathetic to the plight of Canada's indigenous 
people, he even argued, back in the 19th century, that they be
compensated 
for the injustices suffered at the hands of non-indigenous settlers.

The saga of Huyghue and the Mi'kmaq coat was the focus of Phillips's 
presentation to the conference this week.

Phillips, from Carleton University in Ottawa, began to investigate the 
coat's origins at the request of the Melbourne Museum following the 
repatriation claim. The museum's senior curator of anthropology for
Oceania, 
Dr Ron Vanderwal, contacted Phillips, an expert on North American Indian

art, asking for her help in determining the coat's cultural
significance.

An adventurer, writer, artist and antiquarian collector, Huyghue
acquired 
the coat and other artefacts from the Mi'kmaq in the early 1840s,
motivated, 
he said, by his desire to preserve records of their way of life.

In the late 1840s, he moved to London, trying to further his literary 
career, but his lack of financial success led him to migrate to
Australia in 
1852 to work as a government clerk in the Ballarat gold mines, bringing
his 
Mi'kmaq collection with him. His colourful life is a virtual footnote in
the 
new McCulloch's Encyclopedia Of Australian Art, where he is remembered 
primarily for his watercolours and drawings of the Eureka Stockade,
which 
are in the collection of the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery.

It is somewhat ironic that Huyghue's legacy has returned to the
spotlight as 
a result of the repatriation claim. His collection of Mi'kmaq artefacts
and 
scholarly papers have been on display only twice in Melbourne.
Contemporary 
Mi'kmaq only learnt of the coat's existence when it returned to Canada
for a 
temporary exhibition in 1988, and through Museum Victoria's online 
catalogue.

"Since then, several Mi'kmaq people have travelled to Melbourne to see
it, 
leaving ritual offerings of tobacco, which the Museum keeps carefully in

place," Phillips said.

There is no suggestion the coat was illegally obtained by Huyghue. "He 
almost certainly acquired the pieces in his collection as gifts or
purchased 
them in the lively curiosity trade developed by Aboriginal people as a
key 
strategy of economic survival," Phillips said. "The request is thus not 
based on any accusation of illegal ownership but, rather, on the value
the 
outfit has for contemporary Mi'kmaq, who lack access to ancestral
materials 
of this quality."

There is only one other coat of such consummate quality in existence, 
Phillips said.

Interestingly, she used the case of the Mi'kmaq coat not to argue
forcefully 
for its immediate return, but rather for the need to "complicate the
terms 
in which we commonly think about repatriation".

"So here is the dilemma," she said, "indigenous groups have urgent and 
legitimate needs for access to ancestral heritage that was transported 
around the world through colonial collecting projects. Yet if all such 
collections were to be returned, how would our renewed interest in world
art 
history be viable?"

Discussions between the Melbourne Museum and the Mi'kmaq are continuing,

aided by Phillips's investigations, but further research needs to be
done 
before a decision to repatriate is made.

Six objects are the focus of the Mi'kmaqs' claim, which was formally 
launched in 2002; the chief's coat, a tobacco pipe, a man's moccasins, a

man's leggings, a man's leather pouch and a brooch.

"We do need to be very careful about making decisions [to repatriate], 
because they are irreversible," said Melbourne Museum's Mike Green, who
is 
head of indigenous cultures.

Nevertheless, it is museum policy, as it is for Sydney's Australian
Museum, 
to repatriate significant indigenous cultural property - human remains
or 
secret and sacred objects - to traditional owners in Australia and
overseas 
if claims are found to be valid.

Whenever a repatriation claim is made, museums must do intensive
research to 
determine an object's precise history, and art historians have an
important 
role to play in this process.

Which brings us back to the Getty.

In August last year, the Getty and the Italian Government reached an 
agreement under which 40 objects will be returned to Italy, including,
most 
famously, the Cult Statue of a Goddess, often referred to as Aphrodite.
The 
Getty was becoming increasingly concerned about the provenance provided
by 
the dealer from whom it acquired the work. Intensive research, including
a 
workshop of experts at the Getty Villa, its centre for ancient Greece,
Rome 
and Etruria, concluded that while there was no evidence linking the 
sculpture to the Sicilian archeological site of Morgantina, the most
likely 
source for the limestone and sculpture itself was indeed Sicily.

The Italian Government will allow the Getty to display the sculpture at
the 
Villa until 2010, and then will lend masterpieces of equivalent scale, 
aesthetic quality and art historical importance on a four-year rotation.

"Fortunately for us, the so-called Getty Bronze will be staying at the 
Getty," Brand said. The sculpture of a naked and ripple-torsoed young 
athlete was found by chance in 1964 in international waters between
Italy 
and Croatia and bought by the Getty in 1977. Late last year, a third
Italian 
trial concluded that Italy had no claim on the sculpture.

"Ironically, it was most likely on its way to Italy from Greece as Roman

loot when it was lost at sea," Brand said.

"As a local aside, the National Gallery in Canberra had actually been
poised 
to purchase this bronze in 1976, just after it purchased Blue Poles. 
However, this was stopped by the then prime minister and minister for 
culture, Malcolm Fraser."

In arguing for a more considered approach to repatriation, Brand also
raised 
the example of an Etruscan bronze chariot, owned by the New York's 
Metropolitan Museum of Art. The chariot was unearthed in 1902 by a
farmer 
near the Umbrian village of Monteleone and bought by the Met in 1903. 
Because the chariot was acquired six years before Italy instigated
strict 
laws on the movement of cultural property, the country's authorities
have 
refused to support Monteleone's attempts to have the work returned.

Brand relayed the amusing war of words that has ensued. The Met has said
of 
the villagers' request: "It is like asking France to return the Mona
Lisa."

The villagers fired back: "Displaying an Etruscan chariot among New York

skyscrapers is the equivalent of us exhibiting artefacts of American
Indian 
tribes in Monteleone."

But Brand was adamant that those are precisely the kinds of
cross-cultural 
exchanges that should be happening. American Indian art being shown in
an 
Umbrian village? Bring it on.


This story was found at: 
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/01/18/1200620211204.html