2024-04-25 20:21:40
“We are thoroughly searching to see if any of the approximately 1.5 million works of art owned by our museum have been illegally acquired.”
As interest in the return of looted cultural assets increases around the world, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) in New York, USA, one of the world’s leading museums, also expressed its willingness to actively participate in the return of illegal collections. At a meeting with foreign reporters on the 24th (local time), Met CEO Max Hollein explained, “We are working to return works that have had problems in the acquisition process to their ‘homeland.’”
● New York Met “We will only exhibit works that have been transparently acquired”
The Met, which attracts about 6 million visitors every year, is the largest private art museum in the United States and one of the top 5 art museums in the world. Director Hollein said, “Although the Met is located in New York, I do not think of it as an American art museum only. “We are an art museum for the world,” he said, adding, “It is very important to us that works from all over the world should not be involved in illegal acquisition, such as smuggling or looting.”
After launching the ‘Cultural Heritage Initiative’ last year, Director Hollein strengthened the Met’s collection provenance audit team. Through this, an event was recently held to return to Iraq an ancient Sumerian male bronze statue estimated to be from 2900 to 2600 BC. The Met explained, “It is an artifact that has been in our possession for over 70 years since 1955,” and “After investigating the source, we confirmed that it was an Iraqi cultural property, so we contacted the Iraqi Embassy in the United States and initiated the return process.”
Claims that works linked to trafficking organizations should be returned continue to be raised both inside and outside the United States. In 2022, Manhattan prosecutors confiscated 45 items from the Met’s collection that were proven stolen and returned them to Egypt and Turkey.
Director Hollein said, “As a ‘world art museum,’ we will present to the audience ‘world works’ that were transparently acquired in cooperation with governments of each country.” He added, “We have commissioned the famous Korean artist Lee Bul to create a work to be placed on the front of the building, so we have high expectations.” He also added:
● Return cases are emerging, but there is still a long way to go.
The Met’s efforts are not unrelated to the recent trend of returning looted cultural properties around the world. Famous European museums with a longer history than the Met, which was founded relatively recently in 1870 as a private art museum, are facing a bigger problem due to their history of plundering colonial relics.
It is known that many of the cultural assets stolen from around the world by Western powers during the height of imperialism in the 19th and 20th centuries are on display at the British Museum, the Louvre Museum in France, and the Neues Museum in Germany. The most representative looted items from Egypt, which is considered the country most affected by the looting of cultural assets, such as the horoscope from the Temple of Dendera, the Rosetta Stone, and the bust of Nefertiti, are located in the Louvre Museum in France, the British Museum, and the New Museum in Germany, respectively.
Then, following the ‘Cairo Declaration’ in 2010, in which about 20 countries that suffered from looting, including Korea, Egypt, and Greece, announced a joint response in Cairo, Egypt, Western museums have been under full-scale pressure to return them.
In some cases, the return issue escalates into a diplomatic conflict. Last December, ahead of the Greece-Britain summit, when Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called for the return of the ‘Parthenon Marbles’, which the British took from a Greek temple in the 19th century and are on display at the British Museum, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunnack responded. The meeting was suddenly canceled.
However, unless the looting countries voluntarily return it, it is not easy to get it back through lawsuits. This is because there is no binding international law, and it is difficult to prove that it was exported illegally rather than through ‘trading’ during a period of historical turmoil.
Of course, like Met, cases of voluntary return are increasing. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier apologized to Tanzania in Africa for its past history of colonial rule and returned Tanzania’s ancient artifacts from the Berlin Folk Museum on a permanent lease in 2022.
Changes in the international situation are also presented as a background for triggering the return movement. In the past, Western powers refused to return the looted countries due to their poor preservation conditions, but as their national power strengthened, they could no longer be ignored. French President Emmanuel Macron is pushing for the return of African cultural assets, including those in the Louvre Museum, and some say this is to keep China in check by improving relations with Africa as China’s influence in Africa has recently grown.
However, according to the British Telegraph on the 2nd, the British Museum is currently discussing return with four countries, but the Rosetta Stone, a representative cultural property, is not included in the discussion, and some point out that the voluntary return of artifacts that are attracting a lot of attention is still far off.
New York = Correspondent Kim Hyun-soo kimhs@donga.com
Reporter Lee Cheong-ah clearlee@donga.com
2024-04-25 20:21:40