ARTH 450 Advanced Seminar in the History of Art and Architecture: Looted Art and Its Consequences for Art History

• Tuesdays, 15:00-17:30
• EV-3-760
• Instructor: Dr. Catherine MacKenzie

A casual perusal of newspapers over the past year insists that museums and the art market are under increasing pressure to address the ownership histories of the objects they possess or sell. In a given week, one can read about “display it like you stole it” art tours offered at six of London’s major museums by an external organization, occupations of the British Museum that critique the underpinnings of many of its collections, and passage through the European Union parliament of legislation which seeks to establish minimum standards of transparency for cross-border transactions involving art and cultural goods looted in armed conflicts and wars.  Such activities obviously move beyond well -known, though frequently derided concerns related to art-looting conducted by the National Socialists from 1933-1945, as well as the extensive illicit trade in antiquities. They now encompass, for example, the variety of highly questionable, sometimes extremely violent acquisition practices of western imperial and settler colonial powers. This growing recognition of the histories of systemic assaults on cultural patrimony will certainly demand major attention from practicing art historians. Through looking at specific “problem” areas (nineteenth-century Africa, nineteenth and early twentieth century China, Nazi-occupied Europe and contemporary Syria) this course prepares students to participate in a discipline in which provenance studies, systems of restitution and repatriation, definitions of the mandates of museums, and challenges to modes of display take on new urgencies. Students are required to make classroom presentations and write research papers on designated topics.