Art and Cultural Heritage Looting and Destruction

Themes:•Destruction/iconoclasm and the erasure of culture

o due to ideology, neglect, or disregard for the object.

•Looting and the appropriation of objects o for purposes of propaganda and economic gain

•Restitution, repatriation, reconstruction,and artistic interventions

At issue: contestation of power over objects of cultural heritage

What objects have been held by various cultures and rulers as being imbued with power?

Who has chosen to co-opt, usurp, or destroy particular works,and for what reasons?

Who has obtained objects in the hopes of transferring a civilizing auraand promoting their cultural enrichment and status?

What objects have been subject to iconoclasm, and why?

What economic considerations might be present, and what arethe ramifications of the sale of culturally significant objects?

When has the destruction of those objects been a harbinger of or a corollary to the destruction of an entire culture?

ISIS in the Mosul Museum

ISIS with Nergal Gate Lamassu

Lamassu, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New

York.

Lamassu, Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.

Unidentified Hatra King (left) and Hatra King Uthal (right).

Nimrud: Feb. 26, 2015 Nimrud: March 7, 2015

Nimrud: April 1, 2015 Nimrud: April 17, 2015

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/150414-why-islamic-state-destroyed-assyrian-palace-nimrud-iraq-video-isis-isil-archaeology/

Nimrud

http://82nd-and-fifth.metmuseum.org/hyperreality

Relief from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

http://www.metmuseum.org/metmedia/video/collections/ancient-near-eastern-art/northwest-palace-nimrud

Warka Vase, c. 3200–3000 BCE, found at Uruk (modern Iraq).

After its return to the Iraq Museum in June 2003

Buddha sculptures, sixth century CE, Bamiyan, Afghanistan.

Bamiyan Buddhas after March 2001

The Parthenon, 447–432 BCE, Athens, Greece.

Eugène Peytier, Mosque in the Parthenon, 1815. (Mosque built after 1688, demolished 1844)

The Parthenon, 447–432 BCE, Athens,

Greece.

Before and after the earthquake in Nepal, 2015

Wilderness Battlefield National Military Park, Virginia

Icon of the Virgin Hodegetria, last quarter of

the twelfth century CE.Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy,

1350–1400 CE.

Apse Cross, after 740 CE, Church of Saint Irene, Istanbul.

Folio 67r, Chludov Psalter, c. 850–875 CE (with detail).

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Preaching of St. John

the Baptist, 1566.

Pieter Bruegel the Younger, The Preaching of St. John the Baptist, 1601–

4.

Dirck van Delen, Iconoclasts in Church, after 1566.

Images of the Beeldenstorm of 1566

Frans Hogenberg, Iconoclasts in Church), after 1566.

Johannes Bosboom, St. John’s s’ Hertogenbosch, 1836.

St. John’s Choir Screen, Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Pieter Jansz Saenredam, Sketch of St. Johns Choir Screen, 1632.

Pieter Jansz Saenredam, Sketch (left, 1632) and painting (right, 1646) of St. John at s’Hertogenbosch.

Abraham Bloemaert, Adoration of the Shepherds, 1612.(In situ at St. John at s’Hertogenbosch, right)

Pieter Aertsen, Adoration of the Magi (central panel of triptych),

c. 1560.Hieronymous Bosch, Adoration of the

Magi triptych, c. 1510.

Master of Alkmaar, Seven Works of Mercy, c.1490–1510.

Arch of Titus, Rome, Italy, 81 CE.

Spoils from the Temple in Jerusalem (relief from the Arch of Titus), 81 CE.

Digital Reconstruction by Yeshiva University

Bronze Horses from St. Mark’s, Venice. Bronze Lion of Venice, 4th–3rd century BCE.

Raphael, Transfiguration, 1516–1520.

Raphael, Madonna della Sedia, 1513–4.

Raphael, Cartoon for School of Athens, 1510.

Corregio, Madonna with St. Jerome, c. 1528.

Titian, The Crowning with Thorns, 1542.

Above: Veronese, Wedding at Cana, 1553.Right: depicted in situ inthe Louvre, Paris.

Sèvres, Napoléonic Procession of Vatican Treasures to Musée Napoléon (now the Louvre), porcelain, c. 1810–3.

Colossal Head of Jupiter from Otricoli, Vatican, Roman copy after Greek from 4th–

century BCE.

Detail: Napoléon Procession Vase

Detail: Napoléon Procession Vase

Apollo Belvedere, c. 120–40 CE Roman copy of Greek bronze

from 330–320 BCE.

Detail: NapoléonProcession Vase

Eros, Roman copy after Greek bronze by Lysippos from 4th–century BCE.

Detail: NapoléonProcession Vase

Athanadoros, Hagesandros, and Polydoros of Rhodes,

Laocoön and his Sons, c. 27 BCE–68 CE.

Detail: Napoléon Procession Vase

Medici Venus, 1st–century Roman copy after Greek

bronze.

Attributed to the Underworld Painter, Apulian Volute Krater.

Napoleonic Procession of Vatican Treasures to Musée Napoléon

Exekias, Achilles and Ajax Playing Draughts, 550–525

BCE.

Napoleonic Procession of Vatican Treasures to Musée Napoléon

Benjamin Zix, Salle de Laocoön, Museé Napoléon,

c. 1800.

Anonymous, Napoléon next to the Apollo Belvedere.

Zix, Wedding Procession in the Louvre of Napoleon and Marie Louise of Austria, 1810.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/587752

Empty frames in the Louvre

Nazi storage in Ellingen, Germany

House of German Art

Hitler speaking at the opening of the House of German Art, 1937.

Exhibition in the House of German Art

Confiscated degenerate art in storage

Pablo Picasso, Head of a Woman, 1922.

Vincent Van Gogh, Self-Portrait

dedicated to Paul Gauguin, 1888.

Auction of confiscated “degenerate” art

Van Gogh, Self-Portrait.

Confiscated degenerate art

English news article reporting on Hitler’s speech at the opening of the Degenerate Art Exhibition, 1937.

Cover of the Degenerate Art

(Entartete Kunst) exhibition catalog, 1937.

Lines to seeexhibition

Visitor to the Degenerate Art Exhibition, 1937.http://vp.nyt.com/

video2014/03/12/26854_1_degenerate_wg_16x9_xl_bb_mm.mp4

Hitler touring the Degenerate Art Exhibition, 1937.

“Nehmen Sie Dada ernst!”(Take Dada seriously),1937.

Hitler in the “Room of Horrors,” 1937.

“Hitler Hates Modern Art, Approves Nudes,” 1937.

(Forbidden art on left; Approved art on right)

Collection of paintings by Hitler, Army Center of Military History.

Hitler, Neuschwanstein Castle.

Hitler, The Courtyard of the Old

Residency in Munich, 1914.

Raphael, Portrait of a Young Man, c. 1513–4, Czartoryski Collection, Kraków, Poland, Lost.

Monuments Women at the Jeu de Paume (Left, Rose Valland; center,

Edith Standen).Left, Standen; right,

Valland.

Hitler giving approved art (looted) as gifts to his officers.

Small sample of art found in Altaussee mine by Monuments, Fine Arts & Archives (MFAA).

MFAA agents recover Leonardo’s Lady with an Ermine.

U.S. Army Chaplain (Rabbi) with looted Torah Scrolls.

Monuments Man James Rorimer (top) recovering art in Neuschwanstein Castle with MFAA unit.

MFAA men with Michelangelo’s Bruges Madonna inAltaussee mine.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/587752 Recovered Ghent Altarpiece in Altaussee mine.

“We wish to state that from our own knowledge, no historical grievance will rankle so long, or be the cause of so much justified bitterness, as the removal, for any reason, of a part of the heritage of any nation...”

Wiesbaden Manifesto

Gustave Klimt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, (Woman in Gold), 1907.

Center, Nazi art dealer Hildebrandt Gurlitt.

Henri Matisse, Seated Woman, found in the home of Hildebrandt

Gurlitt’s son, Cornelius Gurlitt.

Franz Marc, Horses in Landscape and Christoph Hans, Couple, found in Gurlitt’s home.(Two of 1,500 works found in Gurlitt’s home)

http://www.lostart.de/Webs/EN/Datenbank/KunstfundMuenchen.html

Three of the thirty vigango from the Denver Museum.

Archibald Archer, Elgin Marbles in the Temporary Elgin Room, British Museum, 1819.

Parthenon Marbles, c. 447–438 BCE, British Museum.

Parthenon Marbles, c. 447–438 BCE, Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece.

Warsaw Castle, Warsaw, Poland 1598–1619.Demolished September, 1944.

Warsaw Castle, Warsaw, Poland 1598–1619.

Demolished September, 1944.

CyArk was founded in 2003 to ensure heritage sites are available to future generations — while making them uniquely accessible today — with the mission of using new technologies to create a free, 3D online library of the world's cultural heritage sites before they are lost to natural disasters, destroyed by human aggression, or ravaged by the passage of time.

Siege of Lachish–Assyrian, digital 3-D copy:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcLwoa19kLw#t=40

http://projectmosul.org

Project Mosul, Assyrian Lion, digital reconstruction.

Tammam Azzam, Goya, from the series The Syrian Museum, 2013, C-print.

Tammam Azzam, Freedom Graffiti, 2013, Lightbox.

Tammam Azzam, Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night (left) and Matisse (right)from the series Syrian Museum, 2013, C-print.

Morehshin Allahyari, ISIS: Material Speculation [Assyrian Lamassu], 2015,digital 3D print.

Morehshin Allahyari, ISIS: Material Speculation [Hatrene Kings], 2015,digital 3D print.

Morehshin Allahyari, ISIS: Material Speculation [Assyrian Lamassu], 2015,digital 3D print.

“There is no choice between protecting human lives and safeguarding the dignity of a people through its culture.

Both must be protected, as the one and same thing — there is no culture without people and no society without culture.”

Irina Bokova, Director General of UNESCO (2013)