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Experts defend slow progress on sorting Nazi-looted art haul

A German task force investigating the provenance of a spectacular Nazi-era art hoard of hundreds of works said Thursday that only five had been proved to be looted thus far, and defended its slow progress.

Published: 15 January 2016 08:10 CET
Experts defend slow progress on sorting Nazi-looted art haul
A worker in the Gurlitt taksforce sorts through images of the seized artworks in December. Photo: DPA

The government-appointed panel presented its report on the 500 pieces of suspect origin among the more than 1,200 artworks in the secret collection discovered in Cornelius Gurlitt's cluttered Munich apartment four years ago.

But the 14-member task force, which wrapped up its investigation in late December, said that only one percent could be shown without doubt to have been stolen from Jewish families under the Third Reich or sold under duress.

Some of the works from Gurlitt's hoard can be found on the lost-art.de website.

Task force chairwoman Ingeborg Berggreen-Merkel told reporters that a new project team would continue digging through records to find rightful owners, adding that they had received 200 queries and concrete claims for restitution.

SEE ALSO: Just 5 Nazi-stolen works found in Gurlitt art haul

 

“It remains a duty that we owe to the victims of crimes during the Nazi period,” she said, as she handed over a hard drive with her report to German culture minister Monika Grütters.

Grütters – who had promised to return stolen art with “no ifs or buts” – hit back at criticism that Germany had been far too slow and opaque in coming to terms with this chapter of its Nazi past, saying the task force had an obligation to be thorough and respect existing laws.

She said the chaotic conditions under which the works had been found and strict rules governing personal data had posed further hurdles.

“I can understand the impatience of the heirs and their families,” she said, speaking of a “dilemma” between “scientific diligence” and the “interests of the victims”.

However the head of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, blasted the results of the investigation as “meagre and not satisfactory”.

He said the framework for the future work on the collection remained hazy, saying he “expected Germany to do better, given that time is running out.”

Woefully slow

The 14-member international task force was established in 2013 to sort through the remarkable trove hidden for decades by Gurlitt, son of a powerful art dealer during the Third Reich.

It included experts from France, Israel, Austria, Poland, Hungary, the United States and Germany, and victims' groups such as the Jewish Claims Conference.

Gurlitt, described in media reports as an eccentric recluse, hoarded hundreds of paintings, drawings and sketches in his Munich home for decades and another 239 works at a house he owned in Salzburg, Austria.

Although German authorities discovered the collection during a tax probe in 2012, they kept it under wraps for more than a year until it came to light in a magazine article.

The heirs of collectors stripped of their assets by the Nazis, many of whom would later be gassed in the death camps, have complained that restitution has been woefully slow in coming.

Last year, the long-lost Matisse painting “Seated Woman” was returned to the family of the late art dealer Paul Rosenberg.

DON'T MISS: How a German insurer helped the Nazis rob Jews

Another work, Max Liebermann's “Two Riders on a Beach”, was given back to heirs of David Friedmann, from whom the Nazis stole the work in 1938, the day after the Kristallnacht pogrom.

It went under the hammer at Sotheby's in London in June for $2.9 million (€2.67 million).

The three additional works proved to be looted were by German artists Carl Spitzweg and Adolph Menzel, and Impressionist master Camille Pissarro.

Around 120 works have indications of possible Nazi-looting, with 28 strongly suspected of having been stolen, according to the task force.

Some 350 works have little indication of their provenance.

Gurlitt died in May 2014 aged 81 and named in his will the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern as the sole heir of the works, which include pieces by Cezanne, Beckmann, Holbein, Delacroix and Munch.

A suspected Chagall painting turned out to be a fake.

Gurlitt had struck an agreement with the German government in April 2014 stipulating that any works that were plundered by the Nazis to be returned to their rightful owners and the Bern museum said it would honour that wish.

However a cousin has challenged the will, a fact Berggreen-Merkel admitted had complicated the task force's work.

A ruling by a Munich court is still pending.

ART

African-born director’s new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

One of the rare African-born figures to head a German cultural institution, Bonaventure Ndikung is aiming to highlight post-colonial multiculturalism at a Berlin arts centre with its roots in Western hegemony.

Published: 8 July 2023 10:13 CEST
African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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