German Lost Art Foundation takes on key role in initiative to reappraise the provenance of colonial objects in German museums

At its meet­ing on April 23, 2018 in Magde­burg, the Foun­da­tion Board tasked the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion with de­vel­op­ing guide­lines for project fund­ing re­lat­ing to cul­tur­al ob­jects orig­i­nat­ing from the colo­nial era. This will in­clude prove­nance re­search in mu­se­ums and col­lec­tions as well as ba­sic re­search. In this field, the Foun­da­tion will work close­ly with the Ger­man Mu­se­ums As­so­ci­a­tion and will be sup­port­ed by a new ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee.

Moni­ka Grüt­ters, Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and Me­dia, said: “The de­bate around the ap­pro­pri­ate han­dling of cul­tur­al ob­jects orig­i­nat­ing from the colo­nial era is a top­i­cal is­sue for so­ci­ety and cul­tur­al pol­i­cy in many Eu­ro­pean coun­tries, in­clud­ing Ger­many. Close pub­lic at­ten­tion is be­ing paid to the prove­nance of ob­jects in col­lec­tions and how they are dealt with in our mu­se­ums. A num­ber of steps have been tak­en by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to drive for­ward ac­tiv­i­ties in this field. The crit­i­cal ex­am­i­na­tion of colo­nial­ism is a key area of the new coali­tion agree­ment signed by Ger­many’s gov­ern­ing par­ties. The de­ci­sion reached by the Foun­da­tion Board of the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion is an im­por­tant in­di­ca­tor of its sup­port for the fund­ing of prove­nance re­search in­to cul­tur­al ob­jects from the colo­nial era. With its ex­per­tise and tools, the Foun­da­tion will make an im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tion in the fu­ture to­wards driv­ing for­ward re­search on cul­tur­al ar­ti­facts from the colo­nial era and mak­ing the find­ings trans­par­ent. The task for politi­cians now is to se­cure the fi­nan­cial ba­sis for this re­search in the long term, and to mo­ti­vate mu­se­ums to take up these re­search op­por­tu­ni­ties so that new forms of co­op­er­a­tion with the coun­tries of ori­gin may be de­vel­oped in the in­ter­ests of in­ter­na­tion­al un­der­stand­ing.”

The is­sues as­so­ci­at­ed with crit­i­cal­ly ex­am­in­ing cul­tur­al ob­jects from the colo­nial pe­ri­od are legal­ly, po­lit­i­cal­ly, and moral­ly very com­plex and touch on var­i­ous aca­dem­ic dis­ci­plines. Deal­ing with colo­nial his­to­ry is a task for so­ci­ety as a whole; it ex­tends far be­yond in­di­vid­u­al eth­no­log­i­cal col­lec­tions. As­sign­ing this new area of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the Foun­da­tion en­ables a Ger­man gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tive from the coali­tion agree­ment to be im­ple­ment­ed. The Foun­da­tion’s core mis­sion of fund­ing prove­nance re­search in­to Nazi-con­fis­cat­ed prop­er­ty will not be af­fect­ed by this new area of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Min­is­ter of State, Moni­ka Grüt­ters, is chair of the Foun­da­tion Board of the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion. The Ger­man fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, fed­er­al states and lead­ing mu­nic­i­pal as­so­ci­a­tions are rep­re­sent­ed on this board, which is re­spon­si­ble for de­ci­sions on both fun­da­men­tal is­sues and mat­ters of par­tic­u­lar im­por­tance re­lat­ing to the Foun­da­tion.