Partnering on a Past-Inspired Future

The concept of museums inspires breezy images of time-honored antiquities or powerful artworks coupled with forward-thinking displays outlining related values and context. More than just boxes for collections and displays, museums represent a leisure lifestyle for cosmopolitan citizens and contribute heavily to community-building through education.

The Second Dialogue: Protection of Our Cultural Heritage under the China-Europe-America Museums Cooperation Initiative kicked off on May 19 just as dialogue, discussion, and deliberation were most needed. The event took place just one day after International Museum Day, which was themed “The Power of Museums.” Speakers from the fields of museums, arts, and culture engaged in exchange on how museums can optimally preserve cultural heritage and fight trafficking of artworks after the first dialogue in 2021 covered technology reshaping museums.

“As we continue dialogue this year on the need to better protect our cultural heritage, it is at the source of a great figure of the 19th century that I come to find inspiration,” said David Gosset, founder of the China-Europe-America Global Initiative, while hosting the opening ceremony. “Indeed, with Victor Hugo, we can clearly see how the fight to safeguard the culture of each nation is inseparable from the broader notion of protecting world heritage. He is the illustration of the fact that, fundamentally, the particular and the universal form only one whole.”

“The novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is not only a hymn to the cathedral in the heart of the French capital, but also an ode to architecture,” he added.

Gao Anming, vice president and editor-in-chief of China International Communications Group (CICG), stressed that CICG is willing to make joint efforts on the “Museums + International Communication” project to step up cross-border integration. “That’s how more cultural legacies can be revived and inspire greater cultural exchange and mutual learning worldwide,” said Gao.

“By bridging the gap between time and space, the metaverse can foster an immersive media system,” he added, commenting on how the metaverse could function as a new catalyst for reviving museums.

Deborah Lehr, chairman and founder of Antiquities Coalition, an organization dedicated to fighting the illicit trade in ancient art and artifacts and promoting cultural exchange, stressed in her address that one consistency in our changing world is that symbols of our past “serve as a reminder of hope for the future.” “The great efforts of our ancestors––from the builders of the Egyptian pyramids and the Chinese Great Wall to the creation of Manchu Pichu, Palmyra and Ankor wat––have survived world wars, great depressions, colonialism, and so much more,” she noted. “Our predecessors protected them to remind us of our history––and to learn from it.”

Cultural relics shoulder an essential role in museums in terms of study, protection, and display, was the message delivered by Shan Jixiang, former director of the Palace Museum in his keynote speech. “The Palace Museum boasts a long history of restoring cultural relics with craftsmen devoting their entire lives to the practice,” said Shan, who also noted that the times have been changing. “But mere restoration is not enough nowadays. All the historical traces of the collections must be recorded and retained to optimize scientific research.”

Irina Bokova, former Director-General of UNESCO, focused her keynote speech on another critical aspect of museums, namely the fight against illicit trafficking in cultural property especially amid conflicts. “Trafficking in cultural goods can take different forms ranging from theft from cultural heritage institutions or private collections, through looting of archaeological sites, to the displacement of artifacts due to conflict and war,” she said.

Another challenge facing many museums was mentioned in the keynote speech of Richard Kurin, distinguished scholar and ambassador-at-large with the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex. He noted that historically some museum collections were acquired as a result of ancient plundering, historical looting, imperial rule, colonial appropriation, confiscation, coercion, and problematic donations. “We can’t reverse that history, but museums, professional organizations, national governments, and the international community have increasingly come to grip with the issue,” he said. “Given difficulties in coming to resolution, there’s now a growing museum practice aiming for something called ‘shared stewardship,’ where parties with different interests may work out, through ethical returns, not quite legal but nonetheless ethical, through loans, high-quality 3D reproductions, digital files and the like ways of sharing responsibilities for and benefiting from disputed collections.”

The involvement of banks in the field of arts began with “powerful banking families joining public and religious institutions in commissioning, acquiring, and collecting works of art” particularly in Italy, according to Gian Maria Gros-Pietro, chairman of Intesa San Paolo. In his keynote speech, Gros-Pietro explained how the tradition continued into the modern age. “Gallerie d’Italia, Intesa Sanpaolo’s group of museums, consists of four sites in Milan, Naples, Vicenza, and Turin, respectively,” he said. “They are home to collections of art owned by the group and host exhibitions involving internationally renowned partners and lenders.”

Insiders were also invited to participate in three sessions respectively themed “Ensuring Legitimate Collections: Provenance and Authentication,” “Combating Cultural Racketeering and Increasing Responsible Cultural Exchange,” and “Partnering with the Private Sector.” A few standout quotes follow:

“Although acquiring fakes can be costly to museums and collecting institutions both financially and reputationally, inauthentic works do even greater damage to museums by violating public trust and manipulating our shared cultural history.”

—Colette Loll, founder of Art Fraud Insights, on the damage forgery does to museums 

“There is the ever-growing problem of the illicit trafficking in cultural goods, according to the United Nations, one of the main forms of illegal trafficking alongside drugs, weapons, and human beings.”

—Marco Biscione, former director of the Museum of Oriental Art, Turin, on one of the major challenges that influences fundamental aspects of museums’ cultural policy and their existence

“Art dealers, galleries, and auction houses have a responsibility to conduct due diligence for their clients by identifying the people behind the entities selling or buying art. Sufficient resources need to be allocated to research the sourcing of cultural property. Financial institutions have a responsibility to conduct due diligence on their clients when on-boarding as well.”

—Bonnie Goldblatt, senior director of Global Financial Crimes and Intelligence, Citi, on the sourcing of cultural property

This event was co-organized by the China-Europe-America Global Initiative, the Beijing-based think tank Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies (ACCWS), and the Washington D.C.-headquartered Antiquities Coalition, with supports from several other private institutions including Intesa Sanpaolo, Yi Tsai, and East Langkun.