As Germany Tries to Hold On to Its Art, Some Works Drop From View
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Version 0 of 1. PARIS — On Friday the portraits of Elke and Franz Dahlem vanished from a room in the Albertinum modern art museum in Dresden, Germany, dedicated to the art of Georg Baselitz. So did other works from the 1960s and a limewood sculpture of the artist’s wife, her mournful eyes and lips outlined in crimson. In all, nine paintings and a sculpture on long-term loan were withdrawn by Mr. Baselitz, his part in a growing protest of legislation proposed by the German government to monitor and limit art exported for sale. Museum officials quickly replaced the works with a single piece by the German artist Thomas Bayrle: a collage made of cardboard, wood and toy cars depicting the euro symbol. With prices of contemporary art soaring on global markets, Germany’s culture minister, Monika Grütters, is proposing new laws that would restrict the movement of art treasures. The move comes months after a decision by the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the WestSpiel Casino Group to sell two Andy Warhol silk-screens at an auction at Christie’s in New York. The sale, in November, garnered $152 million that went toward building a new state-owned casino in Cologne. The culture ministry’s proposed legislation — expected to be presented to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet next month — would give regional authorities the power to designate specific artworks as protected national treasures if they are more than 50 years old and valued at more than 150,000 euros. Regional boards would then have the power to approve or deny export licenses for those works. The controls are meant to slow or block the movement of art to other countries for auctions, private sales, exhibitions or art fairs. One side effect could be to curb the sale of looted cultural treasures from Syria and Iraq, cutting off trade that is used to finance terror groups like the Islamic State. “We really want to prevent the export of valuable cultural property for the nation without the knowledge of state authorities in Germany,” Ms. Grütters said in a recent interview with the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, adding that she did not expect the measure would affect the majority of exports. Germany ranks well behind the main fine-art auction hubs of China, the United States, England and France in sales of paintings and sculptures, according to Artprice, a database for auctions and sales. Still, some $219 million worth of art was sold in Germany last year, more than in Italy, which has had export controls since 1909 affecting works older than 50 years and not created by living artists. Germany’s proposal has received cautious support from the German Museums Association, which has acknowledged flaws in the existing laws. But gallery owners, dealers, artists and collectors have responded angrily to the proposed legislation, seeing the restrictions as infringing on their ability to move art, and profit from it. Last week, nearly 300 gallery owners and dealers signed a harshly worded letter to the culture minister, complaining that elements of the proposal — including new government powers to inspect artworks in galleries or private homes — are reminiscent of a dark past. “We all thought that the era of arbitrary confiscation by the state, as practiced in the Third Reich against Jewish collectors and by the lawless state of East Germany, was forever done,” the letter said. The German legislation could take as long as a year to adopt, but private collectors are not waiting. Many are weighing their options and seeking legal advice. “I want to have my things in a public space and I want them to be seen. But I also want my children to be free to sell the works when they need to,” said Mayen Beckmann, the granddaughter of Max Beckmann, a leading 20th century German painter. She said she is considering whether to withdraw drawings on loan to the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts. Other collectors, she added, are starting to move their art to the free port of Luxembourg, where they can store it while the political process unfolds. Like Mr. Baselitz, the German artists Günther Uecker and Gerhard Richter are considering whether to call in loans. In an interview this week with Dresdner Morgenpost, Mr. Richter said, “No one has the right to tell me what I do with my images.” Both Mr. Richter and Mr. Baselitz have forged close relationships with the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, a state art museum that includes the Albertinum. Since 2006, it has maintained Mr. Richter’s archive as a research institution, working closely with the artist and his Cologne studio. In 2010, it created a special room at the Albertinum devoted to works chosen by Mr. Baselitz, 77, an influential postwar painter whose art often explores the pain of growing up in Nazi Germany. Among them were his portraits of Elke and Franz Dahlem, which are hung upside down. Hartwig Fischer, the director of the state museum, said it came as a shock when Mr. Baselitz called to say he was withdrawing his loans. “This is his gesture to comment on what is happening with the legislation,” Mr. Fischer said. “We will talk about possibilities in the near future, but for now the decision is definite and the works are leaving. That is very tough. I’m very sad about this.” Mr. Baselitz’s Berlin gallery, Contemporary Fine Arts, said the artist would not comment further on his withdrawal of loans to museums in Dresden and Munich. He has long been known as a rebel and provocateur. This year, he gave an interview expressing criticism of female painters, which set off an art-world storm. But on this issue, Mr. Baselitz helped rally dealers to reproach the culture minister for proposing restrictions that they say would create a new layer of bureaucracy and, for the first time, impose controls on the export of art to other European countries. Germany already requires licenses for sales or loans in the United States, and has a list of about 2,000 works that cannot be exported. Italian auction houses are now working with the authorities to loosen controls there, claiming they dampen sales and drive collectors to transfer or sell works abroad when they approach the 50-year mark, according to Giuseppe Calabi, a lawyer in Milan who specializes in art law. England and France also have restrictions on national treasures, but theirs give governments more than two years to purchase a designated work. Ms. Grütters, Germany’s culture minister, who is also an art historian, has given a flurry of interviews to German news media, emphasizing that the legislation was a preliminary document, and that amendments were likely — including raising the export license requirements to works older than 70 years and eliminating a provision that would allow the authorities to inspect artworks in private homes or businesses. In one interview, she raised the prospect that foreign works could be classified as national treasures. For example, she said the Warhol silk-screens of Elvis Presley and Marlon Brando that were sold by the state-owned casino were “emblematic” of the collecting history of the Rhineland. Louis-Gabriel Rönsberg, a lawyer who specializes in art law and helped represent Cornelius Gurlitt, a collector of art plundered by the Nazis, said the legislation’s broader power could allow the authorities to move more aggressively against collectors suspected of possessing looted works. Given the outcry, though, he said he believed the proposals would be modified. “If this law is passed,” he said, “there would be a huge earthquake on the market and many dealers and collectors would try to sell their pieces or bring them out of the country.” |