Abstract
When a forgotten mural painted by the Jewish-Polish artist Bruno Schulz was rediscovered in 2001 a string of legal issues were unravelled. Who could rightfully claim ownership to this work of art? Was it the Holocaust museum Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, because Schulz was a Jew killed by the Nazis, and because it is a museum that has the means, experience and know-how to restore and preserve the work properly? Or Ukraine on whose sovereign soil it had been found? Or Poland whose citizen Schulz had been? When five fragments of the newly discovered mural, which had already been restored to a certain extent by Polish conservationists, were taken to Israel by Yad Vashem representatives it resulted in political outrage. The incident illustrates how certain artistic works fall through the cracks in the law especially when it comes to the multi-faceted needs of the artworks in a globalised world. This article illustrates the weaknesses in various legislations dealing with ownership and access to art, mainly intellectual property law. It is argued that current regulation is sometimes ineffectual and must be discussed in order to cater for all the various aspects and needs of art and the public interest in it.
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Notes
Another Holocaust survivor that addressed her surroundings through children’s painting in the same
manner is Marianne Grant, for more information see Marianne Grant I knew I was painting for my life:
The Holocaust artworks of Marianne Grant, Glasgow Museums, 2002.
See also http://www.glasgowmuseums.com/venue/showExhibition.cfm?venueid=6&itemid=101.
Yad Vashem’s press statement from 2001 may be read in its entirety here:
In this context, ‘Holocaust Art’ simply refers to valuable artworks owned by the Jews that were forcefully taken from them by the Nazis during WWII; it does not refer to art created by the Jews during WWII such as Schulz’s mural.
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Legislation
Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, 1970.
Ukraine Law on Copyright and Related Rights.
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I would like to express my gratitude and a huge thank you to Håkan Gustafsson, for all his read-throughs of the various versions of this article, and for his comments, criticism and support. Also, a thank you to Leif Dahlberg for kindly inviting me to present and discuss the unfinished version of this article at the conference ‘Dialogues on Justice: European Perspectives on Law and Humanities’ in October 2009, at the wonderful Villa Vigoni, Italy; as well as to Fiona Macmillan who provided me with some valuable ideas and inspiration. And last but not least, a thank you to Mersiha Bruncevic, for introducing me to Bruno Schulz by inviting me to participate in the making of her film Calico.
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Bruncevic, M. The Lost Mural of Bruno Schulz: A Critical Legal Perspective on Control, Access to and Ownership of Art. Law Critique 22, 79–96 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-010-9077-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-010-9077-7