Pandora Papers: Art Trafficking Exposed

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Transcript

Alyssa Hurst:

You're listening to RadioED.

Lorne Fultonberg:

A University of Denver podcast.

Nicole Militello:

We're your hosts, Nicole Militello.

Lorne Fultonberg:

Lorne Fultonberg.

Alyssa Hurst:

And I'm Alyssa Hurst. The 11.9 million documents caught up with the Pandora Papers scandal have revealed much about government officials, offshore accounts, and shady dealings. Among the trove of information though, was new info about Douglas Latchford, a notorious figure in the art world who was indicted in 2019 for trafficking looted Cambodian antiquities.

Alyssa Hurst:

Through these Pandora Papers investigations, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found that at least 27 pieces with Latchford ties remain on display in prominent museums, including six in the Denver Art Museum.

Alyssa Hurst:

The conversation about looted art and antiquities is not a new one though. Elizabeth Campbell, Director of the University of Denver Center for Art Collection Ethics joins us to talk about ethical stewardship, repatriation of stolen art, and the impact of returning these pieces to their rightful owners.

Alyssa Hurst:

So just as a matter of setting a foundation of definitions here, can you start by telling us what provenance research is, and why it's important work?

Elizabeth Campbell:

Yes. Provenance research is the study of about the history of an object. And so, it's a way of writing a kind of biography of an object. And so, the most important things are showing the ownership history. And so, a good provenance narrative will show when an object was acquired by somebody when it was sold, ideally the location of the sale, as well as the date.

Elizabeth Campbell:

It's very important for this provenance research to be done on objects that are either currently in museums or being acquired by museums, either by a purchase or a donation, to make sure that there isn't a gap in the ownership history, and to verify that there isn't an illicit past, that there isn't a moment where that object has been stolen or looted, sold under duress. All of those things are really important to make sure that the museums are ethical stewards of the objects that they hold.

Alyssa Hurst:

Very interesting. So getting to the Pandora Papers more specifically, and the conversations surrounding Douglas Latchford, so he's been accused in the past of trafficking looted antiquities primarily from Cambodia and Thailand. I'm curious what constitutes ownership and if finders keepers applies here?

Elizabeth Campbell:

No, it really doesn't. And a lot of his deals were in New York and the law is very clear that the holder of a stolen item does not have clear to title to that item. So the problem with Latchford is that he knowingly was trading in stolen and looted antiquities from Cambodia, so he had some willing collaborators as well.

Elizabeth Campbell:

There's a gallery owner, Nancy Wiener in New York, who just a few weeks ago, pled guilty to charges of conspiracy and falsifying records, and has paid over a million dollars in fines and forfeitures. And her statement was absolutely striking. She was one of Latchford's key collaborators and said it was a conspiracy of the willing to trafficking these antiquities.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And the Pandora Papers revealed 27 items that had ended up in museums around the world. And so, museums ended up with some of these objects that had been trafficked and this was during a time when there were already... there were some questions raised about Latchford and it's actually been a topic of some kind controversy for several years.

Elizabeth Campbell:

So this really isn't new in the art world. It's become very well known in a broader public, but this issue related to Latchford has been quite well known since around 2012, when some journalists really started to investigate his stealing.

Alyssa Hurst:

So how do these looted artifacts make their way from say, an ancient temple in Cambodia to the Metropolitan Museum of Art? And are there these established channels through which this type of trafficking takes place?

Elizabeth Campbell:

Yeah, so Latchford is a British citizen... was, he passed away recently, but he operated out of Bangkok. And so, he was working with criminal gangs in Cambodia. So there was a good deal of cultural heritage that was looted during the period of the Khmer Rouge in the mid to late 1970s. And then Cambodia went through this really tragic period of upheaval after the Khmer Rouge was out of power. So 1970s, 1980s, there were criminal gangs that were looting Cambodia's cultural heritage.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And so, Latchford, who was an expert in this area, was working with these known vandals. And he actually was well known. He published books on the topic, and so was considered by many to be an expert on Cambodian heritage, and he claimed that he was protecting these items as Cambodian heritage. But what he was also doing was working with criminals who were plundering these items.

Elizabeth Campbell:

He also falsified records, and so a dealer like Latchford then could then transfer those works to a dealer like Nancy Wiener in New York. And from Nancy Wiener, who is the woman who said it was a conspiracy of the willing, and she has pled guilty to these fraud charges, then that dealer can then sell them to a museum.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And so, that's how they can work their way either into private collections or museum collections. And if the museum is not doing careful provenance research and not looking at those records carefully, then they can wind up with stolen items. And then it becomes a big problem like now, where museums are facing the scrutiny for not having done the research at the time that the items were acquired.

Alyssa Hurst:

Yeah. And we'll definitely come back around to that because I'd love to talk more about a museum's responsibility, but before we get there, I'm really curious why antiquities and art are often caught up in these kinds of deals? Is it because there are high sums of money to be had? Is there something that attracts these hyper wealthy individuals? What is it about art that makes it a target for this kind of trafficking?

Elizabeth Campbell:

Yeah. So these works of art can be very valuable and antiquities in particular, are the target of traffickers because they can be very difficult to trace. So if you imagine a painting for instance, so a lot of the pieces that I study that are works that are plundered during the Nazi era, if you think about the back of a painting frame, it can have custom stamps, [inaudible 00:07:32] stamps. There's a lot of evidence that's actually on the back of the frame.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And so, it's really fascinating to look at these pictures and turn them around, and you get a good sense of that object's biography from evidence that's on the frame. You can't do that with an antiquity, and so it makes it difficult to trace. It makes it difficult for customs officials to be able to tell whether an item has reached a country through illicit means or not. It makes them susceptible to forgery as well.

Elizabeth Campbell:

They're items that can increase in value also, and so that's why they have great interest to criminal enterprises. They are trafficked long with weapons and drugs. So those three areas are really important for traffickers because they can increase in value and they're so coveted, that makes them the subject of trafficking.

Alyssa Hurst:

Yeah. Why are these items so coveted?

Elizabeth Campbell:

Well, if you're thinking about, say these items from the Khmer Empire, so this is dating back to the ninth, the 15th century, and there is a very limited supply. These are items of cultural heritage from Cambodia, and so they are precious based on that limited availability. They can be quite sought after, whether it's by individual collectors or museums.

Elizabeth Campbell:

So for example, if you think about a museum that wants to display all of human artistic production from all time periods, all areas of the world, they're looking to fill gaps in collections and they say, "Okay, we don't have a lot of East Asian art from this time period [inaudible 00:09:38] will fill a gap. We don't have much to show in terms of Cambodian heritage." That can make it very desirable. It makes it appealing for museums to acquire these pieces of heritage, to be able to display them to their public.

Elizabeth Campbell:

The problem is that in decades past, that institutions have not done the proper provenance research. Whereas today, there's just ethics have really developed in a different way with acquisitions.

Alyssa Hurst:

So you've kind of alluded to the fact that this is not an isolated event. Can you tell me a little bit more about how common this is in the art world right now?

Elizabeth Campbell:

Yes. Actually, antiquities trafficking has been thriving recently, and one way that they've been doing... they've been able to carry out these activities is by using Facebook. So social media has actually enabled traffickers to actually post photographs. It's been quite stunning, they will post on Facebook, pictures of illegal excavations. And so, this has been an effort by some non-profit groups to really crack down and to get Facebook to remove posts by criminal enterprises and these vandals that are selling items through Facebook. So sadly, yeah, it really has been thriving and social media has been able to facilitate these operations.

Elizabeth Campbell:

At the same time, there has been then, on the other side, an activist movement through Facebook, Twitter, that is now monitoring to a greater extent, outlets like Facebook to try to help crack down on those activities.

Alyssa Hurst:

Yeah, that's fascinating. I did not even think about the role social media can play in this, but social media has facilitated so many other things, why not this? So that's really, really fascinating. So the Denver Art Museum, for example, I think it's six pieces that they have, that were tied to Latchford in some way, shape or form.

Alyssa Hurst:

So once a museum or a private collection learns that a piece of art in their possession has been acquired in this sort of unethical way, what are the steps necessary for repatriation, and how long does that process usually take? Is it as simple as just shipping a piece back to the country of origin?

Elizabeth Campbell:

No, it can be a very long drawn out process. And so, what the museums should be doing is carrying out the proper provenance research, if they didn't before, at the time of acquisition, they need to go back and do it at that time. And one problem is that many museums are short-staffed when it comes to provenance researchers, and you can imagine, there are many different areas where this research needs to happen.

Elizabeth Campbell:

It should be happening with items that may have been funded during the Nazi era. They should be carrying out research on native American items. There's actually Federal law that mandates that research and transparency when it comes to native American items. And so, many museums have not invested enough in provenance research and so they are often short staffed. They very seldom have a full-time provenance researcher, so it's often contract and part-time work.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And so, getting the research done can take some time. In addition then, these negotiations often involve the US State department. So it can even go beyond the museum, so that it really becomes a diplomatic effort. And so, then of course, that makes it even more complicated. If you're getting governments involved for an official repatriation, so then it starts to get out of the hands of a single private museum since we have a mostly private museum system in the US, but then can be operating through diplomatic channels.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And so, you're talking about governments also getting involved, so that can delay the process as well. So it can take a good deal of time for this process to happen.

Alyssa Hurst:

Yeah. So digging in to that a little bit more from the museum perspective, what does the situation look like? Is it something that they want to do? Is this important to museums to write these wrongs, or is it really just reacting to when these things hit the news cycle?

Elizabeth Campbell:

Yeah. I think it's common that views are changing in the museum world, and there is a recognition that this kind of work has to be done. And there are all sorts of codes of ethics. There's the American Alliance of Museums, which issues accreditation to museums. There's an Association of Art Museum Directors that has a code of ethics. Most museums have their own sets of codes of ethics.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And so, if you go through them, you'll see that provenance research and transparency, and making the findings public are all part of those codes of ethics. There can be wide variation in how well those guidelines are followed. And so, official statements will express a commitment to provenance research and transparency, but unfortunately, there just aren't enforcement mechanisms. And again, with our private system of museums in the United States, we don't have a Ministry of Culture. So it is difficult for those guidelines really, to be enforced.

Elizabeth Campbell:

The people that I speak to in the museum world, I am speaking with people who do have a commitment to carrying out this research. I think, again, a lot of the problem is that the research is not fully supported in many institutions, and so it makes it very difficult for this work to get done. But I do think there has been a big shift in the last 20 years, toward acknowledging the need for this research and transparency. And I do think it's worth noting that the Denver Art Museum repatriated a statue to Cambodia in 2016. So they had started to do this research and make this effort, but clearly, there was more work to do.

Alyssa Hurst:

Yeah, certainly. And you've spoken to the fact that this is not something that every museum... they don't all have a team of people doing provenance research on each of their pieces. So what would it take to get to a point where museums were able to have that kind of thing within their own offices?

Alyssa Hurst:

Is this an issue of funding? Is this an issue of want? What is stopping us from being able to have a team of provenance researchers with every museum?

Elizabeth Campbell:

Yes, funding is really crucial. I would love to see campaigns that are dedicated to trying to raise money to support provenance research. This is an area that donors could support. So museums are often doing various fundraising campaigns to support acquisitions. There needs to be a much greater role for fundraising to support provenance research.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And so it's an area that donors could support in order to help a museum really serve it's public mission because these museums do hold works in the public trust, and they are shielded from tax obligations because of this role that they play. So they do have a responsibility to hold those works in the public trust, in an ethical way.

Alyssa Hurst:

So you're coming to us from the Hague today, and you were recently in Paris speaking on behest of the French government about your work regarding art that was looted from Jewish families by Nazis. So can you tell us more about this work and what it means to have the French government invested in your work?

Elizabeth Campbell:

Yes. I was delighted to be invited to give a talk in Paris. I spoke about a topic that I wrote about in my first book, it's called Defending National Treasures. And it's about France during the German occupation of World War II and how they were trying to protect their art and heritage.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And actually, I was talking about French policy and an effort by the French museum administration to try to acquire works from Jewish collections. And so, it's an area that still is quite controversial because it's not about the Germans looting works of art. It's about the French doing it, and it's regarding some collections, like for example, from the Rothschild family, huge dynasty, had enormous art collections, and French authorities were able to seize items from those collections.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And so, I was talking about an effort that was made by the French government to take some of those items and put them in the [inaudible 00:18:50] and other museums. This is still controversial because it involves people who also supported the resistance, and so it really complicates this sort of black and white narrative that has been common about collaboration with the Germans and resistance, because these were people, and in this effort, they were all men who supported the resistance. But when they had an opportunity to put masterpieces from a private Jewish collection like Rembrandt, works from the Dutch Masters in French museums, they tried to take that opportunity.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And so, I was really happy that representatives from the French government invited me to talk about this. And I caused a stir, we had a good debate because there were some folks there who don't agree with my approach. And I was happy to be able to explain, this is what I found in documents and others can go to the documents themselves and see the record, because it's also what happened after the war, when works of art were not claimed and some were held by the French government. That's the topic of my next book, that should be coming out next year.

Alyssa Hurst:

You've kind of talked about a couple of communities who have experienced this taking of their arts. Can you tell me a little bit more about what other communities have been historically affected by this practice, and whose art remains on display in major museums today?

Elizabeth Campbell:

Yeah, so this issue affects so many communities. I think it's really important for us to acknowledge ways that native American and indigenous heritage has been plundered by various communities. So I referred to a Federal law earlier in our discussion that regulates how museums should be handling native American items. So this is a law from 1990, that's known by its acronym, NAGPRA, and it especially deals with sacred items and human remains. It was quite common for anthropology departments, either in museums or universities, to acquire human remains.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And so, that Federal law says that institutions need to be doing research, creating inventories, making this information public, and facilitating consultation by tribes. So that's another area that we've treated in the Center For Art Collection Ethics, and just with our role in the Rocky Mountain West and needing to face our past, and also with the need for the University of Denver also to face its past with ties to John Evans and his role as territorial Governor during the Sand Creek Massacre, we have felt it's very important to grapple with this area of ethical stewardship as well.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And then there's so many other areas as well. So Black Lives Matter has also revived attention on African items, and so this is an area that's getting a lot of attention. And there has also been some really important scholarship that has come out in recent years about African items. So that's another area that is getting some close scrutiny and it's one that we also hope to address in upcoming events offered by the Center For Art Collection Ethics.

Elizabeth Campbell:

So there are a lot of areas. That's why this work is so needed and requires such a large investment because there are so many different areas that really require thorough, careful research and transparency.

Alyssa Hurst:

You've talked about how this is not a new conversation. The Pandora Papers did not start this conversation from scratch, it's been happening. So why do you think there is greater interest in this right now? And how do you see museums grappling with this over the next five or 10 years?

Elizabeth Campbell:

I do think there's something really interesting going on. The more that our world is globalized and digitized, and the more involved we are in social media, it seems that we are increasingly attached to objects and tangible items from our past, whether this be on a family level, individual, community, tribe, nation, that these objects have a tangible connection to our past. And that there is an activism that has really been gaining momentum from various communities.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And we saw this mobilization among native American communities, around the time of NAGPRA, 1990, and then with descendants of victims of the Holocaust later in the 1990s. And then on a national level, governments of Italy and Greece have been campaigning to get items back. For example, there's a very famous case with the Greek government trying to get a set of sculptures from the British museum. So on a national governmental level, there's been that kind of effort for repatriation.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And so, it seems that it has become all the more important for individuals, communities, nations, tribes, to have these connections and to take control of them, and to have them as part of their own identity. So it's not for example, museums who are controlling one's heritage and that it gets restored either to the community, the family, the individual somehow.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And so, we see this growing activism in a variety of areas and a willingness for people to challenge institutions, and to demand that they get belated justice. It really is a form of social justice to get items back that have been wrongfully taken from prior owners, whether it's on the individual or a communal level. Y

Alyssa Hurst:

Yeah, and I listened to the conversation you had with CPR on the Pandora Papers as well. And I know one of the things that you all talked about was the role museums can play in ethically displaying this art, if indeed the originator is okay with the museum keeping it.

Elizabeth Campbell:

Yes. So I think that a useful example, maybe sometimes with indigenous and native American items. So there can be cases where a tribe will say that a museum really is a place where an item can be properly conserved. And so, for example, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science has been very responsible in abiding by that NAGPRA law that I mentioned, and in maintaining good relationships with tribes. And if you go to their storage facilities, there are many items that will never be on display, that should never be on display. They're not meant to be there.

Elizabeth Campbell:

So for some communities, these items shouldn't even be thought of as objects. They are ancestors, they have spirits, and so they are sacred and should not be viewed by individuals. And so, sometimes tribes will acknowledge that the museum can be a proper place for those items to be preserved.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And often, museums will work out arrangements with tribes so that they can visit the institution and see the... sometimes they're called belongings and they are allowed to carry out sacred rituals. So there can be that kind of understanding with a tribe, but that is accomplished through consultation, long discussions. There has to be in-person contact, which of course COVID, the whole pandemic has really delayed, but it requires a lot of really careful discussion and really respectful conversation with those communities, to have that relationship of trust so that the museum can continue to be a place where those items are properly conserved, and with respect toward the community.

Alyssa Hurst:

Yeah. Digging into that a little bit more, for the communities that are regaining these lost artifacts or the individuals who have their property restored to their families, what can the impact of that look like?

Elizabeth Campbell:

Yeah. I like to give the example of a claimant who lives in Denver, and this is related to my area of Nazi art and restitution. So I was teaching an adult education class through University College on Nazi art looting, and I had one student come up to me at the end of class, toward the beginning of the course. And she said, "I won't be able to be here next week because I'm going to be in Germany, receiving items from a German museum."

Elizabeth Campbell:

And so I said, "Excused absence, of course, but please tell me more about this." So for example, there is this family and this student of mine who is also a friend named [inaudible 00:29:09], has received items from German museums and her relatives who lost works of art, didn't have masterpieces. This was more of an antique shop, and so they're more items of daily use like pictures and items that you wouldn't even see in those museums, and they are not high value items.

Elizabeth Campbell:

But for the family to get these items back means a tremendous amount because they were victims of anti-Semitic persecution. And when one's ancestors have gone through loss, plunder, loss of life, and were victims of the Holocaust, to have traces of that past and a tangible connection to the family can be extremely powerful.

Elizabeth Campbell:

And in those cases, it's absolutely not about any kind of monetary value. It's all about reestablishing a connection to the family. And so that gives it a special meaning beyond monetary value.

Alyssa Hurst:

To learn more about DU Center For Art Collection Ethics and Elizabeth's work with Nazi era art, visit our show notes at du.edu/radioed. Tamara Chapman is our Managing Editor, James Swearingen arranged our theme. I'm Alyssa Hurst, today's host and Executive Producer. This is RadioED