Invitation to an information event by the German Lost Art Foundation at EU level

Al­most ten years have passed since the dis­cov­ery of the “Gurlitt art trove” brought the Nazi regime’s loot­ing of mil­lions of art­works from Jew­ish cit­i­zens to wider pub­lic at­ten­tion. In the last five years or so, the glob­al de­bate con­cern­ing the seizure of cul­tur­al as­sets in the colo­nial con­text has al­so in­ten­si­fied in Ger­many: in­sti­tu­tions are now con­fronting their colo­nial past – the re­turn of cul­tur­al goods from colo­nial con­texts has be­come a cen­tral is­sue of in­ter­na­tion­al cul­tur­al pol­i­tics.

But be­fore ev­ery re­turn, prove­nance must be clar­i­fied. Since its in­cep­tion in 2015, the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion has there­fore fo­cused on fund­ing and net­work­ing for prove­nance re­search. The foun­da­tion is unique and was found­ed joint­ly by the fed­er­al, state, and mu­nic­i­pal gov­ern­ments. In Ger­many, it is a cen­tral con­tact point for ques­tions re­gard­ing cul­tur­al prop­er­ty that was un­law­ful­ly seized. Its main fo­cus is on sup­port­ing re­search in­to Nazi loot­ing, based on the Wash­ing­ton Prin­ci­ples of 1998. In ad­di­tion, the foun­da­tion deals with war loss­es dur­ing World War II and the seizure of cul­tur­al as­sets in the So­vi­et zone of oc­cu­pa­tion and the GDR. Since 2019, fund­ing is al­so pro­vid­ed for prove­nance re­search in­to cul­tur­al goods and col­lec­tions from colo­nial con­texts. Fur­ther­more, the foun­da­tion runs the Lost Art database and the re­search database Proveana, as well as the “Help Desk” for en­quiries about Nazi-loot­ed art.

To in­tro­duce the work of the foun­da­tion while em­bed­ding it in­to a Eu­ro­pean con­text, the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion is pleased to in­vite you to a dig­i­tal in­for­ma­tion event about its ini­tia­tives on
Thurs­day, 5 May 2022 at 3pm (video pre­sen­ta­tion in Ger­man with si­mul­ta­ne­ous trans­la­tion in­to En­glish)
The event will open with a wel­com­ing ad­dress by Am­bas­sador Su­sanne Szech-Koundouros, Deputy Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Fed­er­al Re­pub­lic of Ger­many to the Eu­ro­pean Union in Brus­sels.
Pro­gramme (mod­er­a­tor: Lena Grund­hu­ber, press of­fi­cer):

Wel­com­ing ad­dress by Am­bas­sador Su­sanne Szech-Koundouros (Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Fed­er­al Re­pub­lic of Ger­many to the Eu­ro­pean Union in Brus­sels)

Wel­com­ing ad­dress by Pro­fes­sor Gilbert Lupfer (Ex­ec­u­tive Board of the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion)

In­tro­duc­to­ry talk “Se­lect­ed points of com­par­i­son in the han­dling of Nazi-loot­ed art by Eu­ro­pean states” by Pro­fes­sor Matthias Weller (Al­fried Krupp von Bohlen und Hal­bach- Pro­fes­sor for civ­il law, art and cul­tur­al prop­er­ty law / Di­rec­tor of the Bonn In­sti­tute for Ger­man and In­ter­na­tion­al Civ­il Pro­ce­dure at the Rheinis­che Friedrich-Wil­helms-Uni­ver­sität Bonn

In­tro­duc­tion of the foun­da­tion’s de­part­ments by Dr Michael Franz (Gen­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion), Dr Uwe Hart­mann (Cul­tur­al Prop­er­ty Loss­es in Eu­rope in the 20th cen­tu­ry), Dr An­drea Bare­sel-Brand (Doc­u­men­ta­tion and Re­search Da­ta Man­age­ment), Dr Laris­sa Förster (Cul­tur­al Goods and Col­lec­tions from Colo­nial Con­texts) and Dr Su­sanne Mey­er-Abich (Help Desk for En­quiries about Nazi-loot­ed Art)

Dis­cus­sion
The event will take place as a video con­fer­ence via We­bex. Par­tic­i­pa­tion is free, but reg­is­tra­tion is re­quired by 4 May 2022. Par­tic­i­pants will re­ceive the ac­cess link on the day of the event.
Reg­is­tra­tion:
Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion
Hein­rich Natho
Press Of­fice
Hum­boldt­straße 12 | 39112 Magde­burg | Ger­many
Tele­phone +49 (0) 391 727 763-23
con­fer­ence@kul­turgutver­luste.de

With your reg­is­tra­tion and par­tic­i­pa­tion you give per­mis­sion to the or­ga­niz­ers to make im­age, sound and video record­ings and to use these in con­nec­tion with the event for pub­lic re­la­tions work as well as use dig­i­tal and ana­logue doc­u­men­ta­tion (in ac­cor­dance with Ger­man law § 22 Kun­stUrhG). The or­ga­niz­ers col­lect, pro­cess, and use per­son­al da­ta in ac­cor­dance with the statu­to­ry func­tion of the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion.