Austria and Restitution
Wien Museum; Museum für Angewandte Kunst/Gegenwartskunst
MúzeumCafé 9.
In 1959 the opening of the Stadtmuseum Wien’s building designed by Oswald Haerdtl was an important event in the history of the Austrian capital. In 2000 the courtyard received a glass roof and the ground floor interior was changed to the design of Dimitris Manikas, though Haerdtl’s work was kept in respect. Restructuring has worked well in Vienna: the architectural ‘framing’ of the original building has created an opportunity to view the past, the post-war period from the outside; visitors can already see a finished slice of history. The museum is a place where history always unexpectedly breaks out from behind the falsely arranged, or more bluntly, denied past. When the opportunity arises it is the museum’s own history which becomes the fundamental issue of identity. After a long silence, in the past decade following Austria’s law on restitution public museums have finally disclosed what they inherited from the Nazi period. The excruciatingly precise list of art works looted by the former ‘Vugesta’ (Verwertungsstelle für jüdisches Umzugsgut der Gestapo) is available on museum websites. The Wien Museum was itself a victim of Nazi times. The ‘Vugesta’ selected and removed 148 items from the museum’s collection. Restitution, of course, is a serious question for every museum. I also visited MAK, The Museum of Applied and Contemporary Arts. The neo-Renaissance palace designed by Heinrich von Ferstel was completely renovated and linked with its neighbouring building in 1993. The permanent exhibition of this progressive museum is designed by artists and continuously analyses the connections between applied and contemporary arts. The hall displaying Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance art objects was designed by Günter Förg, the Baroque and Rococo room was created by Donald Judd, while the Biedermeier section was conceived by Jenny Holzer. The temporary exhibition Recollecting Raub und Restitution, arranged by guest curator Alexandra Reininghaus, can be seen in the front part of the museum. The Central Registry of Information of Looted Cultural Property 1933–1945, based in Oxford, operates a data bank open to all. The exhibition in Vienna is only one of the projects initiated by the organisation. In 2008 similar exhibitions and accompanying conferences were held in Jerusalem and in the Jüdisches Museum, Berlin. A Fiat 522c car manufactured in 1931 can be seen enclosed by glass in front of the MAK building. The vehicle’s owner was a certain Moritz Glückselig, but a law of 1939 prevented him from driving his car. Having survived the concentration camps, Glückselig finally reached Argentina, while his Fiat became the property of ‘Vugesta’. It was used by the SA and after the war was acquired by the Museum of Technology. Visitors can see the history of objects formerly owned by families from all over Austria in cabinets looking like industrial structures. For example, the painting Madonna with Child by Lucas Cranach primarily recalls the memory of its former owner, Philipp Gomperz, who was partly of Hungarian descent. Cranach’s work was acquired by Austria’s Nazi leader Baldur von Schirach. After he had been sentenced to 20 years at Nuremberg the picture turned up in California in the 1950s. An unsuspecting collector donated the painting to the North Caroline Museum of Art in 1964. In 2000 when the museum was faced with the origin of the painting, without hesitation it returned it to Gomperz’s elderly relatives who were still living in Austria. In the end they sold the painting below its market value to the museum. Every aspect of the restitution of objects which disappeared from Europe after 1945 or were acquired by the German and Austrian states, or by libraries and museums without any emotional remorse, represents a drama. Lawsuits are still underway, since the legislation aims to mediate between the former owner’s descendents and the objects with inventory numbers held by public institutions. A Hungarian example shows where matters can lead if museums are silent for too long. The Hungarian National Museum did not want to take notice of a restitution case concerning the museum’s collection until the bailiffs arrived and seized the painting in question. We live in a region where issues of restitution may be raised not only because of works looted and then nationalised by the Third Reich or during the Horthy era and under Arrow Cross rule, but also due to communism and the period of state socialism. Post-socialist countries have related to restitution differently compared with the situation of Austrian museums, which have operated under democratic conditions since 1945. The above are some examples of how the culture of restitution is working there.