The Kunsthaus Zürich reacts to criticism
Zurich The Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft is the sponsoring association of the Kunsthaus Zürich, which was recently expanded at a cost of 206 million Swiss francs. At the end of last week you open the contracts with the foundation of the arms manufacturer Emil Bührle (1890-1956).
This is absolutely unusual in dealings between a public museum and a private collection. In doing so, the Kunsthaus, which has fallen into disrepute, is attempting to counteract the massively expressed reservations about the collection of the EG Bührle Foundation presented in the new building.
The core of the criticism from journalists, historians and the artist Miriam Cahn is the provenance research on the top collection, which was greatly expanded in the 1930s and 1940s and which had previously been carried out exclusively by the Foundation. The question of whether it contains looted or escaped property is up for reassessment.
The recently resigned foundation president Lukas Gloor had determined in December 2021 that the origin of 90 out of around 200 loans had not been completely clarified, but was unproblematic. This requires further investigation.
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The Kunsthaus is now creating transparency by disclosing the contract from 2012 and that from 2022. The first war was signed by the children Hortense Anda Bührle and Dieter Bührle, who died shortly afterwards. He reflected the family’s view of the German-born man who became the richest Swiss man in just a few years during World War II.
The new contract sets out the curatorial freedoms of the Kunsthaus. Under he for the first time and explicitly committed himself to the guidelines of the Washington Conference regarding works of art confiscated by the Nazis. In addition, with the term “cultural assets confiscated as a result of Nazi persecution” he orients himself towards the Terezin declaration of 2009. What is also new is that the Kunsthaus Zürich is undertaking further provenance research itself.
The Kunsthaus Zürich has taken the first step. But it remains crucial whether provenance research WILL continue and what the consequences will be. Because only the foundation as the owner can decide on the restitution of looted art.
Not all critics believe in it. The Swiss artist Miriam Cahn would like to buy back 16 groups of works that the Kunsthaus Zürich acquired from her years ago at the purchase price.
“Emil Bührle then and now the foundation director Lukas Gloor believe that the Bührle collection serves as a cheap outlet for Bührle’s profits as an arms producer and his trade with the Nazis and for whitewashing and denying the origin of his purchases of pictures,” she writes in her letter dated December 20, 2021. «This is accepted, courted and promoted by the art world involved, which – for whatever reason – does not want to see: buying art does not wash white! Collecting art doesn’t make you a better person!”
From Cahn’s Meyer Riegger gallery, the Handelsblatt reports that Miriam Cahn has not moved away from her buyback request despite the second contract.
More: Restitution of art looted by the Nazis: prices as trade pawns