Strategic Value of African Tribal Art: Auction Sales Trends as Cultural Intelligence

Abstract

Military engagement of insurgents risks destruction of religious monuments and historic structures, and political and economic instability that follows armed conflict enables looting of antiquities. In combination, threats to cultural structures and movable cultural patrimony compromise cultural security. This article explores the potential of the art market for open-source intelligence assessments of cultural security. A comparison of the market value of artifacts of different ethnic origins provides a measure of the risk of looting of cultural patrimony by geographic region. Intelligence assessments of the relative desirability of cultural artifacts by region of origin can inform strategic planning to mitigate looting in conflict zones and to alert security services to emerging threats of trafficking in cultural patrimony.

Notes

Email: [email protected]¹Wilhelm Treue, Art Plunder: The Fate of Works of Art in War, Revolution, and Peace (London: Methuen 1960).

²In this paper, ‘cultural property’ refers to fine art, antiquities, religious monuments, historic structures, archaeological sites, museums and libraries. For a formal definition of ‘cultural property’ please refer to Article 1 of the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, 1954.

³Lynn H. Nicholas, The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1994).

⁴Konstantin Akinsha, Grigorii Kozlov, and Sylvia Hochfeld, Beautiful Loot: The Soviet Plunder of Europe's Art Treasures (New York: Random House 1995), pp.43–51.

⁵Karl Meyer, The Plundered Past (London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd. 1974) pp.12–21.

⁶Paul Roe, Ethnic Violence and the Societal Security Dilemma (New York: Routledge 2005) pp.48–50.

⁷Robert Bevan, The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War (London: Reaktion Books Ltd 2006).

⁸Erik Nemeth, ‘Cultural Security: The Evolving Role of Art in International Security’, Terrorism and Political Violence 19/1 (2007) pp.19–42.

⁹World Archaeological Congress and Association of National Committees of the Blue Shield, Archaeology in Conflict, Vienna, Austria, 2010, last update 17 June 2010, <http://www.archaeologyinconflict.org> (accessed 9 April 2011).

¹⁰For scholarly assessments see: Patrick J. Boylan, Review of the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (The Hague Convention of 1954) (London: Department of Arts and Policy and Management, City University 1993); Patrick J. O'Keefe, Commentary on the UNESCO 1970 Convention on Illicit Traffic (Leicester: Institute of Art and Law 2000); Sandra Braman, ‘International Treaties and Art’, International Journal of Cultural Policy 14/3 (2008) pp.315–33.

¹¹Notably, Paul Bator and John Merryman of Stanford University have examined international controversies over the transfer of and rights to possess cultural property. Paul M. Bator, ‘An Essay on the International Trade in Art’, Stanford Law Review 34/2 (1982) pp.275–384; John Henry Merryman, ‘Thinking about the Elgin Marbles’, Michigan Law Review 83/8 (1985) pp.1880–923.

¹²Peter Watson, From Manet to Manhattan (London: Hutchinson 1992) pp.486–7.

¹³UNESCO, Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (The Hague: UNESCO 1954), <http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=35261&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html> (accessed 1 July 2010).

¹⁴Soldiers and journalists have reported on the interrelations of trafficking in weapons and looted cultural artifacts: a) Matthew Bogdanos, ‘The Terrorist in the Art Gallery’, The New York Times 10 December 2005, section: A, Editorial Desk, p.5; b) David Johnston, ‘Picking Up the Stolen Pieces of Iraq's Cultural Heritage’, The New York Times, 14 February 2005, section: International/Middle East.

¹⁵Law enforcement agencies and news publications in the art world have reported on relationships between trafficking in cultural artifacts and transnational security threats: a) Remarks prepared for Director Robert S. Mueller, III, Federal Bureau of Investigation (Los Angeles: US Department of Justice 2004), last update 15 November 2004, <http://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/the-fbi-improving-intelligence-for-a-safer-america> (accessed 29 February 2012); b) Artnet.com, Art and Al Qaeda, 2 August 2005, <http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/artnetnews/artnetnews8-2-05.asp> (accessed 25 November 2009).

¹⁶UNESCO, Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (Paris: UNESCO 1970) <http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13039&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html#STATE_PARTIES> (25 November 2009).

¹⁷Raymond Fisman and Shang-Jin Wei, ‘The Smuggling of Art, and the Art of Smuggling: Uncovering the Illicit Trade in Cultural Property and Antiques’, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1/3 (2009) pp.82–96.

¹⁸Lisa J. Borodkin, ‘Note: The Economics of Antiquities Looting and a Proposed Legal Alternative’, Columbia Law Review 95/2 (1995) p.377.

¹⁹Federal Bureau of Investigation, Art Theft Program (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice 2009) <http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/arttheft.htm> (accessed 25 November 2009).

²⁰Martin Bailey, ‘A Nation's History under Siege’, The Art Newspaper, February 2001, section: Afghanistan, pp.1, 8. The article reports on the threats to pre-Islamic art and looting of cultural artifacts in Afghanistan during the occupation by the Taliban in early 2001. The article presaged the dramatic demolition of the giant statues of Buddha in the Bamiyan Valley in March 2001 and an extensive looting of cultural artifacts that followed US military intervention after 11 September 2001.

²¹Government agencies and journalists have reported on potential for looting of and trafficking in antiquities may provide a source of funding for terrorist groups, insurgencies, and organized crime that operate in source nations: a) United States National Central Bureau of Interpol, Cultural Property Crimes Program (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice 2008) <http://www.usdoj.gov/usncb/programs/cultural_property_program.php> (accessed 21 August 2010). b) Laura de la Torre, ‘Terrorists Raise Cash by Selling Antiquities’, Government Security News 4/3 (2006) pp.1, 10, 15.

²²Vladimir Solntsev, ‘Two Unique Statues of Buddha Destroyed in Afghanistan’, ITAR-TASS News Agency (Moscow), 14 March 2001.

²³Kristin M. Romey, ‘The Race to Save Afghan Culture’ in K.D. Vitelli and C. Colwell-Chanthaphonh (eds.) Archaeological Ethics (Lanham, MD: Altamira Press 2006) pp.81–90.

²⁴In this paper, ‘cultural patrimony’ refers to cultural property that an individual, ethnic group or nation claims and values by virtue of ancestry or political boundaries.

²⁵Joanne Farchakh-Bajjaly, ‘Chapter 4 – Who are the Looters at Archaeological Sites in Iraq?’ in L. Rothfield (ed.) Antiquities under Siege: Cultural Heritage Protection after the Iraq War (Lanham, MD, New York, Toronto, Plymouth: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2008) pp.49–56.

²⁶James Astill, ‘Plunder Goes on across Afghanistan as Looters Grow Even Bolder: Trade in Antiquities Worth up to £18bn as Thieves Excavate Sites’, The Guardian, 13 December 2003, p.21.

²⁷In 2002, the Minister for Culture and Information in Kabul reportedly said that ‘the profit margins [for trafficking in cultural artifacts] are bigger than those of opium’. Anthony Loyd, ‘Afghans' Lost City Plundered for Illegal London Art Trade’, The Times, 7 December 2002, section: Overseas news, p.26.

²⁸In this paper, ‘market nations’ refers to the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, Japan and other nations in which cultural institutions and individuals direct substantive financial resources towards the acquisition of antiquities and tribal art from abroad.

²⁹In this paper, ‘source nations’ includes Greece, Italy, and the nations of Latin America, Africa and Asia that hold a wealth in antiquities or tribal art coveted by ‘market nations’.

³⁰Erik Nemeth, ‘Art-Intelligence Programs: The Relevance of the Clandestine Art World to Foreign Intelligence’, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 21/2 (2008) pp.355–74.

³¹Erik Nemeth, ‘Collecting Cultural Intelligence: The Tactical Value of Cultural Property’, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 24/2 (2011) pp.217–38.

³²Claire L. Lyons, ‘Objects and Identities: Claiming and Reclaiming the Past’ in E. Barkan and R. Bush (eds.) Claiming the Stones Naming the Bones: Cultural Property and the Negotiation of National and Ethnic Identity (Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute 2002) pp.116–37.

³³Elizabeth C. Stone, ‘Patterns of Looting in Southern Iraq’, Antiquity 82/315 (2008) pp.125–38. The study employs satellite imagery to track the spread and extent of looting across Iraq relative to military intervention in 2003.

³⁴In this paper, ‘organized crime’ refers to the definition from the 2004 United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its Protocols

‘Organized criminal group’ shall mean a structured group of three or more persons, existing for a period of time and acting in concert with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes or offences established in accordance with this Convention, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols thereto(New York: United Nations 2004), <http://www. unodc.org/documents/treaties/UNTOC/Publications/TOC%20Convention/TOCebook-e.pdf> (accessed 30 November 2010).

³⁵Andrew McCalister, ‘Organized Crime and the Theft of Iraqi Antiquities’, Trends in Organized Crime 9/1 (2005) pp.24–37.

³⁶Michael Brent, ‘A View Inside the Illicit Trade in African Antiquities’ in P.R. Schmidt and R.J. McIntosh (eds.) Plundering Africa's Past (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press 1996) pp.63–78.

³⁷In this paper, an ‘auction lot’ represents a single cultural artifact. In general, an auction lot may contain more than one object, but the majority of lots in the search results for this study consisted of a single object.

³⁸From this point forward, the paper defines ‘market value’ as average hammer price.

³⁹The study derived all data from online searches at <www.sothebys.com> and converted prices to US dollars based on average annual exchange rates posted on-line at <www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g5a>.

⁴⁰Even excluding the sale of ‘A Bronze Figure of Artemis and the Stag’ (US$28.6 million), the average hammer price for antiquities in 2007 still reached US$137,053, which represented a substantial increase over the average price in 2006.