As sanctions against Russia tighten, the cultural sector
is not spared: many events in Europe will be
affected by the freeze on exchanges.
by Jordane de Faÿ, Aison Moss, Rafael Pic and Jade Pillaudin
Following the aggression against Ukraine, Russia finds the doors of the West
closing: it has been excluded from many events it was a
long-standing participant in, from the Football World Cup to Eurovision, from the EuroLeague
basketball to concerts by conductor Valery Gergiev, from the mission to
Mars to the International Olympic Committee. When it is not a retaliatory
measure, participants themselves decide to throw in the towel, as was the case
this Monday with the members of the Russian pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
Live performance will be particularly affected with the cancellation of tours
by ballets, musicians, and theater companies. In the field of architecture, one
can predict a slowdown in ongoing projects: if the Hermitage
twin towers in La Défense had not been abandoned last January, it is
highly probable that the decision would have been made now.
Morozov, a test
In a globalized art world, major blockbuster exhibitions are
inseparable from loans between countries. Currently, the most
emblematic global example is the Morozov collection shown at the
Louis Vuitton Foundation: several years of negotiation and the blessing of
Vladimir Putin himself were necessary to move these masterpieces,
whose insurance value is kept secret but exceeds one billion euros.
The cost of transport (around forty convoys) as well as Louis Vuitton’s
commitment to finance restorations or modernization projects
for museums in Moscow or Saint Petersburg are part of a genuine
medium-term partnership. As with the previous installment dedicated to
the Shchukin collection (1.2 million visitors), it has been a success:
by a scandalous coincidence, the exhibition surpassed one million admissions
on February 23, the day before the Russian attack… Voices quickly rose to
demand the seizure of this unique collection. This would set a precedent that
would contravene current legislation. Article 61 of the law of August 8, 1994,
stipulates: “Cultural property loaned by a foreign power,
a foreign public entity or cultural institution, intended to be
exhibited to the public in France, is immune from seizure for the period of its loan to the French
State or any legal entity designated by it. A joint decree from the Minister
of Culture and the Minister of Foreign Affairs sets, for each exhibition,
the list of cultural property, determines the duration of the loan, and designates the organizers
of the exhibition. ” A specific law would therefore be needed, or we would have to enter
a grey area with the expiration of the immunity decree. The first was
issued on February 19, 2021, then renewed on January 6, 2022, due to
the extension of the exhibition until April 3. Its effect will remain for a good
month after closing, until May 15 (an additional period initially
designed to allow for a comfortable return of the artworks). It should be noted that of
the seven museums covered, five are Russian (Tretyakov Gallery, Pushkin Museum
and Ekaterina Cultural Foundation in Moscow; Russian Museum and Hermitage Museum
in Saint Petersburg), one Belarusian (National Art Museum of Minsk),
and one Ukrainian (Dnipropetrovsk Art Museum). A comparable situation
arises in England with the Fabergé collection currently
on display at the V&A in London.
Louvre and Orsay wait and see
What about major public institutions? “The Louvre Museum is in constant
contact with its supervisory ministry – the Ministry of Culture – and the Ministry of
Europe and Foreign Affairs regarding the monitoring of projects, artworks, and
staff who might be impacted by the events affecting
Ukraine and Russia,” the museum informs us, noting that there are no
current or upcoming exhibition projects with Russian or
Ukrainian institutions. However, it is currently lending 6 artworks (including a deposit
at Versailles) to the Kremlin Museum for the exhibition titled “Duel. From trial by
combat to noble crime,” scheduled from March 3 to June 16 (the departments concerned
being Decorative Arts, Paintings, and Graphic Arts), whose opening is obviously
in question. The museum has no loans in Ukraine. Regarding its
staff, three were in Moscow in recent days, as part of monitoring loans
to the Kremlin Museum, and have now returned to France.
Christophe Leribault, president of the Musée d’Orsay, curious about Nordic
and Central European scenes, had, shortly before the offensive began,
traveled to Russia to explore future avenues:
“There were no Russian projects in the exhibition schedule planned
by my predecessor for the coming years. I would, of course, have liked to take
up the torch following the success of the Repin retrospective at the Petit Palais.
Unfortunately, the conditions are no longer met.” The Centre Pompidou, for its part,
is looking at its loans in countries bordering Ukraine,
potentially impacted by the war: “We currently have no artworks on loan
in Russia or Ukraine, but we have ongoing loans in Hungary, Poland,
and Romania. Of course, the National Museum of Modern Art is in communication with these institutions,
but for now, there is no change in relation to the international context.”
Repatriations in extremis
Some exhibitions narrowly avoided repatriation problems.
For Repin, which attracted 130,000 visitors and closed on January 23 at the Petit
Palais, the artworks were received in Russia about ten days ago,
just before the offensive began. In the opposite direction, the same
is true at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, with the exhibition that honored
part of the donation of drawings by Florence and Daniel Guerlain to the Centre
Pompidou. Until January 30 – the exhibition’s closing date – the rooms of 19th
and 20th-century European and American art housed a selection
of works, which returned safely at the last minute. Florence Guerlain notes,
however, increasingly evident tensions within the Russian institution
during the exhibition’s organization, palpable despite their “absolute silence”.
“It took a long time to get news of the artworks. They took
a long time to return,” she explains.
Matisse in China, collateral victim
In the region, the Nord department was the first to take measures
radical to mitigate the geopolitical uncertainty of the coming months: Friday
February 25, we learned of the suspension of the loan of 280 artworks belonging
On Friday, February 25, we learned via a press release of the suspension of the loan to China of 280 artworks belonging to the Matisse Museum in Le Cateau-Cambrésis.
© Photo Richard Soberka/hemis.fr.