The Art of Democracy: Art Restitution, Memory, and Morality in Germany.
My dissertation will examine four prominent art restitution cases concerning property stolen from Jewish families by the Nazi regime. Its purpose is to understand the role art restitution played in the democratization of the Federal Republic of Germany, and what place it continues to have in reaffirming democratic values. Restitution is critical in continuing to force a reckoning with the past since new claimants come forward every year; the memory culture envoked by restitution is the main point of study, not provenance. This project will treat restitution as more than a policy. It is a mechanism of memory and democracy.
The Federal Republic has chosen restitution as a way to continue to confront the past and eradicate victimhood narratives, make amends and bolster its national image, and renew its commitment to democracy. I will explore in greater depth four well-known cases to understand how the various actors––the victims, their families, the advisory boards, the media, and federal institutions––wrestled not only with the issues of art ownership and restitution but also with the expectations of democracies to contend with memory, mediate conflict, and deliver justice for citizens, past and present. I propose to use these debates over art as a lens for viewing the struggle to develop and adhere to a set of values emerging in Germany and the postwar world in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In other words, my study primarily focuses on Germany from 1989 to the present moment, with an emphasis on the changing memory culture in the 1990s.