Exiled Work of Art / Kidnapped Work of Art: Works of Art Market, Collecting and Circulation during the Second World War in Buenos Aires

TALÍA BERMEJO

Beijing

Congreso; 34th World Congress of Art History: Terms; 2016

Comité International d Histoire de l Art (CIHA)

To value and preserve the artistic heritage due to the destruction and lootings caused in the Second World War in Europe is a concept that motivated the numerous auctions and sales of Works of art in commercial galleries in Buenos Aires. However, the elocution evoking the role of collecting in that context dramatically contrasted with the lack of information regarding the origin of the work that could eventually be linked to the Nazi plunder. The mission to preserve the high culture and the feeling of inheriting part of the European tradition seemed to give no place to questioning whatsoever among the high classes from Buenos Aires. By the time of a commercial market that in the middle of the 20th century showed strong competitors as regards the importation of Works of arts, Wildenstein gallery s branch stood out and between 1940 and 1941 was set up in the city with a successful background in Paris and branches in London and Nueva York as well. Following enticing strategies, the company`s catalogues resorted to mentioning well?known clients and the exhibition of pieces belonging to private collection and thus it made a great impact. The purpose of this work is to explore certain aspect of Wildenstein´s background in the first years of his work in the Argentinean capital focusing on those exhibition policies used to cover the demand of the European art, contributing at the same time to motivating that double material and symbolic appropriation caused by the scattering of the heritage. The aim is to analyze the role of the gallery in that double game of identification and concealment performed by a sector of the artistic circulation in the context of the Second World War and in today s setting as well.