REGULATIONS WITH RESPECT TO CIVIL TURNOVER IN THE ACT ON THE RESTITUTION OF POLISH HERITAGE ASSETS AND THEIR APPLICATION TO MUSEUMS’ OPERATION

It is the legal regulations related to civil turnover specified in the Act of 25 May 2017 on the Restitution of Polish Heritage Assets (consolidated text, Journal of Laws 2019, Item 1591) in the context of the activity of museums and other institutions running a museum activity that is the topic of the paper. They speak of legal activities including ownership transfer or charge on Poland’s heritage assets pertaining to public collections, or the ban on acquiring assets from a person unauthorized to dispose of them or manage them by prescription, as well as of the non-limitation of claims for their release. The Author analyses the central concept of the quoted Act: that of the <u>national heritage assets of the Polish Republic</u> pertaining to public collections, while discussing in detail both criteria that are related to it: subject- and ownership-related ones. He points to the fact that the definition of public collections it contains is extremely broad, covering not only public collections in the colloquial meaning of the term, but also the collections of the majority of private museums, as well as non-museum collections of private entities and persons, as long as they have applied public financing. In the further part of the paper, the civil-law regulations specified in the Act are discussed, with special emphasis on the requested form of the legal actions including the transfer of ownership or burden (in writing with a certified date) suggesting that this can apply also to deposit or lending contracts. He also discusses the praxis and judicature with respect to the in writing with a certified date pointing to the possible lack of the awareness of the contract parties that the object of the contract pertains to a public collection in compliance with the provisions of the Act, and that the special contract format should be kept. In this context the Author presents some practical solutions allowing to avoid certain negative consequences. In the conclusion it is emphasized that the regulation contains certain concepts which might inspire essential interpretative doubts having impact on the application of the discussed regulations.

Collecting Mussolini: The Case of the Susmel–Bargellini Collection

Heritage Studies has dealt with Italian Fascism in different ways but paying little attention to the movable items linked to the regime, such as paintings, sculptures and memorabilia. Over the last decade, private collections linked to the Mussolini iconography have emerged, owing to a renewed social acceptance of it and more items of Mussoliniana being readily available. Due to the reluctance of experts to confront this issue and the expansion of private museums in Italy, spontaneous initiatives have sprung up including a permanent exhibition of Mussolini iconography as part of the MAGI’900 Museum in Pieve di Cento, which consists of approximately 250 portraits of the Duce in different media. The nucleus of the original collection once belonged to the historian Duilio Susmel and was part of a large documentary collection put together during the 1960s and 1970s. Susmel hoped it would become a museum or a centre for Fascist studies, but ultimately it remained in his private villa near Florence until the 1990s. The archive is now split between Rome and Salò, and the Mussoliniana was purchased by Bargellini, who added busts, paintings and knick-knacks. Since 2009 it has been on display in a section of Bargellini’s museum entitled Arte del Ventennio. Therefore, the Italian State tolerates its existence but sadly it is ignored by most experts, despite the study opportunities it offers.

Interactive forms of preservation of cultural memory (on the example of historical reconstruction in the Northwest Russia

This article examines the process of preservation of cultural heritage through interactive forms of historical reconstruction. The author reviews such relatively new for Russia phenomena as military-historical clubs, ethnic parks, thematic tourism zones, private museums and ethnographic collections, which familiarize with the history of our homeland in an interactive form. The active engagement of visitors and members of the club into the process of reconstruction of lifestyle and military traditions of previous generations is like being a participant of the restored history, which is more comprehensible than the textbook or exhibited artifacts, and thus arouses more emotional response&nbsp; and forms a respectful and patriotic attitude towards the native country. It is established that ethnic parks, thematic tourism zones, private museums, houses of ethnography, created by the efforts of enthusiasts do not often become the object of scientific interest, at times receiving contempt from the professional scientific community. However, the practice demonstrates that historical reconstruction draws more citizen&rsquo; attention than the traditional museum. Such situation requires examination and defines its novelty. The result of research consists in the creation of value-oriented classification of historical reconstruction organizations, as well as in assumption that from the visitor&rsquo;s or participant&rsquo;s perspective the leading role in historical reconstruction is not so much the accuracy (with a certain degree of fiction), but the creation of a holistic image of living history, filled with the value meaning of the bygone era.

Historie a perspektivy sportovního muzejnictví v ČR na příkladu Oddělení dějin tělesné výchovy a sportu Národního muzea

The Department of Physical Education and Sports History of The National Museum administrates the oldest museum collection of exhibits and materials in the Czech Republic focusing on sports, physical education and olympism history not only in Czech lands, but also abroad. The crucial and considerable problem is the absence of a permanent exhibition, which would facilitate a systematic and permanent communication not only with non-professional public, but also with sport and museum professionals. This is a common practice abroad where various sport and olympic museums are an integral part of national cultural heritage. There has not been a permanent exhibition of Czech sport for twenty years and thus various local and private museums substitute its non-existence. Presentation of sport, physical education and olympic historic collection of the National Museum is thus doubtful. The situation in other countries in Central Europe is completely different. This paper deals with the history of The Department of Physical Education and Sports History collection, summarizes the situation in the Czech Republic and in other countries of the Visegrad group. At the end, the paper offers possible approaches that could be adopted in future practice.

Accessibility to Leisure and Culture

Despite efforts undertaken by the public administration (ministries, public museums) and companies (private museums, tourist centres, streaming platforms) to bring multimodal cultural heritage closer to all citizens, the true extent of access for those with disabilities or those at risk of exclusion remains largely unknown. In recent years, Translation Studies in the field of audiovisual translation have shown a particular interest in analysing the way in which the impaired public accesses multimodal contents of all kinds. Methods (qualitative and quantitative) from other disciplines have been applied and replicated, creating a profusion of studies that seek to measure and evaluate the quality of access. This article presents the PRA2 platform, an online portal for the evaluation of accessible audiovisual resources that proposes a new way of analysing the quality of reception by developing a series of online questionnaires to target the sensory and cognitively impaired public in particular. The article presents the main features of this valuable research tool as well as the preliminary results of a study hosted by the portal regarding audio description (AD) for the Guernica painting.

O PAPEL DO MERCADO NA LEGITIMAÇÃO ARTÍSTICA E ALGUNS REFLEXOS PARA HISTÓRIAS DA ARTE EM CONSTRUÇÃO / The role of the market for artistic legitimation and some reflexes for art histories under construction

O mundo contemporâneo apresenta uma série de desafios para o sistema da arte. Mudanças econômicas, sociais, culturais e organizacionais na década passada produziram um mercado global de arte cuja influência já atinge desde a produção artística à programação de importantes instituições. O número de museus privados cresce, enquanto instituições públicas não possuem verba para investir em novas aquisições para suas coleções. Nesse cenário, nos perguntamos: em 50 ou 100 anos, o que estará legitimado nas coleções institucionais referentes à atualidade? Onde estarão as obras mais significativas dos artistas brasileiros contemporâneos? Quem serão os artistas brasileiros mais reconhecidos? Quais critérios estéticos estão sendo legitimados através dos mecanismos dessa nova institucionalização no Brasil? Quais narrativas acompanharão a historicizacão da arte contemporânea brasileira? Que papel o mercado e os colecionadores privados têm desempenhado na definição de histórias da arte em construção?Palavras-chave: Mercado de arte; Legitimação; Papel do colecionador; História da arte; Arte brasileira.Abstract:The contemporary world presents a series of challenges for the art system. Economic, social, cultural and organizational changes in the past decade have produced a global art market whose influence already reaches from artistic production to the programming of important institutions. The number of private museums grows, while public institutions do not have funds to invest in new acquisitions for their collections. In this scenario, we ask ourselves: in 50 or 100 years, what will be legitimized in the institutional collections for today? Where are the most significant works by contemporary Brazilian artists? Who will be the most recognized Brazilian artists? What aesthetic criteria are being legitimized through the mechanisms of this new institutionalization in Brazil? Which narratives will accompany the historicization of contemporary Brazilian art? What role have the market and private collectors been playing in shaping art histories under construction?Keywords: Art market; Legitimation; Collector's role; Art history; Brazilian art.

Looted Nigerian heritage – an interrogatory discourse around repatriation

The colonial assault on African culture and heritage culminated in the indiscriminate looting of African cultural resources, many of which are icons in public and private museums and institutions in Europe and North America. Many more are in auction houses and art galleries outside the continent. While there is no comprehensive audit of these materials, they are estimated to run into hundreds of thousands. In this paper, attempts are made to identify the different genres of looted Nigerian materials in Europe and North America. Factors that have continued to exacerbate the looting of the country’s cultural resources are identified and attempts are made to suggest possible strategies for the repatriation of these looted treasures.

Curating Comics Canons: Daniel Clowes and Art Spiegelman’s Private Museums

This chapter includes a 2017 essay by Belgian comics scholar Benoit Crucifix examining two artist curated shows celebrating their own comics heroes and influences: Eye of the Cartoonist: Daniel Clowes’s Selections from Comics History (Wexner Center in collaboration with the Billy Ireland, 2014) and Le Musée prive d’Art Spiegelman, a selection from Spiegelman’s own collection, accompanied Co-Mix, a major retrospective of his work at the 2012 Angoulême International Comics Festival. This chapter discusses the relationship between museum and archive, cultural role of curator, comics canon, and individual’s comics history. Images: 3 exhibition photos

From Confiscation to Collection

This chapter examines two categories of material culture from the People’s Republic of China: the remnants of pre-1949 “old society,” designated the “four olds” and the focus of confiscations during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), and the products of “new society,” made for socialist New China. Using archival material and oral histories, this chapter demonstrates how objects were associated with class during the Cultural Revolution. Objects and class were related in two significant ways: an object’s class category came from the labor that begat it, and—as possessions were confiscated during the Red Guards’ house searches—the class status of the owner was reflected in the object. This chapter also considers the post-Mao afterlives of everyday objects as collectors’ items and the limits on their interpretation in private museums. Both socialist and postsocialist China have found it easier to confiscate/collect objects of the past rather than to grapple with their symbolism, which has become both more powerful and more diverse than ever prescribed by revolution.