Analysis

Opinion, analysis, and commentary on the issues and events of the day. In-depth reports examine how US government and museum policies impact scholarship, trade, and public access to art. Contributors from museum directors to art critics to legal and academic specialists and collectors discuss current controversies and how to reform and improve US cultural policy.

Cultural Property News is committed to correcting the record on misleading information in the media, including the widely accepted myth of a multi-billion-dollar illegal trade in art. The Analysis section includes research reports that track the spread of phony stories, debunking the claim that money is flowing to terrorists from art dealers selling looted art.

We cover stories on changes to domestic and international laws. For example, a restrictive 2016 law has already forced out major collectors, businesses and auction houses from Germany. We examine proposed European Commission trade regulations with similar effect for 2018.

This section also sets forth a variety of solutions to the current cultural property crisis. While some extremists want to end the thousand-year-old trade in global antiquities, others, including members of the museum community, have responded by calling for taking global responsibility for the protection of heritage in crises, funding for global museums in under-served regions, creating legal, digitally documented markets, enabling museums to securely acquire art, and giving repose to works that have circulated for decades.