ABOUT
The value of cultural heritage is inherently connected with the characteristic of being public.
Although it has been posited in aesthetic theory that there is no such thing as “private art,” ownership structures for cultural property indicate tensions between notions of public and private in the cultural heritage space and accompanying challenges of identifying and agreeing upon what values are indeed the public ones at the heart of the notion of cultural heritage.
Notwithstanding this tension and accompanying challenges, it is increasingly evident that disagreement, dissent, and contestation can generate corrections in both legal and market infrastructures, as well as important considerations within the policy-making and regulatory process. The “public trust” mirrors the theme of “disagreement.” The former is inherent in the judgment of state actors: the public must have confidence that administrative agencies, government offices, courts and even civil servants tasked with applying and interpreting laws protecting and valorizing art and cultural heritage are, in fact, acting for the public’s benefit.