The Real Price of art: International UNESCO campaign reveals the hidden face of art trafficking

UNESCO is launching an international communication campaign to make the general public and art lovers aware of the devastation of the history and identity of peoples wreaked by the illicit trade in cultural goods.

As shown by The Real Price of Art campaign, in some cases, the looting of archaeological sites, which fuels this traffic, is highly organized and constitutes a major source of financing for criminal and terrorist organizations.

The campaign marks the 50th anniversary of UNESCO’s Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property adopted in 1970. Developed by UNESCO with concrete measures to combat this scourge, the Convention is a global framework of reference in this field.

The Real Price of Art campaign, created with the communication agency DDB Paris, draws on the language of the worlds of art and design to reveal the dark truth behind certain works. Each visual presents an object in situ, integrated into a buyer's home. The other side of the decor is then revealed: terrorism, illegal excavation, theft from a museum destroyed by war, the cancelling of a people's memory... Each message tells the story of an antique stolen from a region of the world (Middle East, Africa, Europe, Asia and Latin America).

Broadcast from 20 October, the campaign is the harbinger of a number of events to mark the anniversary, among them the first International Day against Illicit Trafficking in Cultural Property (14 November), and an international conference (16-18 November) organized in partnership with the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, the European Commission and the Council of Europe. The conference aims to take the measure of priorities and challenges in fighting illicit trafficking by region and share solutions. A special issue of the UNESCO Courier is also devoted to this topic and available online.

In an initial version of UNESCO’s campaign, the ‘Real Price of Art’, some posters displayed items from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) database, which is in the public domain. UNESCO’s intention was to alert the general public by depicting objects of high cultural value, which should be on display in museums, presented in luxurious private interiors. UNESCO had no intention of questioning the provenance of items in the MET collection. 

After discussions with the MET, who is a valuable partner to UNESCO, and in order to avoid any misunderstanding, UNESCO decided to remove all pictures of items from the MET collection. Only three magazines had already been printed. The digital versions of these publications were modified.

The rationale of the campaign is to capture the attention the general public with a view to encouraging them to exercise due diligence when purchasing cultural property. The campaign has been widely spread and original posters are shown above.

UNESCO regrets the use of MET images that caused any misunderstanding.

• More information
• UNESCO Media Contact: Clare O'Hagan
• DDB Paris press contact: Anne-Marie Gibert