ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with juxtaposing two unlikely yet not unrelated subjects: the aftermath of a Nazi-traded artwork saga and a postcolonial archive in a contemporary art space. It compares these two subjects to develop a better understanding of what it call “awkward art”; that is, first, practices, institutions, objects, and discourses whose status as art is contested, and which, second, are considered uncomfortable. Awkward art describes practices, objects, and discourses that are problematized as disruptive and uncomfortable in contemporary contexts of artistic presentation, because of the way in which they have come into being, were circulated, and exhibited. The “neglect of art in modern social anthropology,” writes Gell, “is necessary and intentional”. It arises “from the fact that social anthropology is essentially, constitutionally, anti-art”. “Gurlitt” has become a byword for one of the most notorious discoveries of Nazi art dealership after the Second World War.
