Mark Oneill Enlightenment Museums Universal or Merely Global? Review
BENIN TO CHICAGO: IN THE UNIVERSAL MUSEUM?
BENIN TO CHICAGO: IN THE UNIVERSAL MUSEUM?
"And I am left thinking that the "Enlightenment principles on which public museums in the United States were established" accept perhaps contributed to the irreversible destruction of our universal, or cosmopolitan, cultural heritage".
David Gill,
Collecting Antiquities and Enlightenment Principles(1)
Plaque with two musicians holding gourd rattles, Benin/Nigeria, Ethnology Museum, Vienna
…The exhibition, Republic of benin: Kings and Rituals Court Arts from Nigeria, goes to the Art Found of Chicago (A.I.C.) from July 10 - September 21, 2008 as the concluding station of this travelling exhibition which, starting in Vienna, generated debates almost restitution of stolen fine art, went to Paris and Berlin. It is to exist noted that the exhibition which is the biggest ever held on Republic of benin fine art will not be seen in Nigeria. It goes side by side to Chicago. But what kind of institution is the Art Establish of Chicago?
The Art Institute of Chicago was established in 1879 as the Chicago University of Fine Arts and inverse to its nowadays proper noun in 1882. The museum is well-known for its drove of European Impressionist fine art works and American art. Although the museum has some excellent African art works, information technology is not famous/infamous for its African drove. It has some Benin objects too but not on the same calibration as the British Museum, London, and the Ethnology Museum, Berlin. Indeed, interest in African art has surprisingly not e'er been very strong in a museum in a city with a large African-American population that has a long history of subjection to the most incredible racial segregation and discrimination. Interest in African fine art in the museum has reflected interest in Africa, largely due to political changes and comeback in race relations.
According to Kathleen Berzock's fantabulous study, "African Fine art at the Art Institute of Chicago" African fine art objects used to be in the Children's Museum: "The Children'due south Museum was the only place African art could be found at the Art Plant before the 1950s when a department devoted to the arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas was developed". (ii)
The Children'south Museum was aimed at the teaching of children and had drawings, posters, illustrated books and dolls. H2o colour, wood and ivory carvings were also available to introduce children to artistic techniques. A big variety of dolls were also bachelor in the museum. "The Negro in Fine art Week", devoted to African-American art, was too held at the Children'due south Museum in 1927. The placement of African fine art in the Children's Museum was not accidental:
"While the very presence of African art in the Fine art Institute suggested interest in the works' aesthetic dimensions, its sole placement in the Children's Museum implied that it was not considered to be equal in merit or significance to art on view in the main galleries. This was not the case with works from the United States, Europe and Japan, which were exhibited in both locations. The underlying assumption was that African art appealed to less mature sensibilities and, farther, that the work of its artists was comparable to that of children. Thus, while admitted into the Art Institute'southward hallowed halls, African art was expected to be kept in its separate and unequal place, an attitude which continued well into the 1940s. Despite such sentiments, interest in African and other and then-called primitive art was growing among the Western Modernist avant-garde." (3)
When a Benin plaque was caused by the museum in 1933, the person responsible for African art at the museum stated that the acquisition "brings to our attending the astonishing discoveries of the year 1897, when for the first time the technical skill and achievements of this now corrupt civilization were brought before the civilized world". (4)
In 1957, the museum created a Section of Primitive Art which was responsible for the permanent fine art collections of African, Oceanic and Amerindian Art. In 1980, the Section of Primitive Fine art was changed into Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas and in 1995 the department was renamed the Department of African and Amerindian Art. (5) The various designations of the department to deal with African art are indicative, to some extent, of the irresolute attitudes to African art and social and racial relations. These changes tell an interesting story when one recalls that in talking about Africa, the Art Institute of Chicago leaves out, similar Hegel and others, an of import African country: Egypt. Egypt comes under the purview of the Department of Egyptian Art. In the 60's, 70'due south and 90's notable exhibitions were held at the Art Plant: "Traditional Arts of Africa's New Nations" (1961), "African Textiles and Decorative Arts" (1972), "Dogon Art from the Lester Wunderman Collection" (1975), "Aureate of Africa" (1991), and "Baule: African Fine art/Western Eyes"(1998)
The history of African art in the Fine art Institute of Chicago demonstrates that African art has not been displayed or treated in the same way as art from other continents. Where then is the support for the statement of the "universalists" that in that location is a bully advantage in having arts from cultures of the whole world under one roof? All cultures nether 1 roof but with African culture in the Children'south Museum on the assumption that Africans will never develop beyond the ability and intelligence of the boilerplate Euro-American child? Does this really help children to understand and capeesh other cultures?
What makes the Art Institute of Chicago very important, in the context of restitution, is less the objects found therein than the mental attitude of its present director, James Cuno. (half dozen)
James Cuno, Director, Fine art Constitute of Chicago, Chicago, Philippe de Montebello, Manager, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Neil MacGregor, Managing director, British Museum, London constitute a triumvirate which defends the then-chosen "universal museums." Cuno is undoubtedly the nigh outspoken and vociferous spokesman for the supporters of the so-called "universal museums" and has written articles and books in support of their stand. (7) He makes the most provocative and outrageous statements to defend the retention of stolen cultural objects found in the large museums, mostly acquired during the colonial period and in many means every bit a direct result of the use of massive violence against countries in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceania.
The well-nigh formal document of this group of museums is the infamous Declaration on the Value and Importance of the Universal Museums (2002) signed by eighteen of the biggest museums in the world. (eight)
Information technology should exist noted that the British Museum which instigated the whole joint effort in guild to counterbalance the political pressure exerted by Hellenic republic because of the Parthenon Marbles, cunningly did not sign the declaration. Only and briefly stated, these large museums take declared that they have no intention of restoring objects forcibly removed or stolen, to their countries of origin, despite several United Nations and UNESCO resolutions. (9)
In the Foreword to the catalogue to the Republic of benin Exhibition, four co-operating museums, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, Ethnology Museum, Vienna, State Museums in Berlin, and the Art Establish of Chicago, accept stated conspicuously they have no intention of returning whatever stolen objects, including the Benin bronzes and accept advised Benin/Nigeria and the African countries to forget the past and to look ahead to the future. (10)
As part of his strategy to defend objects that are nowadays illegally in Western museums, Cuno has rejected the idea that States have any ownership in archaeological objects establish on their soil:
"Anthony Appiah said something wonderful in his volume Cosmopolitanism. He says, Look nosotros don't know who fabricated these Nok sculptures, these ancient sculptures that are found today in Nigeria. We don't know if they were made for royalty or for one's ancestors or on speculation. But what we know for sure is that they weren't made for Nigeria. Because at the time there was no Nigeria." (11)
Cuno has gone so far as to deny that in that location is any connection between aboriginal Egyptian civilization and present day Arab republic of egypt or between ancient China and present-twenty-four hour period Peoples Republic of China.
"It is a stretch of the imagination to link modern Egypt to aboriginal Arab republic of egypt, modern Greece to ancient Greece, modern Rome to ancient Rome, and communist Red china to aboriginal China. Nonetheless, countries like Italia, Hellenic republic, Turkey, Red china, and many others have laws that brand any antiquity institute on their soil automatically the property of the state." (12)
"The people of modern-day Cairo exercise not speak the language of the ancient Egyptians, do not practice their religion, practise not make their art, wear their apparel, eat their food or play their music. All that can be said is that they occupy the same (really less) stretch of the earth'due south geography". (13)
Cuno also makes UNESCO responsible for destruction of cultural belongings: " In a 2006 essay in the New York Review of Books, the philosopher and Princeton professor Kwame Anthony Appiah argued that such laws have fifty-fifty destroyed antiquities. Soon after the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 1996, Appiah pointed out, it was a UNESCO treaty prohibiting the removal of antiquities from their country of origin that prevented concerned scholars from rescuing pre-Islamic artifacts before the Taliban, branding them idolatrous objects, destroyed them."(fourteen)
Such an absurd accusation should normally not deserve any comment but information technology comes from the director of ane of the major museums in the Western globe which merits to stand for all cultures in their museums. He does not seem to exist enlightened that UNESCO does not make the policies of States and that the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Consign and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970) was in no way responsible for the policy of the government in the case he mentions. What can be said about that particular issue was that the Convention would not authorize a group of Western States or scholars to dispose of a cultural object the way they deem fit confronting the will of a authorities determined to pursue a policy of destruction, however lamentable that might be.
That the outrageous and provocative statements of Cuno are non simple slips of the natural language or of the pen is demonstrated past the statements in his forthcoming book in which he expresses similar views. Tom Flynn has correctly declared, after reviewing an excerpt from the forthcoming volume:
"The UNESCO Convention has non failed. Just no amount of international conventions and agreements can overcome the obstacle represented by bellicose developed economies imposing their will on weaker nations, which has become a bespeak factor in the rise of cultural heritage desecration.
Mr. Cuno, like many leading museum directors, is currently suffering from postal service-colonial tristesse — that melancholy condition which descends with the realisation that the great universal museum collections over which they preside are no longer able to maintain the upward growth curve that began during the imperial era. Get over it.
Nosotros must now look forward to a more than equitable distribution of cloth culture. It is the American neoliberal psyche that needs to motility beyond its "pervasive misunderstanding, even intolerance of other cultures."
A proper understanding of that sense which Mr. Cuno refers to, that "aboriginal and living cultures belong to all of united states," will but really gear up in when European and North American museum directors cease assertive in their eternal and divinely-endowed office every bit custodians of global cultural heritage." (15)
It is evident that the attempts by Cuno, MacGregor, Philippe de Montebello and others to present their hardly veiled nationalist and imperialist views every bit "universalist" have woefully failed. Nobody, exterior their small group of cocky-sufficient and self-bodacious museum directors and officials will support them in their attempts to justify a celebrated perspective which is at present recognized by virtually people to have been a disaster for the globe and definitely incompatible with democracy as understood these days. You cannot preach commonwealth to Zimbabwe today and attempt to justify British imperialism of the 19th Century. Cuno regards as "nationalist" attempts to recover stolen objects but does not seem to think that those keeping illegally caused property are besides "nationalist" in their motivation? Would he perhaps hold that they are imperialist in their motivation? They are fighting for the greater glory of the United states, Bang-up United kingdom and France and their arguments are no dissimilar from those of the imperialists of the 19th Century. They see the world simply from the perspective of London, Paris and New York and cannot believe that people in Accra, Bamako, Dakar, Koforidua, Mombasa or Zaria, see things differently. It has rightly been said that Cuno'southward position smacks of "colonialism". I would add "and imperialism":
"The question smacks of arrogance and even, some might say, colonialism,'' says Chapurukha Kusimba, the Field Museum's acquaintance curator of anthropology. "When this book is finally released, at that place's going to exist a huge uproar. Information technology'due south going to portray the Fine art Institute in a very bad light." (xvi)
Cuno, like many of those who wish to retain stolen/illegally exported cultural objects in Western museums, distorts the statement of those fighting for restitution to imply that they practise not want objects of their culture to be seen outside the countries of origin or by others. He declares:
"One tin can also imagine cases when it makes sense for an antiquity to be with like artifacts from unlike cultures: Han Chinese ceramics with Roman and Mayan ceramics in London, and Greek classical bronzes with Han bronzes and even much later on Benin and Italian Renaissance bronzes in New York. Why should nosotros want to run into an antiquity only inside the country of its presumed origin? Why does it have its greatest meaning there? Why shouldn't we want to meet the fine art and antiquities of China, for instance, too in New Delhi, Athens, Rome, or United mexican states City (or London or Chicago, for that matter) with examples of comparable cultural artifacts from India, Hellenic republic, Rome, and Mesoamerica?" (17)
Cuno knows very well that nobody has ever objected to anybody seeing Han Chinese ceramics with Roman and Mayan ceramics in London and Greek classical bronzes with Han bronzes and Benin and Italian Renaissance bronzes in New York. What many of u.s. have argued is that peoples of the countries where these objects were produced should not be deprived from also seeing the objects of their culture. The people of Benin should not have to travel to Chicago, London, Berlin to see the best Benin bronzes. Africans should non have to travel to Europe or to the U.Southward.A. to meet the best African art. Is this difficult to understand? When one looks at Cuno's argument, it becomes clear that he, like his friends, Neil MacGregor, Managing director, British Museum and Philippe de Montebello, Director Mertropolitan Museum of Art, who is praising the book even before it has been published, that they look at the world only from the vantage points of Chicago, New York and London. Fifty-fifty in arguments against supporters of restitution, nigh of his examples are based on the needs for the museum visitors in New York and London. The Western world is the merely one that matters to the supporters of the "universal museum." Whilst we would want to see more than Benin objects returned to Benin, he seems to think more should be sent to New York.
Incidentally, these "universal museums" that are loud nearly fine art objects existence part of the heritage of mankind and insisting that at that place should be no restrictions or control on the catamenia of art objects from the and so-called "source countries" forget the concept of world heritage and accuse other museums for loans of cultural objects; they demand exorbitant fees for loaning their masterpieces to other museums. The Louvre is even charging the planned museum in Abu Dhabi $520 million for the right to use Louvre's name. So much for the heritage of mankind. How many African countries could afford to infringe any piece of work of fine art from the "universal museums"? The concept of heritage of mankind merely seems to piece of work when the United states of america and UK demand to defend possession of cultural objects from the rest of the world or to increase their already excessive acquisitions. We are nonetheless waiting to hear them argue for the need to send some Goyas, Picassos, Manets, and Monets etc to Abuja, Bamako, Dakar or Luanda.
How is co-performance possible between African countries and a museum such as the Fine art Plant of Chicago? African museums and institutions that cooperate with institutions that follow this line of thought must brand information technology abundantly articulate to all that their limited and specific cooperation or participation should not be misconstrued every bit endorsement or condoning of these outrageous and illegal positions. They owe it to themselves and their people not to be seen every bit selling away their cultural objects and rights. Simply how long tin they hold on to such a position when others delight in making abrasive pronouncements?
Ane can look the powerful Nigerian community in Chicago and Illinois to make its presence felt during the exhibition and its vox heard on the question of restitution. (18) It does not however seem in that location will be whatsoever debates or discussions on restitution such every bit was done in Vienna. There will be a Royal Gala celebrating the Exhibition. "Honored guests at A Royal Gala will include representatives from the Court of Benin and the Nigerian Committee on Museums and Monuments." Those wishing to participate are required to pay $200 (two hundred US dollars). In that location are, of form, rich Africans and Nigerians in Chicago and the United States. Merely I wonder how many of the Africans in that location can beget this sum. According to the proclamation, the proceeds from the gala are to be used in supporting development exchange betwixt the Art Institute of Chicago and Nigerian cultural institutions.
It has not been announced whether there volition be any other events accompanying the exhibition in Chicago. Hopefully, arrangements will be fabricated for the African guests to come across the leaders and representatives of the sizeable Nigerian and African communities as well as the bigger African-American population in Chicago. They would acquire a little more than well-nigh the universal values practised in Chicago over the centuries. They would surely be informed about developments in the Southside of Chicago and the image of Africa and the situation of African-American civilisation over the years.
The Exhibition has unintentionally rekindled the restitution debate and has for the first fourth dimension since the1897 aggression against Benin assembled many of the objects which had been spread in the world, especially in Europe and in the U.S.A. demonstrating that Benin was a cracking civilization that could have go even greater had the British not brutally attacked the kingdom and stopped its development. One of the alleged pretexts for the aggression, that Benin was a city of blood could only be accepted or supported by those who had already accepted the imperialist projection. Nobody would have accepted equally an excuse for invading, looting and called-for Chicago on the ground that it was a city of gangsters. The allegation of bloodthirstiness seems to be dearest past Europeans bent on taking control of African countries. A similar allegation was made past the British against Asante in 1874 when the real reason was the unwillingness of the Asante to allow the British to command trade on the coast of the Gold Coast.
What will happen to the Benin bronzes and the big number of stolen African art objects lying in European and American museums, mainly in depots? We know now that the Europeans and Americans accept no valid reason for keeping theses objects. They do not need them and do non use them. Will they return at least some of them? Will the future generations of Africans be more ambitious and demanding than their predecessors? Will they go along to trust the Europeans and Americans in such matters, opposite to the historical experience of some 500 years? Most likely, at that place volition be changes, perhaps sooner than later if the outrageous views of Cuno, MacGregor and de Montebello are seen to represent the official views of the Europeans and the Americans. Fortunately, at that place are other more than reasonable views even in the Western Globe:
"The trouble of what to do with strange collections from the era of
European colonialism is coming to the fore; repatriation demands from the countries of origin have emerged equally one of the challenges of globalization. The ongoing attempts to repackage and re-present these collections in response, by no means limited to ethnographic fabric, deserve the attending of anthropologists as 'cosmologies in the making'. Such revised 'cosmologies' are, as nosotros shall run across, inseparable from the social configurations of power in nation-states currently challenged by globalizing forces, and they obviously are not static. The British Museum'due south 'world cultures', Rotterdam'due south recreated Wereld museum, the Parisian 'arts premiers' extravaganza at the new Quai Branly Museum and others all involve the contestation, modification and sometimes the abandonment of older guiding categories similar 'fine art', 'ethnography' etc. In my view, the repackaging of collections beyond the Westward (including in the self-declared bastions of Western modernity in the U.s.a.) represents realignment with globalizing forces which could potentially yield a new beginning and a new one-world spirit, privileging global responsibleness over national or individual ownership. Merely whatever such 'cosmopolitanism' might as well hands be co-opted by the 'complimentary merchandise' antiquities industry, with its museum allies and associated 'globalized' power elites scrambling to fend off the increasingly intense scrutiny from regions nevertheless existence looted to fill up these museums today." Magnus Fiskesjö, (nineteen)
Kwame Opoku, 14 May, 2008.
1) David Gill, Collecting Antiquities and Enlightenment Principles, http://lootingmatters.
2) Kathleen Berzock, "African Art in the Art Constitute of Chicago" African Arts, Winter, 1999, pp.19-35, p.nineteen
3) Ibid.p.20.
4) Ibid.p.22.
5) Ibid.p.34.
6) James Cuno in interview with Richard Lacayo for Fourth dimension ("A Talk With: James Cuno", Jan 27, 2008; "More Talk: With James Cuno", January 28, 2008; K.Opoku, A bare bank check to plunder Nok terra cotta? http://www.afrikanet.info/
7) James Cuno. Whose Muse? Art Museums and the Public's Trust Princeton University Printing, 2003.
eight) See Annex I
nine) Neil MacGregor "The whole world in our easily", http://arts.guardian.co.united kingdom/; Neil MacGregor tries very courageously to present the very British institution, the British Museum every bit an institution for the earth and humanity but when he comes to deal with the British aggression confronting Republic of benin, he gives away the game by his misleading statement, containing fractional truths: "A British delegation, travelling to Republic of benin at a sacred season of the year when such visits were forbidden, was killed, though not on the orders of the Oba himself. In retaliation, the British mounted a punitive trek confronting Benin." MacGregor knows that Captain Phillips' forces, known as Benin Preemptive Forcefulness, consisted of 250 soldiers whose mission was to depose the Oba simply were surprised by the Benin forces who thus put an end to the nefarious plan. MacGregor could have added that when the British Trek force came in retaliation of the killing of Phillips and co, the Oba was exiled and his close associates executed. What kind of delegation was it that came with rifles and other warfare equipment? Of form, McGregor does not add that Benin City was looted past the British Expeditionary who terrorized the majuscule and neighbouring towns until Oba Ovonramwen gave himself upwardly. The people of Benin have asked for the render of the thousands of Benin cultural objects stolen. The British Museum which has some 700 Benin Bronzes refuses to consider such requests and responds that in any case its own rules go far impossible to render such stolen items. When MacGregor comes to mention the Parthenon/Elgin Marbles his pro British nationalism surfaces in his casting doubts on Athens every bit commonwealth:
"Athens may have been in some sense a democracy but it was also a slave-owning club and an majestic maritime ability."
There is no way MacGregor and co can make us forget the British regal nativity of the British Museum. No matter how hard he tries, the national graphic symbol of the museum, its financing, its nomination of the trustees, its unwillingness to bide by UNESCO and United Nations resolutions will prevent information technology from being considered a "universal museum" in the true sense. So long equally memories of British colonial and imperialist dominion remain, it will be difficult to convince intelligent persons from People's republic of bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, etc. that the British Museum is now there for all of us. And then long as historical and traditional accounts exist on how the thousands of objects were taken from the colonies past force and brought to London, and then long will the mistrust of the British Museum'south new campaign remain. MacGregor cannot disassociate the British Museum from military aggression since the Museum sometimes even sent its officials with the expeditionary forces to advise them on what cultural objects should be seized. We know the involvement of the museum in the assailment against Ethiopia, at Maqdala. Richard Holmes, Banana in the British Museum'due south Department of Manuscripts, had been appointed the Expedition's "archaeologist". (See Richard Pankhurst, "Maqdala and its boodle" http://www.afromet.org/history/ ) Almost often these expeditions were precede by preparatory discussions with the ethnologists and museum experts who know what was valuable in the lands to be attacked.
MacGregor has declared that nosotros need new histories and interpretations http://www.elginism.com
Such ideas should be opposed before people start re-writing colonial histories. No amount of mental gymnastics volition alter the hard facts of British majestic history. Unless MacGregor is thinking of re-writing history and at the aforementioned fourth dimension burning all history and reference books, including those published by the British Museum, he is wasting his time by calling for new histories. This reminds one of the attempts made by some dictatorial European regimes to re-write their ain history.
We read at page 97, The Collections of the British Museum, (ed.) David 1000.Wilson, published by The British Museum Press in 1989 the following:
"The Asante's skill in casting gold by the lost-wax method, and the use of elaborately worked gold to adorn the king and his servants is represented by many superb pieces which came to the Museum after British military intervention in Asante in 1874, 1896 and 1900″.
By what kind of mental contortions or interpretations tin can one avoid the plain meaning of this text? Can nosotros evade the interpretation that after iii armed services interventions past the British ground forces, the British Museum acquired elaborately worked gold pieces from Asante?
I have decided to buy very apace good books on British colonial history before this idea of re-writing or revising history catches on and accounts on colonial history are made to adjust the new vision of the Great britain Museum that the nowadays director of the museum is propagating.
What MacGregor and co could do, if they were serious most the new image they want to give to the British Museum, they could return some of the many stolen cultural objects which they have in their depots, advise to the British Parliament to modify the British Museum Act 1963 so that the museum could easily dispose of objects it does not demand. A skilful start would be to return the ivory mask of Idia to Nigeria, the Rosetta Stone to Egypt, return some of the Ethiopian manuscripts and crosses to Ethiopia and other objects wanted past the countries of origin. How the British can go along Christian religious objects abroad from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and even so have good consciences is something just they can explicate. They brand a lot of fuss about freedom of religion and yet deprive others of the elements they crave for their religious exercise. The British Museum should besides requite up any pretence to possessing copyright in stolen objects which have been lying in their depots for hundreds of years and to which they have made no intellectual input. Surely, the basis of copyright cannot be the possession of stolen appurtenances. Ex turpi causa non oritur actio- a right of action does non arise out of an evil cause.
To hijack the icons of African religions and cultures so demand from Africans payment for the copyright for the employ of the images of the icons of their culture is more than problematic. The wrongdoer benefits twice from his wrongdoing and punishes twice the owners of the objects. Moreover, 1 disturbs the development of African aesthetics by taking away most of the masterpieces. How can i think of reconciliation or co-operation with peoples whose religious and cultural symbols one has seized and is unwilling to return?
MacGregor may have taken the championship of his article from a traditional Christian gospel song. However, on the background of his writings and pronouncements even the title, "The whole world in our hands" sounds imperialistic and reminds one of the evangelistic fervour of colonial priests who felt they had to destroy traditional African religions and bring Christianity to the "heathens". Those who desire to reform majestic institutions must starting time understand the imperialist nature of those institutions and their impact on others. Those whom they want to convince know this all too well, having being at the receiving terminate of colonial orders. Tin can MacGregor and co understand what information technology means to be an African nether British colonial rule? Is he enlightened of the daily humiliations and the insults to one's national pride and cocky-balls?
The attempt to achieve some course of reconciliation with the African peoples without reparation and restitution i.e. without admission of fault and correction of by injustices is bound to fail.
MacGregor knows besides as everyone that the British Museum contributed greatly to the debased image of the African in British society through the various exhibitions and shows of colonial peoples depicting them every bit savages and thereby providing a lot of justifications for racism. The presentation of the colonized peoples equally archaic was the main contribution of the British Museum and the anthropologists. MacGregor tin can pretend the museum provided grounds for respecting African culture by presenting Republic of benin art. This will not fool anyone who knows the story of Benin.
Philippe de Montebello has expressed some of his views in, inter alia, Whose Culture is it? http://www.americanacademy; see also K. Opoku, "LIVING IN A Unlike WORLD: JUSTIFICATIONS FOR NON-RESTITUTION OF STOLEN CULTURAL OBJECTS; Tom Flynn, The Universal Museum - a valid model for the 21st Century? http://world wide web.tomflynn.co.united kingdom/ ; Mark O'Neill, "Enlightenment museum - universal or but global?" http://www.le.ac.uk/ms/
10) Barbara Plankensteiner (Ed), Republic of benin: Kings and Rituals - Court Arts from Nigeria, Snoeck Publishers, Ghent, 2007; 1000. Opoku, "Opening of the Exhibition Benin - Kings and Rituals: Courtroom Arts from Nigeria". http://world wide web.afrikanet.info/
11) Richard Lacayo, "A Talk with James Cuno" http://www.elginism.com run into also, Yard. Opoku, "A blank check to plunder Nok terra cotta?" http://www.afrikanet.info/
12) Drake Bennett, "Finders, Keepers", http://world wide web.boston.com/bostonglobe/finders_keepers / encounter also Thou. Opoku, "Holders of Illegal Cultural Objects Alarmed past Growing Demands for Restitution". http://www.afrikanet.info/
13) Cited in Andrew Hermann, "You can't have your stuff back". http://www.suntimes.com/
14) Drake Bennett, "Finders, Keepers", http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/finders_keepers/;see also G. Opoku, "Holders of Illegal Cultural Objects Alarmed past Growing Demands for Restitution". http://world wide web.afrikanet.info/
fifteen) Tom Flynn, Mr Cuno takes off the gloves http://tom-flynn.blogspot.com/ ; see also David Gill, "James Cuno on Antiquities" http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/ ; Andrew Hermann, Yous can't have your stuff back, http://www.culturalheritagelaw
sixteen) Chapurukha Kusimba quoted by Andrew Hermann, Yous can't have your stuff dorsum. http://www.suntimes.com/
17) James Cuno: Who Owns Antiquity? Princeton University Press 2008, http://printing.princeton.edu/capacity/i8602.pdf
(18) Come across Annex 2 "Tension Mounts Over Benin Artifacts in U.South".http://allafrica.com/
19) Magnus Fiskesjö "The problem with globe culture", in Anthropology Today, Vol.23, No.v, Oct. 2007, p.6- eleven.
Annex I
DECLARATION ON THE IMPORTANCE AND VALUE OF UNIVERSAL MUSEUMS
The international museum community shares the conviction that illegal traffic in archaeological,
artistic and indigenous objects must exist firmly discouraged. We should, however, recognize that objects
caused in earlier times must be viewed in the light of dissimilar sensitivities and values, cogitating of
that before era. The objects and monumental works that were installed decades and even centuries agone
in museums throughout Europe and America were acquired under conditions that are not comparable
with current ones.
Over time, objects so caused—whether by buy, souvenir, or partage—take become part of the
museums that take cared for them, and by extension part of the heritage of the nations which house
them. Today we are especially sensitive to the field of study of a work'south original context, but we should not
lose sight of the fact that museums too provide a valid and valuable context for objects that were long
ago displaced from their original source.
The universal admiration for ancient civilizations would non be so deeply established today were information technology not
for the influence exercised by the artifacts of these cultures, widely available to an international public
in major museums. Indeed, the sculpture of classical Greece, to take but ane example, is an excellent
illustration of this signal and of the importance of public collecting. The centuries-long history of
appreciation of Greek art began in antiquity, was renewed in Renaissance Italia, and after
spread through the rest of Europe and to the Americas. Its accession into the collections of public
museums throughout the world marked the significance of Greek sculpture for mankind as a whole
and its enduring value for the gimmicky world. Moreover, the distinctly Greek artful of these
works appears all the more strongly equally the consequence of their being seen and studied in direct proximity to
products of other bully civilizations.
Calls to repatriate objects that have belonged to museum collections for many years have become an
important issue for museums. Although each case has to be judged individually, we should
acknowledge that museums serve not just the citizens of ane nation but the people of every nation.
Museums are agents in the development of culture, whose mission is to foster knowledge by a
continuous process of reinterpretation. Each object contributes to that process. To narrow the focus of
museums whose collections are diverse and multifaceted would therefore be a disservice to all
visitors.
Signed past the Directors of:
The Art Institute of Chicago
Bavarian State Museum, Munich (Alte Pinakothek,
Neue Pinakothek)
State Museums, Berlin
Cleveland Museum of Art
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Los Angeles Canton Museum of Art
Louvre Museum, Paris
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Modern Fine art, New York
Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Prado Museum, Madrid
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
http://www.clevelandart.org/museum/info/CMA206_Mar7_03.pdfANNEX II
Nigeria: Tension Mounts over Republic of benin Artifacts in U.S.
nineteen September 2007
Posted to the web 19 September 2007
Joseph Omoremi
Due north
Tempers are high among Nigerians resident in Chicago, United States of Amercia (USA) following a planned exhibition of 220 royal artifacts allegedly stolen from Republic of benin Kingdom during the colonial and post colonial era.
But consultations have begun to stave off possible legal activity or confrontation between the affected Nigerians and organizers of the exhibition, Museum Fur Volkerkunde, Vienna in Austria.
The exhibition is slated for between July 10 and September 21, 2008 and would hold at the Arts Institute of Chicago (AIC).
A programme of events released by the establish recently listed "Benin Kings and Rituals: Courts Arts of Nigeria" as 1 of the proposed exhibition.
The art institute which is both a museum and school, was founded in 1879 to present temporary exhibitions that include loaned objects of art of all kinds; and to cultivate and extend the arts past appropriate ways.
Kingsley Ehi, president of Edo Arts and Heritage in Chicago is scheduled to see the exhibitors this week. "We have to choose our fight. We cannot return burn down for fire because of the legal toll, Ehi told the Chicago Inquirer terminal week, calculation "the artifacts don't vest to them. Nosotros expect them to render them to the rightful owner."
Prince Iyi Eweka, one of the descendants of Benin King and professor in neighboring Wisconsin will likewise be at the meeting. The meeting is being arranged past Leah Hope, a broadcaster with ABC television in Chicago and a fellow member of AIC Leadership Advisory Committee.
Members of the Edo Arts and Heritage in Chicago were non particularly happy with statements credited to the Vienna museum that the artifacts would have been lost or stolen anyway if left in Benin, the capital of Edo Land in the present mean solar day Nigeria had they non taken it in the first instance.
"Nosotros thank them for keeping it but since they realized that they are not the rightful owner, it should be returned to Benin. We are fix to piece of work with them to discover an amicable solution," Ehi who doubles equally a existent estate broker said. Almost of the artefacts to be exhibited in Chicago side by side year include finely bandage bronze figures, altar heads, wall plaques, and staffs of function; sculpted ivories; royal regalia and jewellery in contumely, coral, and ivory. and other accoutrements of life at court.
"It includes many of the greatest Benin works now housed in collections across Europe, the Uk, the The states, and Nigeria," co-ordinate to a argument by AIC.The exhibition is planned with unnamed prominent scholars of Republic of benin art, history and civilization too as the cooperation of reigning Oba Erediauwa and the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria is expected to bring international attention and new perspectives to Republic of benin art. Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka had lamented how precious Nigerian artefacts were stolen and replaced with duplicates to deceive unsuspecting Nigerians and art lovers around the world.
He enumerated in his latest volume "You must set forth at down" how Ipakoelede, a prized Ile Ife art was lumped in British museum forth with other artefacts from Ile-Ife and Nigeria.Hope is however ready to run across with other Nigerian system to tone downward any opposition to the exhibition and participate actively in Nigerian-American programs.
In that location are over 100,000 Nigerian-Americans across Chicagoland and a revived system of Nigerian Customs in Chicagoland (NCC.)NCC scribe, Sam Aiwowo told The Chicago Inquirer that the Edo customs were open to discussions and that the United African Arrangement (UAO), the umbrella organizations of Africans in Chicago would be involved in the talks.
Most of the artworks were either looted and auctioned later on "Benin Castigating Trek" captured Benin City in 1897 and burnt down the looted king's palace after a three day fighting.
A number of the loot were kept as souvenirs by the members of the expedition, and about 2500 pieces co-ordinate to British official figures were taken to England, and were sold at sale in Paris (France) by the British Admiralty to offset the cost of the invasion and destruction of Republic of benin City.
The British Museum bought 289 pieces of the loot, 1,085 pieces were bought by German museums and the rest by private collectors. The majority of these stolen Edo artworks are today on display in many European museums, whose curators insist that the loot in their possessions were legitimately caused.
BENIN PLAQUE
Plaque of a State of war Chief, Benin/Nigeria, Art Plant of Chicago
http://world wide web.museum-security.org/benin_to_chicago.doc Page
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