INFO: Selling Stolen Bronze - The System Is A Fence

SOTHEBY'S IS TRAFFICIKING IN

STOLEN BENIN ARTWORKS

A colleague brought to my attention Sotheby’s impending sale of yet another piece of Benin cultural patrimony. I read the announcement of the sale and was struck by its brazenness. Sotheby's is trafficking in stolen goods and it is doing so without any concern for the fact of its brazen criminality. It is clear that the Benin artworks are a contested collection of cultural artifacts. The history of their plunder from Benin is not in doubt, and the Benin Kingdom has never at any time given up its claim to these artworks. There has been significant amount of words written about the history of the British plunder of Benin and why the artworks should be repatriated. How is it then that despite the constant requests for the repatriation of these artworks and their clear identification as stolen goods, they continue to be sold by firms such as Sotheby’s without any hesitation?

The Benin art corpus is known by everyone to have been stolen from Benin in 1897, and ironically, their history of being plundered is the main prop used to affirm their authenticity in all the sales of these artworks for over 100 years. The legal issue here is quite simple: is it ever possible to have legal ownership of a stolen good? In other words, if an artwork or piece of property is clearly identified as a stolen item, can anyone other than the known owner of that stolen item ever have a valid legal claim to it? Western institutions that hold African cultural patrimony seem to believe they can legally own stolen goods and so far haven't shown any willingness to examine their shameful actions in this regard.

The Sotheby's announcement makes a point of stating that the mask and five other Benin objects will be sold by descendants of Sir Henry Gallway, who participated in the looting of Benin city in 1897. All the Benin objects identified in the proposed sale are clearly identified as belonging to Benin kings who did not cede their title to the artworks to anyone (the coerced abdication of the Benin throne enforced by the invading British would be illegal in any court today: in 1991, the USA went to war to prevent Iraq from annexing Kuwait based on such principles). There is also no doubt that all Benin artworks in any museum of institution in the world belongs to His Highness, Oba Erediauwa, great grandson of Oba Ovonramwen and the reigning kind of Benin. Despite all this facts, the descendants of a known British thief and vandal who stole the Idia mask from Benin stand to make between 3.5 and 4.5 million British pounds on the sale of an artwork commissioned and paid for by a Benin king (Esigie), which was a representation of his mother (Iyoba Idia) was used as part of the royal regalia of an existing kingdom, while it is clear no single penny will accrue to the Benin king or his descendants from the sale of this item of cultural heritage.

The Benin kingdom and other wellwishers have mounted various legal challenges to the ownership and sales of Benin artworks by various Western institutions. So far, all these challenges have been dismissed without being given a proper hearing. I have reviewed some of these challenges and the possibility of bringing a new legal challenge through American courts and found that it is quite impossible to challenge these matters in court. The legal process here is very expensive and the barriers to getting your day in court are often too high to bear. Moreover, Africans are forced to prove their claims in courts constituted primarily to legally dispossess them of claims to their lives, bodies and natural resources. In the meantime, Western institutions continue to profit from African life and labor. Think about it: millions of Africans were sold into slavery and African land and natural resources were plundered to finance the Western ascendancy of the past five hundred years. Today, African resources continue to support Western development while the continent remains the poorest on the planet. The plunder of cultural resources deprives Africans of their history and of the economic value and equity of their cultural patrimony: all these flow into the coffers of Western institutions without bringing a single economic benefit to the African contexts of their production.

Leaving aside the ongoing looting of the continent and continued use of its inhabitants as guinea pigs by various Western corporations, I think the greatest error that has been made in scholarly studies of African artworks and cultural patrimony is the pervasive idea that African artworks are products of nebulous “community action”. Artworks from Africa are always stripped of their links to particular individuals and economic contexts by their identification as the product of a group ethos. The Benin people did not create the artworks in question here: the pectoral masks of Iyoba Idia were created by specific Benin kings as part of the state’s political and economic obligations. It was stolen from the bedroom of Oba Ovonramwen in 1897. For over six hundred years, Benin kings spent huge portions of the national wealth supporting the creation of lavish artworks and sustaining the specialized guilds that made these artworks. You can still see descendants of the guilds in Benin. African artworks were commissioned by various individuals and institutions, paid for in very real economic terms, and then incorporated into the cultural equity of the individuals and institutions that commissioned them. These artworks are not random creations: they were part of complex systems of knowledge management and economic exchange. Their plunder left their owners significantly poorer. It is tragic that the descendants of the thieves who stole these artworks from Africa should so brazenly benefit from their plunder when the descendants of the Africans who created the artworks receive no share at all in their economic value.

Some commentators have suggested that Africans should try to buy back their stolen artworks when these come to public auction. I consider such suggestions preposterous since it allows the vandals who plundered Africa to benefit from their plunder twice over. When Britain and other colonial powers pay restitution to Africa for the rape of the continent,then I will entertain such suggestions. In the absence of any real compensation for centuries of plunder and genocide against Africans, raising this issue at all is clearly a racist form of responsibility avoidance.

All across the world today, many stolen artworks are being repatriated to their countries of origins. No one is asking the cultural owners of these artworks to pay for the privilege of retrieving their ancestors' properties. Therefore, the relevant issue is whether Africans have any legal rights to their lives, natural and cultural resources. At what point does the brazen dispossession of Africa become a significant political, economic and moral issue? The Sotheby's sale is part of a broad disregard for the very real impact of dispossession on the reality and fortunes of black Africans today. There is no justice here and it does not appear that black Africans or their descendants will be afforded any kind of legal justice in the prevailing context of white Western power. And yes, this is clearly a racial issue. Zahi Hawass has by and large stopped Western institutions from brazenly trafficking in Egyptian artifacts. He continues to negotiate the return of large numbers of looted Egyptian artworks back to Egypt. Most of these artworks were removed from Egypt more than 250 years ago. Italy has repatriated artworks to Libya. Western museums have repatriated artworks to South Africa. But so far, all requests for repatriation or reparation by black Africans have been dismissed without hearing. This is not surprising: African Americans have so far only received an apology for their centuries –long enslavement and, through their overwhelming imprisonment, they continue to fatten the coffers of modern-day slaveholders who run various prisons in the USA. There has never been any Western country held accountable for their actions in Africa, not even Belgium that oversaw the genocide of close to 10 million Congolese between 1880 and 1920. Sotheby's multi-million dollar sale of stolen Benin artwork would seem insignificant within such a list of atrocities against Africa but make no mistake, it is part of the same current of morally and ethically dubious actions unfolding without any regard at all for African concerns.

It is therefore time for all Africans who have the resources to contribute to a massive effort to bring the global legal system to bear on these institutions who traffic in stolen African cultural patrimony. There are already precedents: the Holocaust reparation legal challenge is a clear precedence; so is the Native American Graves Repatriation and Protection Act. The issue of African cultural patrimony is an urgent human rights issue. Africans deserve equal access to and equal share of the economic value of artworks created by their ancestors. More importantly, they deserve to have a say in what happens to these artworks in the contemporary era. These artworks arrived in the West on a boat of plunder and bloodshed. Uncountable numbers of African lives were destroyed in the avaricious pursuit of colonization by Western powers. There needs to be an accounting for this history. Western institutions like Sotheby’s that broker the sale of these artworks should also cease and desist. They may not be legally liable for their actions today, but they will be legally liable at some time in the future.

via aachronym.blogspot.com

___________________________________

 

Some Thoughts on the Benin Bronzes

James Cuno (in Who Owns Antiquity?[2008]) takes six objects from the holdings of the Art Institute of Chicago to demonstrate its character as an "encyclopedic museum". The third piece is a bronze plaque from Benin that was acquired in 1933; Cuno speculates that it probably "left" the kingdom of Benin following the punitive raid by the British in 1897.

Kwame Anthony Appiah (Cosmopolitanism [2006]) also uses the Benin bronzes as he asks the question, "Whose Culture Is it, Anyway?"
Some of the heirs to the kingdom of Benin, the people of Southwest Nigeria, want the bronze their ancestors cast, shaped, handled, wondered at. They would like to wonder at—if we will not let them touch—that very thing. The connection people feel to cultural objects that are symbolically theirs, because they were produced from within a world of meaning by their ancestors—the connection to art through identity—is powerful. It should be acknowledged. The cosmopolitan, through, wants to remind us of other connections.
Kwame Opoku has also been commenting on these same bronzes (e.g. "Is James Cuno a “Nationalist Retentionist”?", ModernGhana.com, July 4, 2008; see also a series of postings on Afrikanet.info). His passionate essays have prompted me to hunt through some of the news archives to see what I could find about the dispersal of Benin Bronzes. I cannot pretend this is comprehensive list, but it gives a little bit of the background to this debate.

The "Benin Punitive Expedition" was assembled in January 1897 (see "The Benin Expedition", The Times January 20, 1897). This was in response to the killing of a British party around January 1, 1897 ("Massacre of a British Expedition in West Africa", The Times January 12, 1897). The accounts of the assault on Benin city are chilling. An eye-witness at the inquest into the death of one of the British officers mentioned that the British troops turned their Maxim guns on the defenders who fell from the trees "like nuts" ("The Death of Captain Byrne", The Times March 27, 1897).

This is the context for the removal of these bronzes from Benin City. When Appiah asks us to make "connections", these are the images that spring to mind.

"Loot" soon returned to England. One of the first examples was the display of "Some interesting bronzes from Benin City" that were put on display in the Royal Colonial Institute in London in June 1897. The notice that appeared in the Court Circular of The Times (July 1, 1897) mentioned the bronzes, "the precise origin of which is at present unknown". The bronzes were on loan from the Hon. G.W. Neville, MLC, "of Lagos"; The Times cryptically added that Neville "had accompanied Admiral Sir H. Rawson's recent expedition". (For Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson see ODNB; "he advanced to Benin city to punish the massacre in January of British political officers ... Benin was captured and looted, then accidentally burnt.")

Some of the material removed from Benin City passed into national collections. Ormonde Maddock Dalton and Hercules Read of the British Museum produced a catalogue, Antiquities from the City of Benin (London: British Museum, 1899). David M. Wilson's authoritative The British Museum: A History (London: British Museum, 2002) rather skates over the issue:
Franks and his colleagues ... were, as yet, not interested in the material as art - that came with the acquisition of the Benin bronzes at the end of the century ... (p. 161).

... [Dalton's] work on his seminal catalogue of recently acquired material from the Nigerian kingdom of Benin ... (p. 225)
Surely some mention of the circumstances of the acquisition would have been appropriate?

A taste for "Benin Bronzes" quickly developed. On September 12, 1899, a "Sale of Benin Bronzes" took place at "Mr J.C. Stevens's rooms, King-street, Covent-garden' in London (The Times September 13, 1899). This was described as "an unusually choice collection of very fine Benin bronzes" that "included many of the finest specimens yet offered, and mostly came from the palace and ju-ju house of the late King of Benin". The same auction rooms offered "A marvellous collection of BENIN BRONZES consisting of about 500 pieces" as one lot in June 1902 (see notice in The Times, May 17, 1902; report, June 4, 1902). These had been "taken by the British punitive expedition under the command of Admiral Rawson in February, 1897". Among the pieces sold were "ivory tusks carved with figures, animals, &c." (compare Cuno's Who Owns Antiquity? fig. 4 for a "Court of Benin Ivory").

A further selection of Benin bronze surfaced on the London market (in 128 lots) in May 1930 ("Benin Bronzes", The Times April 7, 1930). These came from the collection formed by George William Neville, a member of the "Benin Punitive Expedition". His obituary in The Times November 30 1929 commented,
One of Neville's exploits was to accompany the punitive military expedition to Benin in 1897, from which he returned with a remarkable collection of Benin curiosities.
The 1930 report continued:
In the King's compound [at Benin] and the ju-ju houses were discovered numerous works of art in ivory, bronze, brass, &c., buried, in several instances, and covered with the blood of human sacrifice.

These pieces came from the same collection displayed at the Royal Colonial Institute back in the summer of 1897. A further example of the material from Benin City surfacing on the market is provided by the collection formed by Dr R. Allman, medical officer for the Benin Punitive Expedition. This was sold at Sotheby's in December 1953 (The Times December 8, 1953).

Can we ignore the way that these bronzes moved from Benin City to the market and thence to private and public collections? Kwame Opoku has been right to remind us of these shameful issues.

 

___________________________________

 

British Museum under pressure to give up leading treasures

The British museum is to come under renewed pressure to give up leading treasures as 16 countries plan to sign a declaration that demands the return of artefacts sent overseas generations ago.

British museum under pressure to give up leading treasures: Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone at the British museum in London Photo: AP
by Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent 7:39PM BST 07 Apr 2010

The demand, issued in Cairo at the end of a two-day conference, is addressed to every country that holds ancient relics.

Western museum hold most of the items listed by countries ranging from China to Mexico. The British museum is the principal target because of the prominence of the artefacts it owns.

Egypt wants returned include the Rosetta stone in the British Museum and the bust of Nefertiti in Berlin's Neues Museum. Both the British and Neues Museum have rejected the demand.

The conference was hosted by Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, who has been an outspoken campaigner for the return of lost treasures.

Mr Hawass acknowledged that there was no international legal basis for the demands but said a united stand between affected nations would bolster the claims.

RELATED ARTICLES

"Instead of Egypt fighting on its own, let's all fight together. let's all come out with a wishlist," he said. "We need to co-operate all of us especially with that wish list. we need all of us to come with one list and fight until we return this artefacts back.

"Forget the legal issue," he said. "Important icons should be in their motherland, period."

A spokeswoman said the British museum had not received an official request from Egypt.

"The British Museum has not received an official request for the permanent return of the Rosetta Stone," she said. "The Museum has received a request from the Supreme Council of Antiquities requesting the short term loan of the stone for the opening of the new museum in Giza in 2012 or 2013. The Trustees of the British Museum will consider this request in due course."

It has faced a long running campaign by the Greek government for the return of the Elgin Marbles which were taken from the Parthenon at the outset of the 19th century.

Elana Korka, a Greek culture ministry official said the marbles were its prime concern. "We would like to see some good faith," she said. "They are the Parthenon marbles and that is where they belong."

International conventions written since 1954 prohibited wartime looting, theft and resale of artefacts but the agreements don't apply to items taken abroad before national or global laws were in force.

Nigeria has listed its claims for the Benin bronzes, which are also housed from the British Museum. Mexico has demanded the return of a feathered headdress of a tribal warrior and China has sought the handover of astrological items looted from the Summer Palace in Beijing during the Second Opuim War.

Artefacts that are on the looted list:

1 Elgin Marbles

(British Museum)

Greece has long fought to reclaim the frieze stripped from the Parthenon at the behest of the 7th Earl of Elgin in 1801

2 Rosetta Stone

(British Museum) Egypt demands the return of the 2,200-year-old stone tablet that holds the key to translating ancient hieroglyphs

3 Summer Palace

bronzes (private French owner)

China claims bronze heads from a zodiac clock were stolen during the Second Opium War in 1860

4 Benin Bronzes (British Museum) Nigeria lays claim to the royal treasures of Benin, saying that they were seized by British troops in 1897

5 Queen Nefertiti (Berlin Neues Museum)

Egypt wants the 3,500-year-old bust of the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten returned

 

BENIN EXHIBITION IN CHICAGO...

Guest Blogger Kwame Opoku considers issues of African cultural patrimony engendered by the traveling exhibition of Benin Art, at the Art Institute of Chicago.
******************
BENIN EXHIBITION IN CHICAGO: CUNO AGREES TO CONSIDER REQUEST FOR RESTITUTION OF BENIN BRONZES
© Kwame Opoku, 2008

The exhibition, Benin - Kings and Rituals: Royal Arts from Nigeria, which started in Vienna, in 2007, went on to Paris and Berlin, was opened in Chicago, on 10 July and will be there until 21 September 2008. For various reasons, including the fear of litigation and judicial attempts to seize some of the Benin bronzes, only some 220 objects will be displayed in Chicago compared to some 300 objects in Berlin. The bad consciences of some of the holders of these objects seem to have been activated by the previous protests in Chicago and the discussions on the illegality and illegitimacy of their possession. Hence some owners were not willing to let their artifacts cross the Atlantic to the USA where judges are quick to order seizure of artworks which are alleged to have been stolen or dubious provenance.

A 40 page catalog specifically made for the Chicago exhibition, Benin: Royal Arts of a West African Kingdom,(click here for images of artworks from the exhibition) does not appear to be ready yet but will highlight 22 masterpieces from Benin art and includes as essay by the curator, Kathleen Bickford Berzock. As we have mentioned in various articles, the 535 page catalog edited by Barbara Plankensteiner for the exhibition in Vienna, Paris and Berlin is a masterwork and should be also consulted by all those seriously interested in the arts of Benin. (1) The home page of the Art Institute of Chicago contains very useful information, including videos for the understanding of the exhibition and the arts and culture of Benin. 

According to reports from Chicago, the opening of the exhibition was an impressive affair with the presence of the august Nigerian visitors as well as prominent Nigerians based in Chicago and Illinois.(2) Important Chicago officials such as the Mayor were present as well as Reverend Jesse Jackson, the African-American leader and activist. Edo singers and dancers as well as West African bands were also there to contribute to the occasion in African fashion by providing music, an indispensable element in all African social activities. Once again, the Benin Royal Family emphasized the need for the return of the artworks which were stolen by the British in 1897. Princess Theresa Evbakhavbokun Erediauwa stated that she wants to build a secure museum in Benin. She and the Nigerian officials there asked for support in recovering the artworks back through diplomatic channels. She wanted her family heirlooms back. These objects tell the story of her family. Chief Esosa Godwin Eghobamien stated that the presence on the artworks in Benin would provide more and better context. Visitors to exhibitions where these objects are displayed often do not even know where Benin is and it would be better if they came to see where the artworks were produced and thus see where civilization started in Africa. Kingsley Ehi, a real estate manager in Chicago and head of the Edo Arts and Cultural Heritage expressed the hope that these artworks will soon be returned home.

Despite the sad story of the looting of the Benin bronzes, Prince Ademola Iyi-Eweka was impressed by the exhibition; he would like the artworks to be returned. The world should know that Benin has survived despite losing the war against the British. Diplomatic efforts are being made to secure the Benin bronzes but if that fails, steps would be taken to institute legal proceedings. James Cuno, Director of the Art Institute of Chicago, responded to the plea of the Nigerian representatives by saying that the Art Institute of Chicago which is not involved, only possesses half a dozen Benin works of art which are beautiful and important. The encyclopaedic museum allowed art works from various countries to be seen at one place and their interconnections. He was concerned by the trend towards consolidating art from a particular time or place in a single location. A dispersal of the objects enables more people to see the objects and also reduces the risk of calamity. Despite all this, Cuno stated that if there were a request for the return of the Benin objects, the Art Institute of Chicago would consider it seriously.

Cuno’s statement must be considered as noteworthy of attention, coming from a man considered by many as the defender of the “universal museum”’ a guru for all those who believe nothing should leave the British Museum and similar “universal museums.” (3) Cuno has made repeated attacks on those he calls “nationalist retentionists” for claiming ownership of artifacts of ancient peoples with whom they have nothing in common except that they occupy the same territory as the ancient civilizations. The report on Cuno’s statement is sketchy and we do not have his exact words. We do not know whether he repeated his usual criticism of those claiming restitution in his abrasive style in presence of the Royal Family of Benin and the Nigerian officials. If the statements attributed to him are to be believed, then Cuno has made a small but significant shift in his stand. He did not dismiss outright such claims but is willing to consider such claims. Willingness to consider does not imply acceptance of the claim but it at least shows an admission that such claims may be valid in some cases.

We do not have the full text of Cuno’s statement and may never have it since it appears to be the policy or practice of this exhibition not to publish the full text of statements made at the opening. I still have not seen any text of statements made in Vienna, Paris or Berlin. This is an interesting practice in a scholarly matter. We hope that when Cuno says he will consider the matter when a request is made, he is suggesting that so far no request has been made since this will be blatantly false. The Nigerians have repeatedly in Vienna, Berlin and Chicago made it clear that they want the Benin artworks back. What else must they do? We have shown in several articles that there is no legal requirement for a formal demand. If the Art Institute is willing to consider returning some of the Benin bronzes but feels that the Institute’s regulations or some binding law would require written demand, he should in good faith, inform the Nigerians about this requirement and the relevant procedure. He should not leave it to the Nigerians to beat about the bush. Any other approach would seem to be merely delaying tactic. Cuno as well as the Nigerians are interested in clearing this matter if the co-operation he hopes for is to be fruitful.

A goodwill gesture by the Art Institute of Chicago would be an encouragement to those holding hundreds of Benin bronzes to come forward and make their indispensable contribution. Despite statements by a mischievous director of a famous American museum, neither this writer nor any of those arguing for restitution are suggesting that all Benin objects be returned to Benin. We are only suggesting that it is time that, for example, the British Museum which allegedly holds 1000 pieces and the Ethnology Museum, Berlin, which admittedly has 800 pieces could each afford to return some pieces each. The nightmare of the museum directors that they may one day find their museums emptied of all their African objects is a figment of the troubled imagination of those who have not attempted to understand the position of others.

Discussions in Nigeria on the restitution question, in view of the Chicago exhibition, are concerned with the lack of progress in the process of recovery (4). Comparisons have been made with the spectacular return of a number of objects by US museums to Italy. It is known that the Italians used both diplomatic negotiations, legal proceedings, including imprisonment of a curator of the Paul Getty Museum. In this context, one could also mention the success of another African country, Egypt, in recovering some 3000 objects in the last six years. The Supreme Council on Egyptians Antiquities, under the dynamic leadership of Zahi Hawass, publish their activities at their homepage and their objectives are made known to the public and all concerned. In an article published in the Nigerian newspaper, The Guardian, it appears that the aim of the Nigerian Government at the moment is to make an inventory of Nigeria’s stolen artefacts. The Minister of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation is reported to have disclosed that a committee will be set up to make an inventory of Nigeria’s artifacts within and outside the country. In this connection, it is recalled that the Minister was reported to have referred to the establishing of such an inventory in his speech in February, at the opening of the Benin exhibition in Berlin. Despite all efforts, we have not been able to secure a copy of the text of that statement.

With regard to an inventory of stolen Nigerian artworks abroad, it should be stated that with regard to the Benin bronzes, the catalog prepared by Barbara Plankensteiner for the exhibition in Vienna, Paris and Berlin, contains information sufficient for the identification of the locations and owners of the Benin objects. Philip J. C. Dark, in his study, “Benin Bronze Heads: Styles and Chronology”, identified 6500 Benin objects in some 77 places, mostly museums.(5) Similar publications and information on other Nigerian arts, such as those of Ife and Nok are easily available. We know for sure that some Nok objects are in the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, which had been illegally acquired by the French.

A complete inventory of Nigerian artworks inside and outside the country appears to be more than a Herculean task the utility of which should be carefully considered. Most of the countries than have recently recovered stolen arts do not seem to have made such an inventory but proceeded as and when information became available. However one looks at the issue of restitution, it is clear that the Queen Idia hip-pendant mask means more to Africans and Nigerians than to Europeans and the British. Which European derives inspiration or hope from the African Queen-mother? Indeed, most Europeans are not even aware that there are so many African Queens and Kings held against their will in European and American museums. If the European museum directors do not understand this, they should stop talking about heritage of mankind. What kind of heritage is this which allows one side to high-jack for hundreds of years the religious, ritual and cultural icons of the other?

If the Art Institute of Chicago finally decides to return a Benin bronze, quiet diplomacy would be given a great boost. If nothing comes out of cooperation with such institutions, the Nigerians must seriously re-examine their position and methods so far.

NOTES
1) Barbara Plankensteiner, Benin Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from Nigeria. Ghent: Snoeck Publishers, 2007, pp.535
2) Lynette Kalsnes, “Arts from Ancient Kingdom Come to Chicago”, www.wbez.org
3) James Cuno, Who owns Antiquity? Princeton University Press, Princeton and London, 2008. See also,K.Opoku, “DO PRESENT-DAY EGYPTIANS EAT THE SAME FOOD AS TUTHANKHAMUN? REVIEW OF JAMES CUNO’S WHO OWNS ANTIQUITY?
4) See Annex. Tajudeen Sowole, “In Chicago, stolen Benin artifacts on paradewww.guardiannewsngr.com
5) Barbara Plankensteiner, Benin Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from Nigeria.
6) Philip J.C. Dark, “Benin Bronze Heads: Styles and Chronology”, in African Images: Essays in African Iconology , (Eds) D. F. McCall and Edna G. Bay. New York, London: Africana Publishing Co. 1975, pp.25-104; see also, Dark, Introduction to Benin Art and Technology. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973 pp.114.

 

 

James Cuno: Apologist for Hypocrisy

I have been following with increasing disgust the public pronouncements of James Cuno, director of the Art Institute of Chicago, and self-styled crusader for the right of Western museums to hold on to centuries of looted art. Cuno has recently published a book (Who Owns Antiquity: Museums and the Battle over our Cultural Heritage. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, click here for description) and in the past year, he’s been ubiquitous in the global media promoting what he describes as “universal museums” (specifically referring to Western museums) and defending them against claims by several countries for the repatriation of looted antiquities and cultural artifacts. In his book, Cuno argues that modern nation-states have mostly tenuous connections to the ancient cultures whose antiquities are found within their geographical boundaries and that these antiquities and cultural treasures are best held in trust by universal museums for the common enjoyment of humanity. Not surprisingly, these “encyclopedic museums” consist mainly of museums located in former colonial powers (the British Museum is the exemplar) mostly in western European countries. Of all the canards in Cuno’s book, I take particular exception to his claim that modern countries have no greater claim than anyone else to the objects produced in antiquity within their modern borders. Although he makes a plausible argument that modern identity politics too often draws problematic connections between the present and the past, to claim that there is no credible link between ancient and modern cultures that occupy related borders is to make a literalist argument that all aspects of antiquity is up for grabs by sheer force of power (click here for a very intelligent review of the book by Roger Atwood). The problem with this argument is that it validates the colonial violence through which many African cultural objects (for example) were brought to European museums and provides undue legitimacy to the entire process of plunder and brigandage which has been studiously refuted in modern politics since World War Two. 

Cuno calls for the US to renounce the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property in the same manner as it refuted the Geneva Convention in pursuit of the war on terror. Cuno’s opinion thus makes him an anachronism fighting a rearguard battle for a discredited neoconservative platform that might makes right. As with all such ideologues, Cuno emerges from positions of privilege (stints at elite private universities, institutions and art contexts) which he defends vehemently as a natural order of things. Cuno currently oversees one of the most commercially successful museums in the world whose significant annual income derives at least in part from its important holdings in questionably-acquired antiquities (such as the famous sculpture by Olowe of Ise in the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection): in fact, Cuno is overseeing a multi-million dollar expansion of the Art Institute of Chicago financed in part from fees collected from visitors to the museum. The primary issue is that Cuno assumes it is right for museums that currently hold dubiously acquired antiquities to directly profit from them but that it is asinine for other nations to lay claim to those same antiquities even if we can prove a direct link between the ancient makers and their modern descendants (Cuno’s position is that we can’t prove any such link). There is as such, an appalling brain-dead interpretation of global affairs in Cuno’s assertions akin to the tone-deaf reaction of many significant interlocutors to major cultural crimes like slavery and genocide in various global contexts. Too often, those who should know better claim to see no evidence that something untoward is happening. If you run a major museum that sees itself as a representative of the greatest power on earth, you can afford to dismiss the concerns of your antagonists as mere inconvenience. But even in this regard, Cuno makes his argument with the serene hypocrisy of a hedge-fund manager arguing against usury. 

The most startling thing is that Cuno’s position has gotten a lot of traction and only recently has decent counterarguments to his opinions started to emerge. My friend Kwame Opoku, a guest blogger on Aachronym, has been so incensed by Cuno’s arguments that he sends me lengthy posts refuting most of Cuno’s assertion: I have posted some of his comments on this blog and will post more in the coming weeks. As for me, I want to state clearly that Cuno is entitled to his opinion but he is not entitled to be free of criticism of his positions. In fact, Cuno's logic reminds me of the spurious arguments made in American academia in the 1990s about "the death of history", which seemed to me a convenient dodge by a Western world attempting to dodge responsibility for its debt to the rest of the world. Of course, you can declare an end of history right around the time that other global actors emerge to claim central positions in historical narratives. By doing so, you enshrine the supremacy of the Western historical narrative and delegitimize the rest. Like many canards, this problematic assertion of an end of history has fallen by the wayside. I have no doubt that Cuno's position will quickly be delegitimized. In the meantime, the fact that he uses his current position as a pulpit to enunciate questionable opinions is detrimental to the Art Institute of Chicago whose comprehensive art collection will come under scrutiny to examine just how much looted art is currently in its holdings. When that time comes, let’s hope the museum blames Cuno for calling unwanted attention to it.

When all is said and done, one of the most damning arguments against Cuno's "encyclopaedic museums" is that access to global spaces is routinely denied to Africans and other non-Western persons, which brings up the dastardly fact that African heritage in Western museums is largely inaccessible to Africans. While citizens of the Western countries that own the so-called universal museums can travel the world freely, citizens of the countries from which most of the artworks in these museums were looted from are usually barred from travel to Western countries. Kwame Opoku stated in this regard that there is no single European country that will grant an African a visa merely to visit museums abroad, and this applies to most Africans no matter their educational achievements or level of involvement with the objects in question. Consider in this regard this recent newsflash-- Bushmen denied visas to build mud-huts in Virginia, US. The story states that three "Bushmen" hired by a Virginia museum to reconstruct a !Kung dwelling for an upcoming exhibition were denied visas because they spoke little or no English, were poor and constituted a flight risk. So much for universalism.


References: Click here for what Tom Flynn (ArtKnows blog) described as a dire and ramblingKCRW interview with Cuno. Click Time magazine's interview with James Cuno; click Looting Matters for a list of responses to Cuno's book and interviews.

>via: http://aachronym.blogspot.com/2008/07/james-cuno-apologist-for-hypocrisy.html