Opus randomly returns after a summer break which did not disappoint in terms of news and events. I will present my interpretation of the headlines next week. This week, however, I wish to draw attention to this expansive article below which appears in the IFAR Journal and provides a granular summary of US and European repatriation efforts.
On an almost weekly basis, we hear a new story about objects returning to their country or culture of origin. Fantastic, right? On the one hand, like dropping a stone down a deep, black well, we wait for the splash which seems to never arrive. Likewise, the amount of plundering by colonial powers that occurred throughout history appears similarly profound and endless. On the other, does the steady return also show that institutions around the world take seriously the situation and actively seek to return objects?
“Because of their artistic excellence and the violence of their taking, the Benin bronzes have come to symbolize the colonial repatriation movement…”
Before reading this article, my thesis on the status of repatriation crudely orbited around “we’re currently on the right track”. This summary, however, peaks around a corner and shows the vast extent of the mountain we have yet to climb. It exposes to me at least the galactic scale of plunder that radiates around the world’s museums and, in my opinion, begs us to question the role of museums themselves. If they exist to inspire and educate us, what feeds the museum itself? Is the museum inherently problematic? What is the ideal, ethical museum?
If I lead an encyclopedic museum with potentially looted objects, I would strive for thorough due diligence of potentially problematic objects and return what I could. You must, however, establish a goal and perhaps even revise your mission in order to accommodate such a potential upheaval in the scope of a collection. Will these types of museums evolve into something completely different in 10 or 20 years? Do we re-conceptualize the entire nature of the institution?
