'Restitution' of looted African art just continues colonial policies - much more is at stake (original) (raw)
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Scholars and the Politics of International Art Restitution
Contemporary European History, 2023
Almost every week brings news of another major European museum agreeing to return looted art. Since the 2000s we have grown somewhat accustomed to the headlines describing a ceremonial return to its original owners of a painting looted in the Holocaust, a process that took decades to develop and was initially met with considerable resistance in the art world and in the countries where this art was displayed. 1 In the past few years, however, building in part on the perceived success of Holocaust art restitution but also on the increased visibility and impact of national and global social movements demanding racial justice and institutional decolonisation, major international museums have come under ever stronger pressure to return art looted as part of colonial occupations. Perhaps the most organised of the current campaigns is the campaign to return the so-called 'Benin Bronzes'a vast collection of various artifacts looted from the Kingdom of Benin (in today's Nigeria) and dispersed across major international museums, most prominently the British Museum in London, the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, and the Musée du quai Branly in Paris, among others. Since 2020, a number of museums have pledged to return their holdings of Benin Bronzes and restitute them to Nigeria, where a major new museum is being built to display them in Benin City. All of this activity has also reenergised perhaps the most famous case for restitutionthe movement to return the Parthenon 'Elgin' marbles from the British Museum to the Acropolis in Athens. Much of this new momentum owes to the painstaking work developed by historians and art historians in determining the parameters of provenance and restitution in the context of looted Holocaust art. It is on the back of this work that the Washington (1998) and Terezin (2009) conferences on Holocaust era assets developed a fairly robust international regime that provided a normative and legal template for contemporary colonial-era restitution cases. And while this legal framework exists, the contemporary debates about restitution of colonial art, however, have brought about renewed attention to the resistance that former European colonial powers display in acknowledging the extensive crimes of colonial occupations, including crimes of genocide, as is the case of Germany's atrocities against the Herero and Nama in today's Namibia. The debates about art restitution, then, should be understood as proxy debates about the nature of the European colonial past and its enduring legacy. This short essay deals with only a slice of this important debate. It explores the role scholarshistorians, art historians, museum professionals, as well as genocide scholarshave played and continue to play in the contested field of international art restitution. After briefly outlining some major juncture points in the history of international art restitution after the Second World War and identifying a few (not nearly all or even most) key scholars involved, I conclude with a broader consideration of the role of the scholar and the ethics of international art restitution.
Contemporary Journal of African Studies, 2020
This paper addresses the issue of repatriation/restitution of African cultural objects in Western museums by analysing the terminology used to discuss the demands of return by African states and people. After analysing these used terms which differ slightly from one another, the paper overviews the various types of cultural objects that ended up in European museums. The chapter finally discusses the destinations of the reclaimed cultural objects in postcolonial Africa by showing that not only the original contexts of these cultural objects have changed, but also that the countries asking for the return of these objects should work toward cohering identities for the benefit of all.
Looted Art and Restitution in the Twentieth Century – Towards a Global Perspective
Journal of Contemporary History
Introducing the Journal of Contemporary History Special Issue ‘The Restitution of Looted Art in the 20th Century’, this article proposes a framework for writing the history of looting and restitution in transnational and global perspective. By comparing and contextualizing instances of looting and restitution in different geographical and temporal contexts, it aims to overcome existing historiographical fragmentations and move past the overwhelming focus on the specificities of Nazi looting through an extended timeframe that inserts the Second World War into a longer perspective from the nineteenth century up to present day restitution practices. Particular emphasis is put on the interlinked histories of denazification and decolonization. Problematizing existing analytical, chronological and geographical frameworks, the article suggests how a combination of comparative, entangled and global history approaches can open up promising new avenues of research. It draws out similarities, ...
UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL LAW (UIJPIL) PUBLISHED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF JURISPRUDENCE AND INTERNATIONAL LAW UIJPIL, Vol. 5, 2015 pp.63-81, 2015
Most of the collections and objects of noble significance to Africans lie outside the continent. UNESCO, has tirelessly worked with international bodies to ensure the return of priceless objects signifying the identity of a people back to them. Despite all their efforts, these objects still haven't moved from where they are to where they originally belong. This article attempts to uncover the reasons for this ineffectualness and what more needs to be done by the international bodies to achieve efficacy.
Master Thesis, 2023
In recent years following the French president’s speech in Africa and the BLM (black lives matter) movement, restitution discourse gained momentum and attention in museums and cultural circles, specifically regarding the African looted objects. However, this did not make the issue less controversial or more accessible. Restitution is still an issue with no common grounds, specifically regarding its main problematic area: the acquisition methods and its complications. This research will highlight some facts regarding the acquisition methods during colonization and the restitution attempts with its past and current obstacles. It will question the legitimacy of the acquisition methods by analyzing several examples focusing on the gift notion and its specific controversial nature in the colonial context. The research will conclude by asserting the need for an integral ethical-based reparation policy that aims to ensure just solutions for victims of colonization, including restitution of their lost heritage.
Introducing the Journal of Contemporary History Special Issue 'The Restitution of Looted Art in the 20 th Century', this article proposes a framework for writing the history of looting and restitution in transnational and global perspective. By comparing and contextualizing instances of looting and restitution in different geographical and temporal contexts, it aims to overcome existing historiographical fragmentations and move past the overwhelming focus on the specificities of Nazi looting through an extended timeframe that inserts the Second World War into a longer perspective from the nineteenth century up to present day restitution practices. Particular emphasis is put on the interlinked histories of denazification and decolonization. Problematizing existing analytical, chronological and geographical frameworks, the article suggests how a combination of comparative, entangled and global history approaches can open up promising new avenues of research. It draws out similarities, differences and connections between processes of looting and restitution in order to discuss the extent to which looting and restitution were shaped by – and shaped – changing global networks.
Restitution of art and cultural objects and its limits
2013
Art and cultural objects have a complex nature and status. A legal approach cannot escape having to state which objects come within the scope of the definition, but an objective legal definition in abstracto is difficult to provide. Because the flows of licit and illicit objects are so intermixed, both the legitimate and underground art markets are implicated in the trade involving these objects. Global legal diversity further complicates the distinction between the licit and the illicit trade. This article takes stock of restitution and suitable dispute settlement mechanisms against this backdrop. Restitution processes have become more openly policy-oriented, and the meaning of 'restitution' now extends to overcoming the legal obstacles in the way of return. Law can provide the framework for negotiation and dispute settlement in many cases, but the ethical dimension is a particularly powerful agent for restitution of Nazi spoliated art and human remains.
African Restitution in a North American Context: A Debate, A Summary, and a Challenge
African Arts, 2020
I will give an example from my work about the question of restitution of [Congolese] objects.... [B]eing an artist, I try to appropriate for myself these objects and this history, because they don’t have meaning anymore [as they did] when they were taken. The objects are dead ... because their history has been interpreted differently by the people who stole them.... I try to have these objects; by putting them in my works, for me it’s a kind of restitution. I try to give them back their rightful value, their powers. My work is entirely a work of self-appropriating this history of these objects. —Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga, Kinshasa, 20191
Colonial Art: Restitution Is Not Enough
Zeit Online, 2019
"The type of restitution recommended by Felwine Sarr and Benedict Savoy – and avoided by the Deutscher Museumsbund – would be an important start for German museums, but it is not enough to correct the historical injustices of the country’s collections. The problem with our museums is not only that they have some things they shouldn’t. The problem is also that they failed to acquire many works they should have. This demands a different kind of restitution – a restitution of meaning, restoring forgotten or ignored artworks to their place in art history. Such an act can be just as emotionally and ethically fraught, as making space for new voices and visions means calling into question a beloved and trusted canon of art. And when museums’ budgets and wall space are all too limited, difficult decisions must be made."