Egypt’s ultimatum to the Louvre over disputed artefact claims achieved a rapid response. Can other parties making restitution claims against museums learn from this?

From:
Afrikanet

Datum: 10.10.09 21:32
Kategorie: Kultur-Kunst
Von: Dr. Kwame Opoku
France to return ancient Egyptian frescos – Lessons from Zahi Hawass

LOUVRE GIVES IN TO DEMAND OF ZAHI HAWAS FOR THE RETURN OF STOLEN ARTEFACTS. IS THIS THE END OF A STORY OR THE BEGINNING?

According to press reports, France has agreed to return the the five ancient Egyptian frescos that Zahi Hawass claimed had been stolen from Egypt even though the French asserted they had bought them in “good faith”.
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Museums often claim that they are popularising culture – that they are displaying artefacts from the past to people who would never otherwise have seen them. In many cases though, this creates a new split – that the original creator / owners are no longer to see their own culture. Surely understanding ones own culture should be given as much (if not more) importance as understanding that of others? Is it possible to understand other cultures without understanding your own first?

From:
Afrikanet

Datum: 23.06.09 09:32
Von: Dr. Kwame Opoku
Are major africa Art exhibitions only for the western world? Ife art exhibition begins in Spain but will not be shown in Nigeria or any other african country

A major exhibition on Ife art, Dynasty and Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria, opened on June 16, 2009 at the Fundación Marcelino Botin, Santander, Spain and will move from there to the Museum for Africa Art, New York, United States and later to the British Museum, London, United Kingdom. The exhibition however will not be shown in Nigeria or in any other African country. (1)

The exhibition consists of some 120 excellent bronze, terra-cotta and stone sculptures from 12th – 15th century from Ife (or more correctly, Ilé-Ife), the spiritual capital of the Yoruba in South-western Nigeria and the place where, according to Yoruba mythology, creation took place; the gods, Oduduwa and Obatala descended from heaven to create the earth as directed by the Supreme Deity, Oludumare. The objects in the exhibition have been loaned by the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) which is working in collaboration with the Fundación Marcelino Botin, the Museum for African Art and the British Museum.
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Kwame Opoku responds to some of the disingenuous analogies that try to draw parallels to other issues.

From:
Afrikanet

Datum: 12.05.09 09:29
Von: Dr. Kwame Opoku
Comparing disputes about looted artefacts with child custody cases

I find the proposal to apply principles developed in child custody cases to disputes regarding the ownership of looted artefacts, very interesting but also problematic and, in the end, not feasible. (1)

To compare cultural artefacts with children under any circumstances is itself very disputable. Artworks cannot be compared to children and hence from the very nature of the subjects concerned, the comparison falters. A good judge would try to ascertain the wishes of a child at the centre of marital dispute but we surely cannot ask an art object where it would like to be, Berlin or Benin?
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Kwame Opoku concludes his piece on James Cuno’s new book on cultural property.

From:
Afrikanet

Comments on James Cuno´s “Whose culture” – Part 2 and End
Datum: 22.04.09 14:00
Kategorie: Kultur-Kunst

Von: Dr. Kwame Opoku

IV. UNFINISHED WORK

Cuno ends his introduction with a statement which many of us could easily subscribe to in so far as it appears to be a call for dialogue: “This book will not be the final word in the debate over antiquities. But we hope it will add a new angle to the frame within which the discussion henceforth takes place. Nothing is more important to the fate of the preservation and greater understanding of our world’s common ancient past and antique legacy than we resolve the differences that divide the various parties in the dispute. Warfare and sectarian violence, which is destroying evidence of the past faster and more surely than the destruction of archaeological sites by looters, is beyond our control. Differences among museum professionals, university- and museum-based scholars, archaeologists, their sympathizers, national politicians, and international agencies should not be.” (63)
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Kwame Opoku looks at James Cuno’s latest efforts to persuade the world that it is right that disputed cultural artefacts should be retained by the big museums of the western world.

From:
Afrikanet

Comments on James Cuno´s “Whose Culture” – Part 1
Datum: 22.04.09 14:36
Kategorie: Kultur-Kunst
Von: Dr. Kwame Opoku
WHOSE “UNIVERSAL MUSEUM”? COMMENTS ON JAMES CUNO’S WHOSE CULTURE?

“The restitution of those cultural objects which our museums and collections, directly or indirectly, possess thanks to the colonial system and are now being demanded, must also not be postponed with cheap arguments and tricks.”

Gert v. Paczensky and Herbert Ganslmayr, Nofretete will nach Hause. (1984)

I. CUNO SETS THE TONE

“Whose Culture? The modern nations within whose borders antiquities — the ancient artifacts of peoples long disappeared — happen to have been found? Or the world’s peoples, heirs to antiquity as the foundation of culture that has never known political borders but has always been fluid, mongrel, made from contact with new, strange, and wonderful things?
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Kwame Opoku responds to this piece on Antiquities Watch.

From:
Afrikanet

Datum: 11.03.09 16:03
Kategorie: Kultur-Kunst
Von: Dr. Kwame Opoku
Mine is mine but yours is ours Comments on a suggestion to take culture out of cultural property

I enjoyed reading the article entitled “Yours, Mine, Ours: Taking the Culture out of Cultural Property” in Antiquities Watch (1) and I have sympathy for some of the views expressed there. It is an interesting article and offers food for thought. However, when I started to reflect on a few of the ideas expressed therein, many difficulties appeared.

The author refers to the increased interest in cultural property matters and the fact that “cultural property is drawing on an increasing range of cultures, nations, and sentiments involving both.” He poses the question whether this is “hurting the causes of restitution and cultural property protection? Are we, by politicizing art and antiquities, jeopardizing their protection, if not original meaning?”
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Following Neil MacGregor’s lecture on the 250th anniversary of the founding of the British Museum, Kwame Opoku responds to the assertions that it is a museum for All Humanity.

From:
Afrikanet

Datum: 22.02.09 22:44
Kategorie: Kultur-Kunst
omments on a lecture by Neil Macgregor, British Museum Director
WHEN WILL EVERYBODY FINALLY ACCEPT THAT THE BRITISH MUSEUM IS A BRITISH INSTITUTION? COMMENTS ON A LECTURE BY NEIL MACGREGOR.

When I listened to the recent lecture by Neil MacGregor, Director, British Museum on the 250th anniversary of the museum, I was, at least at the beginning, very relieved. (1) I thought, finally we have the director of the museum, an avid apostle of the “universal museum”, who was recently made a saint by the British press (2), admitting openly in the museum, (or is it now a temple?) that his institution is British and actually the first important institution to have in its title, the word “British”. This came in a time British workers were also asserting their nationalism. The history of the British Museum as traced by the director clearly indicated that the museum was established by a British Parliamentary Act for the British people. I heard in the lecture phrases such as

“centrally and quintessentially British”, “first public institution to be called British”, “oldest British organization” and all this was said to be “true today”.
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Kwame Opoku responds to a recent piece by James Cuno about the benefits of Encyclopaedic Museums. David Gill has also responded to this article on his Blog.

From:
Afrikanet

A response to James Cuno
Druckansicht
Datum: 09.02.09 17:03
Kategorie: Welt

“Encyclopedic museums, like the British Museum or the Metropolitan Museum or the Art Institute of Chicago, serve as a force for understanding, tolerance, and the dissolution of ignorance and superstition about the world” James Cuno

The recent article by James-Cuno “Where-do-the-great-treasures-of-ancient-art-belong?” clearly demonstrates his unwillingness to take into account valid criticisms of his viewpoints. (1) This leads him to make statements which will no doubt be subject to further comments.
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Kwame Opoku responds to the piece published earlier this month by Alastair Bruce – the great great great grandson of Lord Elgin.

From:
Afrikanet

Datum: 24.01.09 17:12
Kategorie: Kultur-Kunst
Von: Dr. Kwame Opoku
Response to the great great great grandson of Lord Elgin

Alastair Bruce may have a filial duty in respect of the Parthenon/Elgin Marbles and no one can criticise him for that. (http://www.sharonwaxman.com) After all, we are not responsible for the deeds or misdeeds of our ancestors. What he should really not expect from the rest of us is to buy the argument that his Great Great Great Grandfather, Lord Elgin, “wanted to preserve them from the destruction they faced, at a time when war and local indifference was grinding away at the edifice.” This is a baseless argument which has been used by all those who have taken illegally or in a questionable manner, the cultural objects of others. It is an extremely weak argument which does not gain credibility by being repeated often. Who preserved these objects before his Great Great Great Grandfather ever set foot in Athens?
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Whilst some argue that Africa is not yet ready to receive returned artefacts, Kwame Opoku argues that the original owners will derive more importance from these sculptures than the West can.

From:
Afrikanet

Datum: 10.01.09 15:03
Kategorie: Kultur-Kunst
Von: Dr. Kwame Opoku
Africans need their cultural objects more than Europeans & Americans

My attention has been drawn to an interesting article entitled “Looted memorial statues returned to Kenyan family” (Text as pdf file to downlad at the end of this article) by Monica Udvardy and Linda Giles which appeared in SAFE (Saving Antiquities For Everyone) that demonstrates in an abundant way the above title which in a normal world would be self-evident but in the world of antiquities appears to be contested by some Western European and US American writers; they even argue that Africans are not yet ready or developed enough to recover their cultural objects which were stolen/looted by Europeans and are now adorning Western museums or are in depots.
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Kwame Opoku talks about the accusations from museums that there is no formal demand for the return of artefacts – when in many cases there is a demand, but the institution would prefer to ignore it or not acknowledge it as a formal request.

From:
Afrikanet

Will western Museums now return some of the looted/stolen artefacts?
Datum: 14.12.08 21:46
Kategorie: Kultur-Kunst

Von: Dr. Kwame Opoku

FORMAL DEMAND FOR THE RETURN OF BENIN BRONZES: WILL WESTERN MUSEUMS NOW RETURN SOME OF THE LOOTED/STOLEN BENIN ARTEFACTS?

“The restitution of those cultural objects which our museums and collections, directly or indirectly, possess thanks to the colonial system and are now being demanded, must also not be postponed with cheap arguments and tricks.”
Gert v. Paczensky and Herbert Ganslmayr, Nofretete will nach Hause (1)

We have often heard from those holding on to the looted/stolen Benin artefacts that there has not been any demand for their return by the owners. This is, of course, a blatant lie which often reminds one of an absurd theatre piece. A performer states clearly a view point and immediately thereafter, another character tells the audience that so far no such statement has been made. We have the remarkable situation in which the King of Benin, the Oba, writes in an introductory note in the catalogue of the exhibition Benin: Kings and Rituals -Court Arts from Nigeria requesting the return of some of the Benin cultural artefacts. Almost immediately thereafter, we have directors of four museums organizing the exhibition with the co-operation of Nigeria declaring in a preface that they have no intention of returning these objects and advising the Nigerians to forget the past and look to the future. (2) The Benin demand was also stated by the Enogie of Obazuwa, brother of the Oba, at the opening of the exhibition on 9 May 2008. Some months after the exhibition in Vienna, the show which went to Paris (October 2, 2007-January 6, 2008) moved to Berlin (February 7-May 25, 2008) and we had people from the Berlin Ethnology Museum creating the impression that there had been no request for the return of the Benin bronzes even though at the opening of the exhibition, the Nigerian Minister of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Prince Adetokumbo Kayode, had clearly stated the wish of the Nigerians to have back their cultural objects. (3) What kind of game is this?
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Following Ethiopia’s demands for the return of looted artefacts currently in Britain, Kwame Opoku loks at what this demand means for Ethiopia & other countries.

From:
Afrikanet

Datum: 05.12.08 11:15
Kategorie: Kultur-Kunst
Von: Dr. Kwame Opoku
Ethiopia: The Way in Demand for Restitution of African Artefacts
Ethiopian President shows the Way in Demand for Restitution of African Artefacts

According to a report in The Independent of 23 November, 2008, the Ethiopian President, Girma Wolde-Giorgis, has requested British museums holding stolen/looted Ethiopian cultural treasures to return them.

This is not surprising considering the enormous amount of Ethiopian cultural and historical objects that are in several British museums and universities. The real wonder is that these venerable institutions, including the universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh and others, have not found it necessary in all these years to return the objects which were not made for the British but for the Ethiopians. What kind of message are these learned institutions sending to their students and the rest of the world? They do not seem to be worried that by holding on to these stolen goods they are not only violating the proprietary rights of others but also their religious rights and their right to cultural development. How can they properly practice their religion when their religious objects and symbols are kept by others with whom they have no cultural affinities, thousands of miles away? We have not found an explanation for how those who consider themselves as Christians can steal the religious symbols and objects such as Christian crosses from other Christians? Where is their morality in holding on to stolen religious symbols and objects?
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