Kwame Opoku responds to the article by Tom L Freudenheim that I posted a few weeks ago.

From:
Modern Ghana

SHOULD AESTHETIC CONSIDERATIONS TAKE PRECEDENCE OVER PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS WITH REGARD TO LOOTED ARTEFACTS?
Columnist: Kwame Opoku, Dr.

We read with great interest an article by Tom L. Freudenheim, a former art museum director and former assistant secretary for museums at the Smithsonian Institution entitled “What Is Lost When Works are Trophies” that first appeared in the Wall Street Journal of January 27, 2010 (1) and was reproduced in Elginism (2) on September 28, 2010 under the heading “Disputed artefacts – famous for being famous…”

The article contains statements which deserve close examination. The first sentence surprised me:

“It’s interesting to contemplate how works of art, which museums generally want us to appreciate for their aesthetic values, can turn into trophies: emblems of issues or events that have nothing to do with their status as art.”
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