{"id":542,"date":"2021-04-15T08:05:15","date_gmt":"2021-04-15T00:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/?p=542"},"modified":"2021-04-13T23:26:35","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T15:26:35","slug":"benin-bronzes-arent-safer-in-the-west-than-they-would-be-in-nigeria-academics-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/auction\/benin-bronzes-arent-safer-in-the-west-than-they-would-be-in-nigeria-academics-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Benin Bronzes Aren\u2019t Safer in the West Than They Would Be in Nigeria, Academics Say"},"content":{"rendered":"

At a virtual conference held by\u00a0Columbia University<\/a>\u2019s Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America on Friday, academics pushed against a number of myths surrounding the\u00a0Benin Bronzes<\/a>, a controversial group of thousands of art objects looted from the Kingdom of Benin, in what is now Nigeria, in 1897 by British troops as part of a colonial conquest.<\/p>\n

A repeated concern at the event was the idea that the sculptures, plaques, masks, tusks, and more would be safer at the institutions that currently hold them in the U.S. and Europe than they would be in Nigeria, a country with a relatively small but growing museum ecosystem. The art historians and museum professionals who participated vigorously posed retorts to that notion, claiming that various forms of danger in the West have historically posed just as much as of a threat to the Benin Bronzes as a perceived lack of climatic control found at Nigerian museums.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have been equally unsafe in the hands of British, not least because of attack in 1897, which destroyed so much royal and sacred landscape,\u201d said Dan Hicks, an archaeology professor at the University of Oxford in England who has written extensively on the Benin Bronzes. And, he added, many Benin Bronzes have headed to market in Europe, leaving their whereabouts and their safety uncertain. \u201cThe most important of the collections have been sold off in the West,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

[Why the Benin Bronzes continue to generate controversy.]<\/a><\/p>\n

Thousands of Benin Bronzes are held outside Nigeria, with more than 900 residing at the British Museum in London and more than 500 held by Berlin\u2019s Ethnological Museum. A push to return the Benin Bronzes is snowballing in intensity, and the Humboldt Forum, whose displays include works from the Ethnological Museum, said in March that it is\u00a0pursuing plans to return its Benin Bronzes<\/a>. Days later, the University of Aberdeen in Scotland became the first institution to\u00a0commit to repatriating a Benin Bronze<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When these objects return to Nigeria, some will go to the Edo Museum of West African Art, a new institution in Benin City slated to open in 2025. With a design by architect David Adjaye, it is set to have an infrastructure for storing and maintaining art objects similar to ones found in the West.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, we do have our problems, in term of the state of our museums in the country, but that will not remain as it is forever,\u201d said Abba Isa Tijani, of Nigeria\u2019s National Commission for Museums and Monuments. \u201cWe have our plans to build more museums. That\u2019s why the EMOWAA museum is a bold step.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Phillip Inhenacho, a board member of the Legacy Trust in Lagos, which seeks to spur archaeological and art historical research throughout West Africa, said that such returns could ultimately prove generative for Western institutions. \u201cWe\u2019re interested in having a dialogue, we\u2019re not interested in having a fight,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not the organization that\u2019s going to burn down your university. We\u2019re the organization that\u2019s going to sit down with you and have conversation, because it\u2019s not just about getting objects back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Below, a look at five more takeaways from the event.<\/p>\n

After years of silence, Western museum professionals are beginning to speak up.<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the start of the conference, David Freedberg, a Columbia art history professor, said that he had invited curators to participate\u2014but, because of \u201cinternal pressures,\u201d many couldn\u2019t make appearances. Still, however, there were several museum professionals at the conference, in a sign that, at long last, a new crop of directors and curators are ready to talk openly about returning the Benin Bronzes. \u201cThis new generation does not want to shelve the conversation,\u201d said Barbara Plankensteiner, director of the Museum am Rothenbaum \u2013 Kulturen und K\u00fcnste der Welt in Hamburg, Germany. In 2019, Plankensteiner\u2019s institution helped launch\u00a0Digital Benin<\/a>, a project that aims to map who owns Benin Bronzes and initiate return processes.<\/p>\n

Western institutions are changing the ways they talk about Benin Bronzes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When it comes to the Benin Bronzes, some institutions have text\u2014either within their galleries or on their websites\u2014alluding to the means by which these objects entered their collections. The language used is often delicately phrased. On the British Museum\u2019s website, for example, a text refers to the \u201cbrutal, violent colonial episode\u201d that led to hundreds of works entering its holdings and goes on to say that \u201cno formal written request\u201d has been submitted by the Benin Royal Court for the Benin Bronzes\u2019 repatriation \u201cin its entirety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christine Mullen Kreamer, director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., which owns more than 40 Benin Bronzes, said that her institution is \u201cthinking very carefully about the words that are used\u201d when talking about the objects in its holdings. Recently, the museum made the decision to stop using the phrase \u201cpunitive expedition\u201d when talking about the Benin Bronzes, instead relying on the word \u201craid\u201d to discuss how the objects were plundered.<\/p>\n

U.S. museums could have an easier time repatriating Benin Bronzes than European ones.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why did a Scottish university with little international visibility lead the pack when it came to repatriating its Benin Bronze? Some participants at the conference suggested that this had a lot to do with the rules and regulations that guide certain institutions. The University of Aberdeen is held to fewer restrictions because it is private\u2014its collection is not owned by the state. The opposite is the case at the Humboldt Forum, where a board that oversees the Prussian-owned holdings of the Ethnological Museum must ultimately make the call on whether its Benin Bronzes can go home. Because so few Benin Bronzes are state-owned in the U.S., Princeton University art history professor Chika Okeke-Agulu claimed that institutions in the country could effectively face fewer restrictions for repatriating objects from the group than European ones. \u201cI have actually argued that it is easier for the American museums because they are owned by fewer people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Digital technology has contributed to growing calls for the Benin Bronzes\u2019 return.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although many have been demanding the repatriation for the Benin Bronzes within Africa for decades, their calls have only grown louder and widespread in recent years\u2014thanks, in part, to social media and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, some presenters suggested. \u201cI think there\u2019s always been a keen awareness that they\u2019re abroad\u2014at the British Museum, for example,\u201d Felicity Bodenstein, a principal investigator with the Digital Benin project, said. \u201cWhat people weren\u2019t aware was the level of their dispersal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not all Nigerians want the Benin Bronzes back, though the sentiment is growing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some within West Africa\u2014including the current ruler of Benin, Oba Ewuare II\u2014have labeled the Benin Bronzes situated abroad \u201ccultural ambassadors,\u201d or foreign emissaries of the region\u2019s culture. Kokunre Agbontaen-Eghafona, an academic at the University of Benin, said that, in 2010, she conducted a survey about the Benin Bronzes among those around her, and found at the time that the majority of respondents agreed with that logic. When she repeated the survey in 2021, her findings were entirely different\u2014this time, 68 percent wanted the objects returned, believing that it was time for the ambassadors to come home.<\/p>\n

The differences between the two surveys also revealed a growing awareness of the Benin Bronzes\u2019 history. In 2010, only 53 percent knew of the British expedition to the Kingdom of Benin that resulted in the removal of the objects; in 2021, around 95 percent were aware of it. (In both cases, not all respondents believed that the expedition was related to colonialism.) According to Agbontaen-Eghafona, if Nigeria is to seek the repatriation of Benin Bronzes, its citizens must continue to be educated about what really happened in 1897. \u201cThe general populace must be carried along,\u201d she said. \u201cThere is a need for people to feel they are carried along with this heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source:https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a virtual conference held by\u00a0Columbia University\u2019s Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America on Friday, academics pushed against a number of myths surrounding the\u00a0Benin Bronzes, a controversial group of thousands of art objects looted from the Kingdom of Benin, in what is now Nigeria, in 1897 by British troops as part of a colonial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13,7,4,3],"tags":[124],"class_list":{"0":"post-542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artist","8":"category-auction","9":"category-events","10":"category-gallery","11":"category-latest-news","12":"tag-benin-bronzes"},"yoast_head":"\nBenin Bronzes Aren\u2019t Safer in the West Than They Would Be in Nigeria, Academics Say - Investable Art Auctioneer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"At a virtual conference held by Columbia University\u2019s Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America on Friday, academics pushed against a number of myths surrounding the Benin Bronzes, a controversial group of thousands of art objects looted from the Kingdom of Benin, in what is now Nigeria, in 1897 by British troops as part of a colonial conquest.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/auction\/benin-bronzes-arent-safer-in-the-west-than-they-would-be-in-nigeria-academics-say\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Benin Bronzes Aren\u2019t Safer in the West Than They Would Be in Nigeria, Academics Say - 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