Tuesday, January 4, 2011

More on Benin Mask

Here is a more balanced article than what I have read elsewhere about the decision to withdraw an African mask from a Sotheby's sale. See
http://www.antiquestradegazette.com/news/7775.aspx?&utm_source=newsletter_up435&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=update&utm_content=ATG2

Although the press reported about on-line protests that preceded the decision see http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/after-online-protest-sothebys-withdraws-african-mask-from-sale/?scp=1&sq=Benin%20Mask&st=cse, some additional context is necessary. The destruction of the Oron Museum and the wanton burning of hundreds of ancestral figures (ekpu) as firewood during and after the Biafran civil war certainly undercuts any Nigerian claim to the high moral ground. See Gathercole and Lowenthal, The Politics of the Past 297 (Unwin Hyman 1990). In short, any self-righteous indignation about 19th c. looting needs to be tempered by an acknowledgement of what Nigeria itself did to Oron culture in 1975.
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4 comments:

  1. Museum Security NetworkJanuary 4, 2011 at 10:18 PM

    Even more balanced and very well documented: Kwame Opoku – REFLECTIONS ON THE ABORTIVE QUEEN-MOTHER IDIA MASK AUCTION: TACTICAL WITHDRAWAL OR DECISION OF PRINCIPLE?
    http://www.museum-security.org/?p=4966

    ReplyDelete
  2. John MuccigrossoJanuary 5, 2011 at 4:32 PM

    What does the moral high ground have to do with the legal principle at issue here, counselor?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cultural Property ObserverJanuary 6, 2011 at 3:48 AM

    John- Presumably everything given the fact that the current owners have unquestionable legal title as far as I am concerned as well as the fact that Opoku and others have framed the issue as a "moral one."

    Best regards,

    Peter Tompa

    ReplyDelete
  4. Paul BarfordJanuary 6, 2011 at 6:15 AM

    So your moral stance here is that "two wrongs make a right"?

    ReplyDelete

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