Week 10: Reflection
Over the course of learning about reparations and deaccessioning art there seems to be so much of a red tape, it seems impossible to penetrate the core issues. Museum and visitors have grown attached to their collections. But they do not see the harm in keeping stolen art or the lack of diversity in the collections. Fixing these problems seems to result in one person making a hasty decision on what the solution should be. One person’s input cannot be the deciding factor, there needs to be communication on all fronts. There needs to be a deep change in the way people view the solutions. The demand for a system to be put in place that brings awareness to the conversation and actions of professionals to the regular museum visitors.
There seems to be a hypocritical and racist standard with returning stolen artifacts to their place of origin. In Ekpo Eyo writing, “Repatriation of Culture Heritage: The African Experience” shows the double standards each nation has when their art is stolen verse when a nation that has stolen from another. It is best conveyed by the treatment of African countries trying to get their artworks and artifacts back for European countries.
White European countries have written many essays about how war is not an invitation to steal art. Yet their refusal to stop looting from countries they have invaded only shows they do not care about cultural heritage that belongs to ‘ethnic’ people. By denying African countries their right to their artwork and making excuses on why African countries do not deserve to get their rightful pieces back. Insinuating that the African culture does not have the resources or the means to maintain the pieces, although African is its place of origin. It is racism that has allowed Eurocentric countries to justify their collection of stolen art. Racism has made reparations impossible since it only colored people that must fight for their art back.
We can say the same for deaccession art. Over the articles I have read through the weeks of this module, there seems to be conflict over buying art by color people to diversify the museum’s collection. The act of deaccessioning art is loaded with backlash. Since most of all well known art is done by white males, it can feel personal when a museum sells those pieces. This is because the average art viewer is taught and has knowledge of that when museums sell those art pieces, it feels personal. And it validates those feelings when people speak out, not knowing the damage they do to art when it is only focus on the perspective of white males. The landscape of art is going to be incomplete and continues to push the standard that only white males are capable of doing great art.
This can all change when museums decide to teach and promote for the decolonization of the existing establishment and informing the population on why these choices need to be made.
Kaplan, Flora S Ekpo Eyo. “Repatriation of Cultural Heritage: The African Experience.” Museums and the Making of ‘Ourselve’: The Role of Objects in National Identity (1994): 331-350
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