Do we really want the freer circulation of cultural goods?
By Kavita Singh
The Art Newspaper
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article.asp?id=7962
A few years ago, I received a grant from the Getty Foundation for a project on museums in
I dismissed this bureaucrat's remarks as an aberration, but in 2007 the same sorts of anxieties surfaced next door to
The Guimet was borrowing 189 objects dating from the fourth to the tenth century from Bangladeshi museums. Journalists, artists, archaeologists and retired museum officials were all expressing concerns (The Art Newspaper, January 2008, p9). They felt the objects were too precious to travel or that
On one count the French authorities even yielded to the protestors. The Guimet clearly had tried to under-insure the artefacts and public pressure forced them to reappraise the objects and increase the insured value by 30%. All kinds of rumours circulated at the time. For instance, what was said about the under-insurance was not that the Guimet was cutting costs, but that these objects had been deliberately under-insured because the museum planned from the start to "lose" the consignment and pay the small insured sum and then make a tidy profit by selling the goods on the market. A citizen went to court to block the show, delaying the exhibition's opening. Then, when the objects started being shipped out, one packing case went missing from the tarmac in
The cargo handlers, who were arrested, confessed—under torture—to stealing and destroying the statues. The talk of the artefacts' high value had led them to believe that the sculptures were filled with gems. When they turned out to be common clay, they threw the fragments into the garbage.
The events and anxieties in
For the last 100 years, new nations have needed to show themselves not as modern constructs, but as the fulfilment of a historic destiny. The development of the idea of national heritage has been fundamentally important in shoring up national feeling, and now when artefacts from the nation circulate in the world they become metonyms for national citizens. Their pricing becomes a shorthand for how people are valued. Their trade, licit and illicit, evokes lived experiences of immigration.
Museums like the
It is easy to see the universal museum as representing an eternal principle, but, of course, it does not. The museum's "universalism" is an ideological position that has its own history and politics, and the universal museum is fighting to protect its own, not the world's heritage.
Despite that, I feel the universal museum is worth preserving, not because this kind of museum is essential for us to get to know one another, but because it is a significant cultural phenomenon in itself. If we dismantle these museums we will never again be able to make museums of this sort. I do suggest that the universal museums learn to see that their universalism is one particular way of thinking about art, culture and civilisation. If they want other people to believe in what they believe, they must become genuinely respectful towards other people, not just their artistic masterpieces.
This respect might mean accepting that even the core functions of the
What our age has done, even when it has not been able to redistribute real power or money, is make it possible for an increasing number of people to raise their voices and be heard. In some instances museums have accepted their arguments. We see this in the restitution of items to Native Americans and Australian Aborigines, where objects leave the museum sometimes to enter ritual use or to be buried, with no guarantee that they will remain visible or even physically preserved.
Now while these are significant events that mark a paradigm shift in the museum's self-understanding, it is no coincidence that when the museum's preservationist policies have yielded to ritual or religious sentiment, this has been out of respect for the views of indigenous peoples who also happen to be citizens of the US, Canada or Australia.
I believe we are likely to see pressures mounting on the museum to give things back to other communities in the future. When objects are free to move, where should they go? To those who most devoutly believe in them in a religious sense? To those who would be the best physical caretakers or the most engaged or sophisticated interpretive community? To those national or local formations that most urgently need them for their sense of identity? Or to the highest bidder?
This last category is opening wider than ever before, as billionaires are being added to the world by
As the French express their revulsion at being "bought" by the Arabs, we have to ask: are we ready for the freer movement of artefacts? Principles worth espousing are the ones we will stand by even when they no longer favour us.
The writer is an associate professor at
__._,_.___
[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___