Plunder on a Pedestal -Chicago Reader


At the Art Institute’s summer show, Benin royals get a good look at the
stuff they want back.


By Deanna Isaacs


July 17, 2008


There was plenty of polite pomp surrounding the opening of “Benin—Kings
and Rituals: Court Arts from Nigeria” at the Art Institute of Chicago
last week. A royal entourage from the Kingdom of Benin—now part of
Nigeria, and not to be confused with the independent Republic of
Benin—came to town for the show, which originated in Vienna and consists
of 220 works, primarily brass sculpture and intricately carved ivory
culled from major European and American museums. There was a gala party
for more than 600 in the revamped Gunsaulus Hall, making its debut as an
event venue. But at a press preview two days before the opening,
Princess Theresa Erediauwa read a short speech on behalf of her father,
Erediauwa I, the Oba of Benin. “I have made it a personal goal to build
a museum in my country to display this art,” the Oba’s statement
declared, and went on to say that he hopes to see at least some of it
returned.


That’s a touchy subject, since nearly everything in the exhibit was
stolen by the British 111 years ago, when they invaded the city of
Benin, burned much of it to the ground, killed its top officials, and
sent the reigning Oba into an exile from which he never returned.


What’s more, the event was taking place on the home turf of Art
Institute director James Cuno, whose new book, Who Owns Antiquity?,
champions the claims of museums over nations in the tussle for the
world’s cultural treasures.


The Oba’s cousin, Prince Ademola Iyi-Eweka, also in town for the
festivities, says he has “mixed feelings” about the exhibit, which he
thinks of partly as a testament to the ordeal of his great-grandfather,
the exiled Oba Ovonramwen. The joyous part for Iyi-Eweka, who’s lived in
Madison for the last 20 years and works for the city school district, is
the chance to see so many objects he’d only heard about before. You have
to understand, he says, that because Benin had an oral rather than a
written tradition, “these artifacts contain the history of my people.”


Recently in The Business


An Edo-speaking city-state with origins going back to the 12th century,
Benin was a vibrant force in Africa for hundreds of years. When the
Portuguese arrived, in the 15th century, Benin forged a trading alliance
with them and prospered by exporting goods including spices, ivory, and
fabric—and, in later years, slaves—to Europe, the Middle East, and the
Americas. Metal casting had been practiced in Benin since the 1200s, but
after the Portuguese brought in supplies of copper, Benin’s artisans
refined their methods and began producing one of the world’s most
remarkable bodies of work in brass. The Obas, considered divine rulers,
actively supported the artists’ guilds and commissioned work from them;
ritual art and artifacts were used to honor the royals and to
communicate with sacred ancestors. Most spectacularly, during the
kingdom’s golden years in the 16th and 17th centuries the palace walls
were said to be covered floor to ceiling with hundreds of finely
detailed brass bas-reliefs depicting Benin’s history and customs.


In the late 19th century, when the European powers took it upon
themselves to divvy up Africa, Britain claimed the Niger area. Benin had
the audacity to resist, and in 1897, after an unwelcome delegation of
Brits was ambushed on its way there, the British launched what they
called the Punitive Expedition. After destroying the city and banishing
the Oba, they stripped the palace of its artifacts, shipping thousands
of them back to England, where they were sold to cover the expense of
the invasion.


“We were writing in art and craft, recording history in bronzes and
carving,” Iyi-Eweka says. “Because these artifacts were taken, we are
now struggling to reconstruct that history.” The treasures were widely
dispersed. Many wound up in museums, others disappeared into private
collections. A great thing about this exhibition, Iyi-Eweka says, is
that it’s collected the work and put it in the spotlight. “Unless they
bring them out, we don’t even know what is out there. Now, we’ll know
some of them. The cat is out of the bag.”


Iyi-Eweka says he “worked hard to convince my people in Chicago” to
support the exhibition. “Many of their ancestors died in [the British]
war.” But, he reasons, “If your rooster is stolen, you go to the police
and say your neighbor stole your rooster. The police will say ‘Can you
describe it?’ And you say, ‘It’s a rooster.’ Is it black or white? And
you say, again, ‘It’s a rooster.’ Are the police going to listen to
you?” Now there’s a better description of the rooster.


Princess Theresa was followed at the podium by Ochi C. Achinivu, head of
Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments, who said the
exhibition stirs “our remembrance that these masterpieces were once our
collection, under a single ownership, in one place.” Achinivu appealed
to “the conscience of institutions and collectors around the world to
give thought to what they collect and how they collect it.” He also
announced that Nigeria is developing a comprehensive database of Benin’s
missing treasures that will identify and locate each piece.


After a word from Art Institute curator Kathleen Bickford Berzock, who’s
been working on the exhibit since before Cuno’s arrival in 2004 (the
catalog is 472 pages), everyone adjourned to the galleries where
artifacts of the court of Benin waited: fabulous dwarfs, stunning black
leopards, coral-beaded royal garb, and bas-relief obas. Iyi-Eweka made
his way slowly past one display after another to the most incredible
artifact of all: a huge photograph placed near the exit. Taken aboard a
British yacht, it shows three soldiers, armed with rifles and swords and
standing at attention behind a seated, robed, and clearly outraged man
who looks very much like Iyi-Eweka. “That’s my great-grandfather,”
Iyi-Eweka said. “In shackles.”


Osaro Uhunmwangho of Evanston’s Edo Arts and Cultural Heritage Institute
worked with the Art Institute on the exhibit and argues that it will put
Benin Kingdom “back on the map” and educate people about the difference
between the kingdom and the republic. “This exhibition is not about
ownership,” Uhunmwangho says. “This exhibition is about seeing the art.”


That’ll be possible at the Art Institute through September 21. After
that, Chicagoans have another option: they can trek over to the Field
Museum, which owns 400 pieces of Benin treasure—one of the world’s
largest collections. About 20 percent of that collection, including huge
carved tusks, numerous altar heads, and a bas-relief in which the Oba
clasps the hands of his supporters, is on permanent display in the
Field’s Africa exhibit; the rest is in storage. With the exception of a
few new pieces, it’s all plunder from the Punitive Expedition.


Send a letter to the editor.






DR. KWAME OPOKU at 1:39 AM on 7/17/2008


Deanna Isaacs should be congratulated for the excellent report and the
explanations therein. It would be interesting to know whether the Art
Institute of Chicago will publish the full texts of the statements made
at the opening of the exhibition and above all the statement of James
Cuno,the Director stating that he will consider seriously any demand for
restitution. Readers who are interested in this matter may wish to
consult AFRIKANET. http://www.afrikanet.info/


Readers may also find the attached statement useful.





Statement on the Benin bronzes and their continued detention BY European
and American Museums and Individuals








There are some points about the Benin bronzes that the reader must know
and always bear in mind:


1. That most of these beautiful and fine art objects were stolen by the
British in 1897 when they invaded Benin City, executed some nobles,
exiled the Oba (King) and burnt the city.


2. Some thousands of the Benin objects were sold by the British to other
European and American museums and individuals. British Museum, London,
is alleged to have some 1000 pieces; the Ethnology Museum, Berlin has
admittedly some 800 pieces, the Ethnology Museum, Vienna, some 200. Some
of the finest pieces are in the United States, for example, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art,.New York, has one of the hip masks of
Queen=Mother Idia. The British Museum has the other.


3. The people of Benin and Nigeria have fewer that the European and
American museums who refuse to lend or return any of these pieces.


4. The Nigerians and the Benin Royal family have been asking for years
for the return of some of these pieces to Nigeria. The response of the
Europeans and the Americans has either been dead silence or exasperated
"no.


5. The United Nations and UNESCO have been urging for years countries
holding such illegally and illegitimate exported objects to return them
to their countries of origin. The Europeans and American remain
impervious to all such appeals.


6. The hijacking of the religious and cultural icons of the African
peoples by Europeans and Americans which was made possible by the
colonialist and imperialist regimes should no longer be acceptable.


7. The human rights of the African peoples, individually and
collectively, are being violated by this persistent and defiant refusal
to return cultural objects which were not produced by the Europeans and
American and were not meant for their use. Such a position also violates
the freedom of religion in so far as many of the stolen African objects,
for instance the many Ethiopian crosses in the British Museum, the Benin
altars and the Fang reliquaries are necessary for the traditional
practice of religious beliefs.


8. Most of these objects should have been returned when the African
countries gained Independence in the 1960s.The refusal to return those
objects relating to power and cultural generally, is a denial of the
right to self-determination. If a people cannot determine where their
cultural objects can be, where then is the right of self-determination
which includes not only the right to determine your constitution but
also to determine your cultural policy and practice.


9. True democrats and lovers of freedom should insist on all government
respecting the right to cultural development of all, including the right
to determine the destination of one’s cultural objects. This minimum
requirement should be possible even in a world dominated by the use or
threat of the use of force. DR. KWAME OPOKU