The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution
The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution New York Times 'Best Art Books' 2020 'Essential' - Sunday Times 'Brilliantly enraged' - New York Review of Books 'A…
Specifikacia The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution
The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution
New York Times 'Best Art Books' 2020 'Essential' - Sunday Times 'Brilliantly enraged' - New York Review of Books 'A real game-changer'- Economist Walk into any Western museum today and you will see the curated spoils of Empire. Accompanying pieces of card offer a name, date and place of origin. They sit behind plate glass: dignified, tastefully lit.
Few artefacts embody this history of rapacious and extractive colonialism better than the Benin Bronzes - a collection of thousands of metal plaques and sculptures depicting the history of the Royal Court of the Obas of Benin City, Nigeria. They do not mention that the objects are all stolen. Pillaged during a British naval attack in 1897, the loot was passed on to Queen Victoria, the British Museum and countless private collections.
The story of the Benin Bronzes sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation