The collections of state museums will begin a review process of their collections, as announced this Monday by the Spanish Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun.
The goal is to “overcome a colonial framework or framework anchored in gender or ethnocentric inertia that has often hindered the vision of heritage, history and artistic legacy.”
The announcement has generated a heated debate, the same one that, with great complexity, has occurred in other countries, where policies in this regard are already being developed.
In European museums, former colonial powers, there is an abundance of pieces extracted from the territories they controlled and plundered.
A plunder previously seen as natural that for some years has been uncomfortable, which is why the decolonization processes occupy the forefront of today.
EL PAÍS correspondents report the situation in the countries where the debate is most heated.
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European museums aspire to decolonize
France: ambitious goals, complex process
MARC BASSETS, Paris
In 2017, Emmanuel Macron launched an ambitious plan to restore African heritage that was in museums in France.
Although the return of stolen art remains a pillar of the French president's battered African policy, the process is complex and slow.
There have meanwhile been returns to Benin and Senegal, but they are an infinitesimal part of the 88,000 objects from sub-Saharan Africa in French public collections.
One difficulty is establishing exactly which of these left Africa illegitimately.
The museums with the most works, led by the Quai-Branly-Jacques Chirac, are working on identifying pieces that can be returned if there is a claim.
A report by specialists Bénédicte Savoy and Felwine Sarr argued in 2018 that Paris should respond positively to African demands for restitution of objects stolen in the context of war, collected during “scientific missions” before 1960, or delivered to French museums by agents of the colonial administration.
With one caveat: that the absence of abuse in the transactions be demonstrated.
Another report, written by the former director of the Louvre Jean-Luc Martinez, specified in 2023 that the “illegal” or “illegitimate” nature of the acquisition had to be demonstrated.
A future law, pending debate and vote in Parliament, will regulate restitutions.
A part of the pieces that the British Museum is preparing to lend to Benin. NEIL HALL (EFE)
United Kingdom: beyond the friezes of the Parthenon
RAFA DE MIGUEL, London
The recent announcement from the
British Museum
(BM) and
the Victoria & Albert Museum
about what
will lend
for three years to Ghana dozens of objects belonging to the Asante people - objects looted as war booty by imperial troops in that African region during the 19th century - is the perfect example of the complex debate on decolonization that the United Kingdom is experiencing.
Like the failed attempts of the current WB leadership to devise a formula that would allow the journey of the Parthenon marbles to the Acropolis in Athens (the most universal cause of restitution known), any imagined solution must be expressed in the form of a loan, an exchange of works or a joint exhibition.
The possibility, simply and plainly, of admitting that many pieces contained in museums were acquired illegally and that their return would be an ethical obligation, still faces many obstacles.
These are political barriers, first of all, because the Conservative Party has decided to wage the “cultural battle” against what it considers a victimist revisionism of imperial history on the part of the left.
But also cultural, because the opinion is still valid in the museum field according to which institutions like the World Bank are cultural heritage of humanity, whose mission is to preserve and offer a global narrative of cultures.
Faced with this vision, which many consider biased and paternalistic, increasingly stronger movements have emerged among art professionals, such as
Museum Detox
, which promote exhibitions and conferences to achieve greater awareness of diversity and the colonial trace existing in museums. .
And not only in them.
Campaigns such as the one carried out in Oxford under the slogan
Rhodes Must Fall
, which seeks the removal of the statue of the founding mining businessman of Rhodesia at the entrance to Oriel College, have managed to twist the arm, to a point, of the university authorities.
The statue is still there, but a plaque at its feet explains the lights and shadows of the character.
And what is more important: scholarships and aid have been increased for South African students and, in general, for all ethnic minorities.
Installation at a 2021 exhibition on slavery at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.Peter Dejong (AP)
Netherlands: refund if requested by the country of origin
ISABEL FERRER, The Hague
The Culture Council of the Netherlands, an advisory body to the Government, contemplated in 2020 the return of colonial cultural heritage taken by the Dutch between the 17th century and 1975. The report issued then recognized the injustice committed and opened the door to the return of some 450,000 parts.
In 2022, the Executive apologized for the slave and colonial past, and the review of the Royal Collections, property of the reigning house of Orange, is also underway.
For any restitution of this kind to be possible, the objects must be requested by the countries of origin and an exhaustive investigation must be carried out.
The Committee for Colonial Collections, an independent body, is responsible for analyzing each case.
In July 2023, 478 objects were returned to Indonesia and Sri Lanka and ended up in Dutch museums through coercion.
These include the Sri Lankan Kandy Canyon and the Indonesian Lombok Treasure, made up of jewels.
Not all colonial art was stolen: there were also purchases and gifts, and hence the prior study to clear up doubts.
From the dialogue between the two parties, an agreement may emerge that allows the works to be kept in the Netherlands, if it is considered appropriate for their conservation and exhibition.
The great Dutch colonial expansion since the end of the 16th century relied on solid financial networks to carry out intense commercial activity.
Including the slave trade.
The East and West India Companies divided up the business and, broadly speaking, operated in South Africa and Asia - in present-day Indonesia - and in Suriname (South America), Brazil and the Caribbean.
In 2022, the Museum of the Tropics – today renamed the Wereldmuseum, or Museum of the World – opened to the public a permanent exhibition on 400 years of colonialism to encourage social debate.
The Netherlands did not recognize Indonesian independence until 1949.
A statue of Leopold II vandalized in Brussels in 2020, in the gardens of the African Museum. FRANCOIS WALSCHAERTS (AFP)
Belgium: reflection on a brutal past
SILVIA AYUSO, Brussels
Belgium has been embarking for years on an exercise of decolonization and reflection on how to explain its brutal colonial past in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as well as how to return at least part of the works looted and now claimed by their countries of origin.
A process that was accelerated after the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 following the death of African-American George Floyd in the United States at the hands of a white police officer: the wave of global protests translated in Belgium into action against colonial symbols , especially the statues of King Leopold II, vandalized with red paint in actions that still occur, although more frequently.
But years before, in 2013, the ultimate symbol of the Belgian colonial past, the Royal Museum of Central Africa, on the outskirts of Brussels, closed its doors to cease to be the “last colonial museum in the world”, as its then name called it. director, Guido Gryseels.
It reopened five years later as a space that, through its vast exhibition, attempts to offer a more critical look at Belgium's role as a colonial power.
It has even removed some works, such as the famous
Leopard Man
, and numerous busts, waiting to better contextualize these works that, as its current director, Bart Ouvry, says, “need subtitles.”
In the summer of 2022, the Belgian Parliament took a key step by passing the law to “recognize the alienable nature of assets linked to the colonial past of the Belgian State and determine a legal framework for their restitution and return” to the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi. .
The regulations establish which assets are returnable – they must be property of the Belgian State and come from museums and other “federal scientific establishments” – and establish the protocol to begin the process, which must be the result of a “concluded treaty” with the country of origin. of the claimed work, which must also be submitted to a “scientific examination” and a recommendation from a joint scientific commission established for this purpose.
If it is not possible to immediately return the work, the Belgian State will preserve it under the guarantee of “inalienability, imprescriptibility and non-seizure” of the work during that period.
Three of the Benin bronzes that are exhibited in the Museum of Plastic Arts in Hamburg (Germany) and that were returned to Nigeria.Daniel Bockwoldt (AP)
Germany: return of the Benin bronzes
ELENA G. SEVILLANO, Berlin
The return of the famous Benin bronzes to Nigeria has been just the beginning of a radical change in Germany regarding the restitution of looted art.
After transferring in 2022 the ownership of a thousand pieces stolen by the British in 1897 from the royal palace of Benin, a true historical milestone in the process of decolonization of Western museums, the authorities are analyzing how to continue that path with objects from Cameroon, Namibia, Tanzania or the Sami people.
Berlin is willing to return to its rightful owners all the looted art it holds in its museums and explain to visitors to those institutions how it got there.
The best example of this new approach to the way collections are displayed can be seen in the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, home of the ethnographic museum of the Prussian Cultural Foundation.
All the rooms allude to the way in which the pieces were acquired.
When the provenance has not been determined, not even the originals are shown, but copies (some display cases have even been left empty) to raise awareness among visitors about the colonial plundering of heritage.
That work, which caused the inauguration of the Humboldt to be delayed for several months, is now being repeated in museums across Germany, while mixed teams of researchers are created to decide which other objects have to return to their countries of origin.
Portugal: inventory of the heritage of the colonies
TEREIXA CONSTENLA, Lisbon
One of the most symbolic gestures regarding the decolonization of Portuguese historical and cultural heritage occurred in mid-2023, when the University of Coimbra advocated for the return to East Timor of 29 skulls of inhabitants of a mountain village, decapitated by Timorese warriors in service. of Portugal in the Laleia War, at the end of the 19th century.
The remains were transferred shortly after to the Department of Life Sciences of the University of Coimbra to serve research on racial differences so popular in that century.
Although Timor has not made any official request, the Portuguese institution is in favor of their return to their country of origin.
But the debate is older and also affects museums.
The Minister of Culture, Pedro Adão e Silva, announced at the end of 2022 the preparation of an inventory on the heritage from the Portuguese colonies in Asia and Africa to determine which pieces were obtained in a violent context or as a result of looting and theft.
Although the total list is still unknown, some cases have already been located in the National Museum of Archeology and a municipal museum in Figueira da Foz.
At the moment there has been no return of goods to the former colonies.
United States: review forced by justice
MARÍA ANTONIA SÁNCHEZ-VALLEJO, New York
Forced by justice, which is tracking and seizing works of art of dubious origin at a rapid pace, and pressure from foreign governments, the main museums in the United States have addressed the issue of cultural property, applying a magnifying glass to the origins—and the means by which they were acquired—from their collections.
In the collections of the main institutions there is also a triple consideration: in addition to pieces from cultures plundered during colonialism, there are also pieces from native cultures and others from Nazi looting.
The American Museum of Natural History announced this Friday, precisely, that it will close two rooms dedicated to native peoples while the new federal government regulations, which require the consent of the communities, are applied.
Museums across the country have made the same decision as conservators determine whether they can be displayed under new federal regulations.
With respect to pieces from other countries, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York champions the review, with radical scrutiny of its collections spurred by foreign claims.
He is not the only one: the main US institutions, such as the Smithsonian - which has returned part of the important Benin bronzes to Nigeria - are settling accounts with the past, in a restitution process accelerated in recent years.
The
sleuths
of the Department of Homeland Security put the rate of return at more than 20,000 objects since 2007, most seized from dealers and collectors, but also found in many of the most prestigious museums in the United States. Only the Manhattan Prosecutor's Office, which It has a specific tracking unit and has recovered almost 5,000 antiquities since 2011.
Regarding Nazi looting, New York adopted a law in 2022 that forces museums to recognize works of art stolen from Jews.
The standard expands the definition of this type of theft to include forced sales, specifying that when displayed they must be accompanied by a poster or other type of “clearly visible” signage that explains their origin.
At the end of September, the New York Prosecutor's Office forced five major museums in the country to return seven drawings by Egon Schiele, stolen from a Holocaust victim.
The trickle of refunds has not stopped.
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