Royal Benin Art in Exile: Nigerian Official's response

It has been reported that the Director-General of the Nigerian Commission for Museums and Monument, Mallam Yusuf Abdallah Usman has challenged  the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston's claim that the Royal Benin art objects it has just received passed all legal requirements, or that no claims had been made on the objects. Now, Mallam Usman has said that he is publicly demanding the return of all Benin objects that came from the well documented looting of the Palace of the Oba of Benin in 1897. Sounds great.

But as I have suggested before,  the Nigerian authorities need to work with--by which I mean provide political, financial and legal resources to--the Oba's Court, so that the case for the return of the exiled works is spearheaded by the Oba of Benin whose great-grand father owned the objects (or held them in trust for the Kingdom, if you will). If the Nigerian authorities are willing and ready, the first thing to do is take legal action against that Galway family for keeping objects stolen by their ancestor in the family's collection. I would think that that case should set the ground for any future Benin art-related (legal) actions. In the meantime, the Nigerian government (on behalf of the Oba of Benin) can bring tremendous pressure on public institutions holding the 1897 Benin objects, to compel them to seriously consider other mutually beneficial ways of resolving the fate of the objects. Otherwise, the Director-General's reported response will be seen as nothing but mere grandstanding.

The Robert Lehman Gift to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston: Matters Arising (HuffPost)

Commemorative head of a defeated neighboring leader, Edo peoples, Benin kingdom, Nigeria, late 15th-early 16th century, *Robert Owen Lehman Collection, *Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) has just become a major player among collections of the famed Royal Benin brass and ivory sculptures, thanks to the gift of 34 objects by Robert Owen Lehman. And the MFA and its publics are justifiably thrilled because until this gift the museum had only one Benin object in its 20-year-old African collection. Plans are on to build a dedicated permanent gallery for the Lehman Collection. 

As a student of Benin art, this is great news, and I cannot wait to see this collection when it opens to the public in late 2013. It is unquestionably to the benefit of Benin art scholarship and enthusiasts that the Lehman Collection, which has more or less been off the radar, will now be accessible to students and scholars -- excluding of course(!) those from Africa who would never get travel visas to visit the MFA, or any other American museum for that matter. And who knows what new scholarship the collection might inspire? 

Commemorative head of an Oba (King), Edo peoples, Benin kingdom, Nigeria, late 16th century, *Robert Owen Lehman Collection, *Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Still, each time I read news about Benin works that were originally looted in 1897 from the Palace of Oba Ovonramwen, the great-grandfather of the present Oba Erediauwa of the Benin Kingdom, it is impossible forget that the fate of these artworks remains unresolved. Of course, western institutions and governments have carefully managed the laws governing cultural heritage, and imposed arbitrary dates that give legal cover to museums holding works such as those from the Benin Court. But there are ethical imperatives that cannot be glossed over by stupid legal regimes. 

One thing is certain: Calls for the resolution of the problem caused by British looters of Benin royal art collection will not go away -- especially now that Nigerian/world-citizen voices have learned to harness the popular power of the internet to demand action, with occasional victories. 

Pectoral showing two officials, Edo peoples, Benin kingdom, Nigeria, 16th-17th century, *Robert Owen Lehman Collection, *Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Take for instance what happened in late 2010 when the heirs of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Galway, one of the leaders of the so-called Benin Punitive Expedition, quietly consigned several objects, including an extremely rare ivory pendant "Queen Idia" mask, taken from the Benin Court by their ancestor, to the Sotheby's London for sale. When bloggers, journalists and cultural critics petitioned the Sotheby's to reconsider its participation in the Galway transaction, we were told that the auction would go on. But when the clamor heated up fueled by an international signature campaign, Sotheby's cancelled the sale -- or rather, the Galway heirs withdrew the consignment. 

This time around, some commentators have tried to equate the Galway-Sotheby's saga with the Lehman-MFA gift. But I think these are not quite the same, given that, according to the MFA press announcement, Mr. Lehman bought all the works in his Benin collection from the art market between the 1950s and 1970s. Where the Galway family simply wanted to make lots of money from their looted inheritance (and given the controversy surrounding the auction, I could not imagine any self-respecting public institution touching them with a long pole, which means they most likely would have disappeared into private collections, not to be seen again for a long time), Mr. Lehman moved his collection to a public museum, where the works will be available to anyone interested in them. 

Relief plaque showing a battle scene, Edo peoples, Benin kingdom, Nigeria, 1550-1650, *Robert Owen Lehman Collection, *Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

So, under the circumstances, it will be good to see these 34 works -- which include some first-rate examples of Benin Court art -- at the MFA when the dedicated gallery opens in 2013. The thing though is that, by acquiring this important collection, the MFA joins other top-tier western museums (the Met, Art Institute of Chicago, British Museum, the Berlin, and Vienna Ethnological Museums, etc.) that must bear the burden of resolving the ethical quagmire that is Benin Royal Art, no matter how passionately James Cuno and others like him want to claim expropriated art by colonial powers for the so-called global (read Euro-American) encyclopedic museums.

There are small, significant steps that can be taken in the meantime, and there is some indication that the MFA may be willing to begin. According to Christraud Geary, the respected Teel Senior Curator of African and Oceanic Art, the Lehman Collection installation will fully explore the circumstances under which the objects were taken from Benin City. That is to say, the MFA will not ignore (or relegate to a footnote as some other collections have) the problematic history of the Benin objects in their collection; and the Court and Benin communities will be consulted in the process. I would hope that the museum will find the courage to go further than this. 

Saltcellar, Sapi peoples, Sierra Leone and Guinea, late 15th-early 16th century, *Robert Owen Lehman Collection, *Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

At the 2007 opening of the groundbreaking, comprehensive Benin: Kings and Ritual exhibition at the Museum of Ethnology, Vienna, Oba Erediauwa stated that while the Benin Court is not necessarily demanding the repatriation all the objects looted by the British, it wishes to enter into workable, mutual understanding with museums holding these objects such that there could be temporary loans to the Court where these objects (actually their replacements produced after the restoration of the kingdom in 1914) remain a vital part of the ritual and social life of the Oba and the Edo Kingdom. But will museums holding Benin Court's works of art explore this commonsense, ethical route?

Huffington Post tribute to Segun Olusola

Here's my tribute to Segun Olusola, published in Huffington Post:

Chika Okeke-Agulu: Segun Olusola: In Memoriam

SEGUN OLUSOLA, In Memoriam (1935-2012)

He caught God's tide
by its prickly tail
and scaled Ogun's walls
and the rivers of Osun
when the earth was new

Ah, the deep-voiced sage
has gone to the market
he has gone to buy
for his many children
the promise of tomorrow

Mellon Fellowships at Wits University, Johannesburg--Announcement

We invite applications for 2 Fellowship in the WITS ART MUSEUM at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. These fellowships are funded by The Andrew W Mellon Foundation and will be situated in the Wits Art Museum. The positions will preferably be filled by Postdoctoral candidates, but we will consider strong applications from candidates with MA degrees intending to enroll for, or currently enrolled for PhDs. The fellows will work with the curators of the Wits Art Museum and the Chair in the Centre for the Creative Arts of Africa on a research-driven re-engagement with the collections of historical and contemporary African arts in the Wits Art Museum. We are therefore looking for fellows with research experience in one or more of the following fields: African visual art, African music, African performance arts, African dress.  One of the main tasks of the fellows will be to help academic divisions in Wits and at other institutions access, engage with, and use the collections in teaching and research. They will have to outline and drive a series of seminars which will, at the end of the project, be published as a collection of essays. Fellows will be expected to participate in exhibitions and publications planned within the Wits Art Museum.

Each Fellowship will be for a period of 36 months (although we may consider terms shorter than that) and will include a stipend, a shared office with own computer, library access and a small research grant per year. The fellowship project will start in July 2012, and will end in July 2015.

Applications must be sent to Julia Charlton, (Senior Curator at WAM) Julia.Charlton@wits.ac.za  and should include:

• Title and abstract of the doctoral thesis, or master’s thesis/research report
•  Copies of degree certificate (or a signed letter from a supervisor saying that the degree will be completed before the candidate is due to take up the position)
•  Copies of completed articles or published essays (if any) 
•  A Curriculum Vitae (Resumé)
•  A letter of motivation
•  The names and email addresses of two referees, one of whom should be the supervisor of the doctorate/MA dissertation.

Submission deadline 15 July 2012

BBC News - African migrants hurt in Jerusalem 'arson attack'

Is it not shocking to hear government officials from the State of Israel describe African immigrants with words like "cancer," and that they constitute, according to a BBC report, "a problem that had to be 'solved'"? When you read about the increasing violence being levied on African immigrants, while government officials speak of nothing other than how to maintain the Jewishness of their state, with apparent little concern about inhuman treatment of people who do not look like the majority, it is impossible to remain silent. So, let me ask: could someone in the Israeli government please remember that these Africans immigrants are first and foremost human beings; that it is unacceptable and wrong to describe them as a "cancer"? Because such rhetoric begets nothing but the kind of terrible, popular anti-African violence we are witnessing in that country today.
    
BBC News - African migrants hurt in Jerusalem 'arson attack'

On the Lagos Plane Crash

As news of the yesterday's plane crash in Lagos unfolds, and as the number of the dead is reviewed upwards, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. But what we do know is that it took hours for the so-called "First Responders" to get on top of things, to search for victims and put out the fire resulting from the plane plowing into a densely built-up neighborhood. There is so much to say about the terrible state of basic infrastructure in Lagos and Nigeria, and this plane crash once more makes the problem so utterly and embarrassingly obvious. But I do not have energy or composure to address this now. I can say though that I do not know what to make of the fact that President Jonathan has declared three days of national mourning. What are we mourning? The spectacular loss of 150 or so "important" lives, in a country where thousands and thousands perish on its decrepit and overused roads? Or are we asked to mourn the inability of the Nigerian government to provide something as basic as water (to put out Lagos' frequent fires) and access roads to its sprawling neighborhoods? And why three days? My own grief for the dead and wounded will be brief, but I reserve the extended mourning for the failure of governance and all the evils that follow from that--including, as we shall soon find out, this plane crash.