Home / Press review / Archive / Magazine / History / Remnants of Colonialism / Analysis

Focusing on the primitive

The colonial powers divided up their colonies' cultural treasures. A few years ago Europe's ethnology museums began modernising their collections in an attempt to present the works of art seized during the colonial era in a different way.

As part of the current fashion for all things "ethnic” and the flourishing of the entertainment business, non-European art, sometimes also called "primitive art”, is currently enjoying something of a boom. The British Museum in London has refurbished its ethnographic exhibition rooms, the Dahlem museums in Berlin are currently being reconstructed, and in France a completely new museum – the Musée du quai Branly – has been opened. The Museum of Ethnology Vienna, and the Royal Museum for Central Africa in the Belgian city of Tervuren have also been reorganised, while Göteborg is presenting its ethnological collections in a newly designed Museum of World Culture that opened in 2004 and uses an interdisciplinary approach to present existing collections in the light of globalisation and explore themes like international migration and multi-cultural societies.

Sculptures from the Pacific island of Malekula at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris.

Photo: AP

At the same time thematic exhibitions are being put on that bring together exhibits from various European collections and that are shown at a number of different European venues. Take, for example, the exhibition Benin. Könige und Rituale – Höfische Kultur in Nigeria (Benin. Kings and Rituals: Court Culture in Nigeria), which was shown in Vienna and Paris in 2007 and was on show in Berlin until May 2008. The brochure produced for the French tour described the exhibition as bringing together "for the first time in Europe” collections housed mainly in museums in England, Germany and Austria and as presenting "a large panorama of art and culture in the Kingdom of Benin”. While that was certainly true, what the brochure neglected to explain was the historical context in which the exhibits had been collected. Most of them, namely, had been gathered by a British military expedition to Benin in 1897. The reason why this information is omitted is that the museums know very well that what would need to be said would have much more serious implications than simply leaving it out.

The spoils of war...

The history of colonialism was first and foremost about carving up territory among the colonial powers, so by sharing their collections today European museums are in a sense perpetuating this tradition. And indeed, if it hadn't been for colonialism, the objects in question wouldn't be where they are today. This shared history is plainly evident at the European museums devoted to other cultures and civilisations and in Europe's ethnological exhibitions. The majority of these collections came into being between 1880 and 1914, a period when the European powers expanded their territory globally from 35 to 84 percent. Even if most of the pieces were collected for scientific purposes we know that many were seized during military campaigns and were thus simply the spoils of war.

... for whom?

In December 2002 nineteen directors of the world's major museums signed a Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums no doubt fearing that one day the Pandora's Box of restitution and immense reparations claims would open. Specifically they said that the museums were "agents in the development of culture” whose mission was "to foster knowledge through a continuous process of reinterpretation” and that they served "not just the citizens of one nation but the people of every nation”.

Different exhibition cultures

Yet this uniform facade actually conceals big differences in national positions. The art works of the Kingdom of Benin are today scattered among many different European museums. But in each of the permanent exhibitions in which they are to be found they are presented in very different ways, even if they all have the same origin. The differences concern above all the treatment of the colonial context in which the works were originally collected. While France tends to ignore this historical dimension almost completely, in Germany it is accorded a much more prominent place, no doubt on account of Germany's greater awareness of its own recent history and of its responsibility for the Holocaust. Unlike the "historically blind” French, the British often provide historical details about the origins of the collections but here the reason is not so much historical awareness (as in Germany) as pressure from cultural organisations run by the descendents of people from the former colonies.

A medium of exchange

These differences may also be explained by diverging geo-strategic interests. Certain exhibits in European collections are apparently made part of restitution promises when they can serve as leverage for obtaining other favours in exchange. This was the case, for example, with the Seal of Dey, which belonged to the Algerian regent during the Ottoman Empire. Having been seized and taken to France by the French army in 1830, it was returned to Algeria by the French President in March 2003, just at the moment when important trading agreements were being signed.

A double sin

The collections that have been shared out among the European museums recall a colonial history – a history of empires formed through war and violence. Aminata Traoré, the former culture minister of the Republic of Mali, recalled this problematic past when she stated: "Our works of art have the right to be in places where we ourselves do not have the right to be”. Because of the current problems in the area of international migration, the future of the objects preserved in Europe's ethnological museums is uncertain. This ambiguity makes the task of post-colonial remembrance a special one, for Europe has a double sin to atone for: on the one hand, the sin of the old colonialists against their colonies, and on the other that of modern European economic powers against labour immigrants. Currently Europe is engaged in a process that will open the way to a new kind of remembrance in which museums dedicated to other cultures and civilisations should have an important role to play.

Bernard Müller

Bernard Müller is an anthropologist. As well as working at the Institut de recherche interdisciplinaire sur les enjeux sociaux in Paris he coordinates cultural projects ...
» to author index

Further articles on the subject » International Relations, » Exhibitions / Museums, » Cultural Policy, » Migration, » History, » Europe, » Africa
More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Exhibitions / Museums, » Cultural Policy, » Migration, » History, » Europe, » Africa