If the Past is Another Country, What’s the Future?
by Ron McCoy
“The past is another country; they do things differently there.”
L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between (1953)
Hoa Hakananaia’a at the British Museum
Photo by: James Miles / CC BY-SA
Hopefully, you are weathering the pandemic’s upheavals and dislocations as best and as well as you can. Paso a paso, folks, step by step.
At the moment, we appear to be in a state akin to a hiatus: perched in the narrowest of gaps betwixt and between; lodged in a liminal bubble sliding along a wobbly continuum that runs from the wreckage of a rapidly receding past crammed-up uncomfortably against an incomplete present; all the while searching for the makings of a bridge that will allow us to move into an uncertain future dominated by some great reset. Cheerful stuff.
Not surprisingly, then, when it comes to the field of tribal art things have been almost preternaturally quiet of late. Museum and gallery closings, widespread civil upheaval, and the fact that most people find their minds focused on other, more prosaic matters like survival…well, there is nothing quite like a pandemic to refocus one’s attention. Although searching for signs of links between this pandemic and antique tribal art may seem a bit of a stretch, it has been during this time that musing on these subject’s relationship to one another took me back to 1967.
That was the year many then-young seekers of transformational change listened avidly to a record called “For What It’s Worth (Stop, Hey What’s That Sound?).” In what became an audible trope for the era, the eclectic folk-rock group Buffalo Springfield sang Stephen Stills’ haunting lyrics about the dislocating uncertainties of a disconcertingly unsettling time: “There’s something happening here/What it is ain’t exactly clear….”[1]
The next year, 1968, the genie came roaring out of the bottle. Everything seemed adrift, loosened from moorings, far from in-control as the firestorm of events accelerated: war, protestors and police battling in the streets, cities alight, assassinations, all in a seemingly relentless cascade of near-apocalyptic horror during one of those may-you-live-in-interesting-times times. Four years later, 1968’s goings on occupied the thoughts of China’s wily premier Zhou Enlai, who carved his way up to a point as close to the top of the Maoist hierarchy as you could get without being Mao. Asked for comment on the long-term impact of a tumultuous revolutionary wave which reminded many of the beginnings of the French Revolution, Zhou wisely replied: “Too early to say.”[2]
If you consider the confusion voiced by Buffalo Springfield and mingle it with Zhou’s words of wisdom, there’s a lot right now that may not seem “exactly clear.” Still, it’s just about ironclad-certain that there’s another side to all of this from which we shall, at some point, emerge. (Needless to say, “all” includes that array of aficionados, curators, collectors, and dealers associated with the field of antique tribal art.) It is certainly an equally secure wager to take the position that life on the other side is going to be a whole lot different from that to which we are accustomed.
We often perceive the loci of our activities as firmly rooted in what amount to different worlds: “tribal art world,” “automobile manufacturing world,” “world of politics,” and so forth. But this perception of separateness is an illusion, a mental accounting trick that allows us to compartmentalize our affairs. But none of those world-constructs is inherently distinct; all are inextricably linked.
With that thought in mind, we may sense that the impact already wrought upon the tribal art sphere by the pandemic and its resulting waves of after-effects remains uncertain, the details of its longer-term impact unknown. Still, it is not too early to give some thought to the future if only to be better equipped for dealing with its new realities.
“The past,” British novelist and short story writer L.P. Hartley observed, “is another country; they do things differently there.” Similarly, the future — at least as much and perhaps even more than the past — will be another place; one where we shall, perforce, find ourselves doings things differently.
As we prepare to venture into alien territory, it’s a safe bet that the impact of what amounts to a pandemic earthquake (complete with its cascade of riffling aftershocks) cannot help but exert a profound impact upon those for whom antique tribal art is a passion.
The previous edition of this column — “Emmanuel Macron’s Bold Promise to Repatriate African Objects: ‘Hey, Wha’ Happen’?” — looked at the pledge French president Emmanuel Macron made in 2017 to atone for the “grave mistake”[3] of European colonialism by repatriating objects of African material culture to the continent of its origin.
Macron envisioned a five-year timeline for creating a mechanism to effect the repatriation from French public collections of an unspecified amount of African tribal art — currently, a legal impossibility — and, by implication, works emanating from other exploited cultures. Macron even pledged a $22.5 million loan to Benin so a suitable museum could be constructed at the UNESCO World Heritage site at Abomey.[4]
Naturally, there was a report on the subject. Macron received the Savoy-Sarr Report, named after its coauthors, in late 2018.[5] This is bold stuff, its authors proclaiming they seek nothing less than “the emancipation of memory.”[6] Much of the report is devoted to mind-numbing statements concerning impossibly convoluted constructs theoretical and special pleading. Whatever else it may have accomplished, the Savoy-Sarr Report succeeded in transforming the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris into ground zero for Macron’s experiment.
One of the world’s foremost museums, the Quai Branly holds more than 300,000 pieces of ethnographic art from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.[7] The Savoy-Sarr Report took account of the roughly museum’s 70,000 pieces of sub-Saharan origin and honed-in on twenty-six objects, including “statues and thrones looted by French troops during a military raid against the once powerful West African Kingdom of Dahomey in 1892.”[8]
At the time that column was published, Macron’s initiative remained unrealized, stalled for any number of reasons. Since then, the Quai Branly announced the appointment of Emmanuel Kasarhérou as its new president (director). Kasarhérou, the New Caledonia-born son of a Melanesian father and French mother, completed museum studies in Paris, headed the Museum of New Caledonia in his homeland, and returned to the Quai Branly where he served as deputy head of collections.[9]
“I feel as much the descendant of people who were colonizers of a certain place as of people who were colonized,”[10] Kasarhérou explained in an interview with Farah Nayeri of The New York Times soon after his appointment to the Quai Branly directorship.
He lost no time making some interesting observations about Macron’s pledge (indirectly) and the Savoy-Sarr Report (directly), including offering his opinion that the overall issue of cultural heritage and its repatriation is not something that can be “tackled with big block ideologies.”[11]
In fact, Kasarhérou evidently holds some decidedly negative views of the Savoy-Sarr Report, which he describes as a “very militant” document, one which “cannot be a blueprint for policy.” (He did give its authors some kind of nod for “[s]haking things up.”)[12] In addition, Kasarhérou committed himself to careful review of repatriation claims, declaring: “I’m not in favor of objects being sent out into the world and left to rot.”[13]
Emmanuel Kasarhérou certainly knows how tricky his outsider-insider/insider-outsider position may become when it comes to the crunch, the actual business of receiving and evaluating repatriation claims, engaging in often difficult dialogue between claimants and those possessing the relevant objects, and a gazillion other points of agreement, confusion, and contention. “I know I will inevitably disappoint people,” he has ruefully noted, perhaps reflecting a somewhat optimistic form of stoicism. “One always does. The worst thing would be to do nothing.”[14]
This is not just about Macron, the Savoy-Sarr Report, or the Quai Branly. As the pandemic raged and its associated dislocations scythe through our societies there are plenty of people and organizations playing a truncated game of catch-up. In June, for example, the British Museum came under renewed pressure about its own massive collection of controversial works. Hartwig Fischer, the institution’s director, put up a statement online declaring the museum “stands in solidarity with the British Black community, with the African American community, and with the Black community throughout the world.”[15]
For more than a few observers, the statement exhibited precisely the sort of cluelessness, condescension and desperation that may be capable of generating a few cheers but is absolutely guaranteed to invite a chorus of jeers. After all, as the Artforum account of this affair pointed out in an interesting coda:
Among the countries currently seeking the return of cultural heritage objects from the museum are Greece, which has repeatedly tried to secure the restitution of the Elgin marbles pilfered from the Parthenon in Athens; Ethiopia, which has called for the restitution of tabots, Christian plaques representing the Ark of the Covenant; and Chile, which has demanded the return of Hoa Hakananai’a, a stone monolith taken from Easter Island.[16]
“Look, I love you guys, but maybe you ought to sit this one out” a Twitter warrior responded. “Unless you plan to return the looted Ethiopian treasures, the stolen Elgin Marbles and permanently return the Benin Bronzes.” Another was “appalled at the hypocrisy” of the institution, with one cutting to the chase by twittering, “Time to give back the swag, guys!”[17]
Ultimately, as the author of the Artforum account explained, “expressing the institution’s solidarity with the black and African American community” is “a move that has invited heated criticism from those who claim the words will ring hollow until the museum reckons fully with the looted objects in its collection.”[18]
Although Emmanuel Macron’s dream remains unrealized, at least for the moment, it is not a forgotten remnant from a vanished past. This is something anyone associated with tribal art needs to spend time considering, because there will be new initiatives, more reports, and in some cases action.
We could do worse than preparing for the day we finally wash up on the shores of the future. Because we may find that shore crowded with folks who share reflections of Macron’s repatriation proposal; people for whom the dream of a great reckoning trending toward social justice remains not only undiminished but revitalized by a powerful sense of urgency.
After all, the future is another country; they do things differently there.
Please note: This column does not offer legal or financial advice. Anyone requiring such advice should consult a professional in the relevant field. The author welcomes readers’ comments and suggestions, which may be sent to him at legalbriefs@atada.org
ENDNOTES
[1] “Stephen Stills Lyrics: For What It’s Worth,” AZLyrics (n.d.), https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/stephenstills/forwhatitsworth.html
[2] Although Zhou’s observation is commonly thought to involve his analysis of the French Revolution of 1789, he was speaking of revolutionary developments in France in 1968. Richard McGregor, “Zhou’s Cryptic Caution Lost in Translation,” Financial Times (June 10, 2011). See, too, “Delanceyplace.com 6/21/11 — Too Early To Say,” Delanceyplace.com (June 21, 2011), https://delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?p=1711
[3] “Macron Calls Colonialism a ‘Grave Mistake’ During Visit to Ivory Coast,” France24 (Dec. 21, 2019), https://www.france24.com/en/20191222-frence-president-macron-on-official-visit-to-ivory -coast-calls-colonialism-a-grave-mistake
[4] Ibid.
[5] The Savoy-Sarr Report was authored by art historian Bénédicte Savoy, chair for Modern Art History/Art History as Cultural History at the Tecnische Universität Berlin,[5] and economist Felwine Sarr, director of the Civilizations, Religions, Arts, and Communication research center at Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis, Senegal.[5]
[6] Savoy-Sarr Report, 1.
[7] “Missions: A Bridge Between Cultures,” (Musée du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac, n.d.), http://www.quaibranly.fr/en/missions-and-operations/the-musee-du-quai-branly/#:~:text=; Farah Nayeri, “Museums in France Should Return African Treasure, Report Says,” The New York Times (Nov. 21, 2018), https:/ /www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/arts/design/france-museums-africa-savoy-sarr-report.html/.
[8] Heleluya Hadero, “Benin’s New Museum for Artifacts Looted by France Is Being Built Using a French Loan,” QuartzAfrica (wJuly 23,2019), https://qz.com/africa/1672922/france-will-help-fund-benin-museum-housing-looted-artifacts/
[9] Farah Nayeri, “A New Museum Director’s First Challenge: Which Exhibits to Give Back,” The New York Times (June 5, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/arts/design/emmanuel-kasarherou-quai-branly-museum.html
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Catherine Hickley, “’Time to Give Back the Swag, Guys!’ British Museum Unleashes Twitter Storm With Statement on Black Lives Matter,” The Art Newspaper (June 9, 2020), https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/british-museum-unleashes-twitter-storm-with-statement-on-black-lives-matter
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.
[18] “After Solidarity Statement, British Museum Faces Renewed Demands To Give Up Loot,” Artforum (June 12, 2020), https://www.artforum.com/news/after-solidarity-statement-british-museum-faces-renewed-demands-to-give-up-loot-83215