Museums Confront Ethical Dilemma

One day, visitors trickled into the Africa wing of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, a massive museum that opened in 2021 in a neo-Baroque reconstruction of the city’s former Royal Palace. The setup was familiar: Artifacts were enclosed behind glass and mounted onto white walls — an “ethnological display” of priceless artworks from a far-off land.

But this exhibition was different. Dozens of Benin Bronzes, intricate sculptures and plaques in metal that date back as far as the 13th century, were on display in Berlin for what may be the last time. Since July 2021, the artifacts no longer belong to Germany. They are part of a trove the country has begun to repatriate to Nigeria, beginning in December with the return of 20 bronzes. The exhibition tells not just the story of the objects, but also of their theft in 1897, when British forces sacked Benin City, looting the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin in what is now southwest Nigeria.

Diagrams explain how the

bronzes were acquired from European traders, while photos show British soldiers striking triumphant poses atop piles of loot.

The bronzes have been at the center of an international firestorm as calls mount for Western museums to take responsibility for how they obtained objects that were seized during the colonial era, or looted by Nazis and other invading forces.

For museumgoers, the ethical dimensions of viewing plundered art have become impossible to ignore. Western museums are major tourist attractions. What responsibility do we bear for patronizing institutions that display what critics say are stolen works? Should we be asking how these museums got their treasures?

“There has been a great change of consciousness in the last years,” said Gilbert Lupfer of the German Lost Art Foundation, a database for the search for Nazi-looted art. “Visitors of museums have become interested in questions of provenance.” And most of them, he said, realize that works with a problematic provenance “can’t remain in the museum.”

European and American museums have long resisted calls for repatriation, arguing that objects were legally obtained, that they are safer where they are, and that passing time and turmoil have made it impossible to determine rightful owners.

But the scales have tipped. “I think there’s been a big shift,” said Geoffrey Robertson, a British-Australian restitution expert and human rights lawyer. “It started in a way with President Macron saying that Indigenous art, so much of which is in Western museums, should go back to Africa,” he said, referring to President Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 pledge to return France’s African holdings.

Now, new projects, like the Edo Museum of West African Art in Nigeria, where repatriated artworks from historical Benin will be housed, are recasting conceptions of what a museum should look like.

A vast complex at the site of historic Benin City, the museum was conceived by the Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye as “a kind of abstraction of how Benin City would have looked before.” The site will include a research and collections center, rainforest gardens and an artisans’ hall where contemporary craftspeople can sell their wares.

Phillip Ihenacho, a Nigerian financier who heads a trust in charge of the project, said it offers a hopeful narrative to the people.

“When they understand how sophisticated, how advanced and how great the Benin Kingdom was relative to what was happening in Europe at the time, it can give people a sense of optimism for the future,” he said.

Coming to terms with the plundering of nations’ artifacts.