Objects and Their Values

For a recent article I spoke to two individuals about restitution. One, an archeologist, accepted a moderate policy of restitution, but not in the case where the recipients would destroy the objects being restituted; he supported the idea of transferring a work of art from one museum or institution to another.  I thought his fear of destroying artworks was unfounded.  I then talked to a curator formerly at an art museum which had restituted objects, and these objects were then buried by the recipients for religious purposes, and as the objects were wood, they were doomed to almost certain destruction.  And so I was, for a while, quite dismayed by this loss of a beautiful and historically significant object, but I also was forced to think about competing notions of what an object represents. And the unpacking and un-learning began.

First off, in terms of restitution, the above two cases, I think, represent the majority of the situations concerning restitution (besides returning objects to specific individuals, which is a completely different set of affairs).  We have no choice but to return objects that were taken without permission, no matter what their historical significance, but perhaps our perceived entitlement to “protect” and “conserve” objects instead requires a new interrogation into why we look, and what we think we are doing when we look at objects.  I think this process of interrogation can only enrich the experience of art, as the only solution to letting go, in my mind, means a conscious embracing of differing spiritual structures between creator, object, and viewer.  We can no longer see ourselves as the all-knowing, investigative viewer, dead-set on a didactic experience—in a sense we have to “learn our place” in an alternative cultural schema: some objects aren’t meant to be seen; some objects don’t want to be looked at.

Contemporary academic notions of viewing consider no objects off-limits because the basic foundations and criteria for art in the west begins during the Enlightenment, and were based on contemporaneous ideas of art-making.  Art historical assessment then moves backwards in time with the Enlightenment’s deist theoretical framework, assessing previous cultures (and foreign cultures) with the same formalistic set of criteria, i.e. what does it mean that it looks this way? Even when art is contextualized, it is almost always done so from a historicist perspective, i.e. what was happening at the time it was being created? or from the point of view of who created it, though as we move further and further back in time this tends to be of less importance.  So even if we are aware that a certain object was only shown to viewers once a year, during a certain festival, or only to a select group of viewers, this notion of selectivity is dismissed as antithetical to the purpose of art, which is beauty, the pleasure of the eye, and our own edification as viewer. In ancient art this is less problematic because the original culture no longer exists to insist we respect its practices, but in Indigenous cultures which still regard certain images and objects as sacred, the onus is on us, the western educated viewer, to unlearn the notions we have forced upon the objects, and to unlearn them to the point where we can let go of seeing them if their owner tells we are not allowed to look, and accepting that they may have fulfilled their purpose and need to be recycled. Can we do that?

There are three dialectical concepts about art that need to be re-learned or un-learned.  These ideas are the intentions of the artist or creative force which made the work; the idea of the museum; and the idea of ownership of the art object.  The last is the most problematic because it brings up the formula of authenticity equaling value, a premise that substituted spiritual energy for financial capital and has resulted in the commoditization of the art object.  A switch which, when allied with the colonial practice of forcibly taking trophies from one’s defeated adversaries, has resulted in the tremendous theft of art objects, and the presence of this loot in European and American museums. Only then will we be able to develop a framework for re-envisioning the art object against a background of equality, democracy, anti-racism, and anti-colonialism.

So how can we unlearn the idea of the museum?  This sounds more drastic than it is.  The idea of the beautiful, and of observing the beautiful and sublime in art is not in danger.  The change that needs to take place is in the presentation of works from different cultures.  In cases of existing Indigenous cultures such as those of tribes of the Americas, educational and observational emphasis should be put on observing and understanding performances that are open to the wider public, rather than sacred objects—which automatically become trophies when cultural outsiders view them.  In terms of ancient cultures, such as those of Egypt, Mesopotamia, or the Olmecs, etc., certain ritual objects should be set aside from other more decorative or everyday objects, which may have had a more commonplace use, and their sacredness explained in accordance with what we know—perhaps making them viewable only certain times of the year to highlight the concept that our desires do  not necessarily dictate when we get to see something.  The presence of human remains, lways a source of morbid fascination in a museological atmosphere, should be reduced substantially.  

The western tradition also views beauty in art as a form of liberatory expression, as if something beautiful was made for everyone’s enjoyment—in ancient art, and in many Indigenous traditions this is not the case. The beautiful and the sublime can’t just be applied to everything without understanding notions of class and power.  It is important to emphasize that as well-crafted as many objects may be—from the statuary depictions of Hatshepsut, to the terra-cotta Army of the first Emperor in Xi’an, to the Benin Bronzes, these were oppressive societies controlled by a small group of elites, they consistently utilized the labor of enslaved persons; the art they produced was generally a form of propaganda to maintain the control of these elites.  If we can disengage beauty from a sense of justice, we will have moved quite a ways in unmasking the less virtuous side of human nature.

If museums can instead present objects in terms of what these objects were created to accomplish, rather than according to Western Enlightenment standards of beauty, viewers can begin to develop an actual sense of empathy with differing views. This of course would take place in tandem with the sometimes long and thorny process of figuring out how to return what works, where.

The artist's intentions and the value of the artwork move the discussion from the museum to the market: in a sense, they define the art market itself.  Is there any space in the contemporary art world for ritual objects?  Or vice versa; what happens when traditional societies which employ craftspeople for the production of culturally necessary ritual objects, then shift gears towards making objects for a consumer market?  Many contemporary artists are moving towards artistic practices in performance, social practice, and activism which do not produce saleable products, and therefore seem to indicate the need for a kind of salaried position analogous to the position of certain artists in traditional societies where the practitioner is viewed as a necessary civil servant; a Healer or Shaman.  This is easily a space that could be occupied by museums, whose shifting purpose could encompass providing artists to interact with local communities as instigators of justice and societal well-being (what a concept!).  Offering a social practice course of study in art schools which resulted in gainful engaged employment would streamline student’s training and goals, and reduce debt.  There is the added benefit that none of these propositions reduces the possibility of generating more painters, sculptors, photographers or videographers, it simply widens the field and increases diversity and equity.

But in terms of restitution, what do we achieve? 

Imagine. If we can effect a paradigm-shift in how we look at objects, acknowledge how objects were meant to be looked at by their creators, and apply value to only those creative works that were ever destined to have a value, restitution becomes far less of a conceptual problem.  It might not relieve the metaphysical hand-wringing of my archeologist friend or the resignation of the curator to whom I talked, but neither scholarship nor history, which ultimately serve Justice and Truth, are benefitted by depriving groups of their cultural patrimony.  Imagine a museum where groups of children don’t stare at desiccated corpses in glass cases, couples strolling hand in hand don’t gaze admiringly (they can gaze understandingly instead) at the accoutrements of the elite that were paid for by slavery and crafted by underpaid workers, and we don’t look up in wonder at the propagandistic monuments of archaic proto-fascist power structures.  It’s easy if you try.