Abstract
The Benin Bronzes are some of the most contested art in modern history. Stolen from Benin City in 1897 by the British and subsequently displayed in museums of the Western world, these works of wood, bronze, and ivory have become central to the debate around art repatriation. While scholars mainly focus on the question of whether or not the bronzes should be returned, or on examining the art historical merit of the works themselves, none have studied photography of the Benin Bronzes and its complicity in colonial control. Photographs of the Benin Bronzes are the documentation of a painful process through which cultural heritage was stolen from the kingdom of Benin and sold for profit, and are simultaneously images meant for admirers to appreciate and distribute this art. I aim to uncover the biases of photographs considered aesthetically and artistically unimportant. I examine photographs of the Benin Bronzes from several different angles, beginning with in situ photographs of Benin and the 1897 British Punitive Expedition, to photographs distributed to art collectors at the turn of the century, to photographs in publications, museum finding aids, and digital resources. Through a combination of close looking and engagement with photographic theory, I argue that these photo-objects contain remnants of aggregate traumas — that of the object itself and that of the part-technological part-aesthetic decontextualized process of photography. In assessing a myriad of photographic sources both physical and digital, I ultimately challenge the claim of ownership to knowledge production implicit in the photo archive.
Presenters
Serena JampelStudent, History and Literature A.B., Harvard University, Massachusetts, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Colonialism, Photography, Epistemology, Contested History, Art Repatriation, Restitution
