543. How to Return Stolen Art

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Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 32K Ratings

🗓️ 18 May 2023

⏱️ 52 minutes

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Summary

Museums are purging their collections of looted treasures. Can they also get something in return? And what does it mean to be a museum in the 21st century? (Part 3 of “Stealing Art Is Easy. Giving It Back Is Hard.”)

Transcript

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0:00.0	I mean, I'm quite famous for not doing what I'm told.
0:05.7	Well, it's very convenient for our purposes, I have to say.
0:08.6	You think we're 100% safe here?
0:10.4	Well, we can just keep it whether or not those three.
0:12.9	Well, it's weird.
0:13.9	Especially the man with the big fuzzy microphone.
0:16.9	That is me with Patricia Allen in the Kelvin Grove Museum in Glasgow, Scotland.
0:22.2	Allen is the curator of world cultures for the 11 institutions that make up the Glasgow
0:27.1	museums.
0:28.1	This makes her responsible for all non-European objects in their collections.
0:33.2	We have come to the Kelvin Grove to see a group of objects known as Benin Bronzes.
0:38.6	Artworks and artifacts looted by Britain from the historic Kingdom of Benin in what is
0:44.7	now Nigeria.
0:46.4	The last time I tried to see some Benin Bronzes in a museum at the British Museum in London,
0:52.5	our microphones were confiscated and then, as it turned out, all the Africa galleries
0:57.6	were closed that day.
0:59.4	Today in Glasgow we are having better luck.
1:02.8	This is the head of an ober.
1:04.7	So all of these heads were made by ancestors.
1:09.0	An ober is a Benin king.
1:10.9	A newly crowned ober would make the head of the preceding ober.
1:15.3	They're placed on altars along with other offerings, including things like a bell, there's
	...

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