France Urged to Change Heritage Law and Return Looted Art to Africa

Le Point s'est procuré le rapport Sarr-Savoy 

sur les restitutions du patrimoine culturel africain, 

commandé par Emmanuel Macron en 2017. Explosif.

Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy
Photo: Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images

A 108-page report commissioned by Emmanuel Macron has been leaked to a French magazine before its publication on Friday (Laureline Dupont. 'EXCLUSIF. Œuvres d'art africaines: un rapport préconise de tout rendre (ou presque)!' Le Point  20/11/2018). It has been revealed - somewhat alarmistically - that it will call for thousands of African artworks in French museums taken without consent during the colonial period to be eligable for return to the continent, after President Macron announced that he wanted this process to begin within five years. Unless it could be proven that objects were obtained legitimately, they should be returned to Africa permanently, not on long-term loan, as reportedly said the authors of the report, the Senegalese writer and economist Felwine Sarr and the French historian Bénédicte Savoy (Ruth Maclean, 'France urged to change heritage law and return looted art to Africa'  Guardian Wed 21 Nov 2018).

The extent to which France, Britain and Germany looted Africa of its artefacts during colonialism is not known, but according to the report, which will be released this Friday, about 90% of Africa’s cultural heritage currently lies outside the continent. The report’s authors travelled to Mali, Senegal, Cameroon and Benin and looked through the works held by the Musée du quai Branly, a museum focused on non-European cultures in Paris, and found that about 46,000 of its 90,000 African works were “acquired” between 1885 and 1960 and may have to be returned. [...] The systematic looting of African art took different forms: the researchers found that as well as being the spoils of war, theft and pillage, many of the works had been “bought” for fractions of their real value. 

The report has recommended changing French law to allow the restitution of these cultural works to Africa.   

A law would need to be passed in France to change the code of patrimony, and then African countries would have to request that their stolen works be returned. They would be better equipped than ever to do so, because the researchers have sent them lists of the objects. “Travelling in Africa, we saw the effect that these inventories can have, especially on museum directors,” Savoy told Libération. “They never had access to these lists, and never in such a clear and structured way. Highly knowledgeable researchers and teachers were really incredulous when we told them there were so many of their countries’ objects at quai Branly.” 

See also: Kate Brown, 'In a Groundbreaking Report, Experts Advise French President Macron to Begin the ‘Restitution’ of Looted African Arts' ArtNet News November 20, 2018 (scare quotes in original)

The contents of the 108-page study could have far-reaching implications for not only French institutions but also international museums that are facing increasing calls to return works of art and artifacts that come from countries in Africa and beyond, which were arguably stolen. According to the French weekly magazine Le Point, which has previewed the report, its authors [...] support the permanent restitution of African heritage, taking a groundbreaking position on the hotly contested issue. They refer to artifacts acquired through “theft, looting, despoilment, trickery, and forced consent,” in support of their use of the word “restitution.” [...]  “Behind the mask of beauty, the question of restitution invites us to go right to the heart of a system of appropriation and alienation, the colonial system, of which some European museums are today, in their own right, public archives,” begins the eloquently written report.

The report has a limited brief, and in fact does not consider objects from all of Africa in a like manner:

 According to Le Point, the introduction states that the report “concerns only the sub-Saharan part of Africa.” That means that all of French North Africa—modern day Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia—are excluded. In total, France occupied or colonized, at various times, at least 20 current or former countries in Africa. The nation was a foremost player in the continent’s European colonization and several African nations are still dependent protectorate territories.

The publication of the full text seems likely to provoke resistance in the museum world (and one suspects the dealers of so-called 'tribal art' who will probably now be faced by new demands from their customers for proper documentation as they realise that there may be changes afoot in how such objects are seen):

The report has been anxiously awaited by the directors of French museums and galleries, many of whom hope the document will temper some of the more radical proposals that have been suggested. It seems that the opposite is the case. [...] The appropriateness of the term “restitution” has been disputed within the French museum community, but Savoy and Sarr take a strong position in their continued use of the word. “This term reminds us that the appropriation and enjoyment of the property being returned is based on a morally reprehensible act (theft, looting, despoilment, trickery, forced consent, etc.),” they write.[...] Addressing the major concerns that French museums could be “emptied,” the two recommend the creation of duplicates or facsimiles of objects, where appropriate. France’s holdings of cultural objects from its colonial empire are vast, so there will likely be a strong reaction from the museums when the full report is released at the end of the week.

Savoy and Sarr write that “transitional solutions,” like temporary returns or loans, should be in place only “until legal mechanisms are found to allow the final and unconditional return of heritage objects to the African continent.” The report was written with consultations with around 150 specialists in France and on the continent and comes 'at a time when the subject of colonial restitution has been catapulted from an insider topic within museum communities to a worldwide public issue'.

 The report also recommends rigorous examination of various criteria in determining which objects should be restituted. Works that can be proven to have been acquired with “free, fair, and documented consent” may be retained by French museums. Objects seized during 18th- and 19th-century military campaigns and scientific missions, or objects that were gifted to museums by any agents of colonial administration or their descendants without consent of their original owners, will have a different fate. [...]

'Savoy and Sarr offer a radical shift on how respective parties must view the issue of colonial era artefacts':

They write that the problem arises when a museum is not affirming a national identity but is instead conceived as a museum of “the other,” keeping objects taken from elsewhere and assuming the right to speak about these others, or on their behalf. “Through the objects and stories held in so-called ethnographic collections, controlled representations of societies, which are often essentialized, have been put in place,” they write. “To speak openly about restitution is to speak of justice, rebalancing, recognition, restoration and reparation,” continue Savoy and Sarr. “But above all, it is to pave the way for the establishment of new cultural relationships.”

Exactly how the report is received by Macron and put into action remains, for now, an open question. The full text will be available on Friday, November 23, in English and French at www.restitutionreport2018.com