Critics Mercilessly Mock the British Museum for Its ‘Hollow’ Statement on the Black Lives Matter Movement

Twitter has unleashed a tirade of criticism of the British
Museum in London after its director Hartwig Fischer published a statement
in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. The
institution is the latest to be called out by members of the public
for making a response to the murder of George Floyd and the
subsequent worldwide demonstrations that, they say, does not align
with its actions.

“The British Museum stands in solidarity with the British Black
community, with the African American community, with the Black
community throughout the world. We are aligned with the spirit and
soul of Black Lives Matter everywhere,” the museum’s director wrote
in the statement, published on the British Museum’s blog on Friday,
June 5.

Observers were quick to point out that this same institution is
known for closely guarding its collection of colonial-era objects
from Africa, including the Benin Bronzes, as well
as other contested items such as the Parthenon Marbles. And
they noted that Fischer had left out key actionable words like
“repatriation” and “restitution.”

The more than 1,000 responses on Twitter range from the concise
(“the irony”; “Awkwardly delivered in front of piles of stolen art
and relics…”; “Um who’s going to tell them?”) to the incisive (“The
British Museum has stolen goods from Africa for centuries. We will
hear you when you return our ancestral treasures and put funding
into preserving a museum in our homeland. All the money you have
acquired from us for decades. Until then, this is
performative.”).

“The audacity to even write [B]lack [L]ives [M]atter when the
British Museum is built on the exploitation of [B]lack lives,
[B]lack bodies and [B]lack labor,” another user wrote.

In response, the British Museum said (with quite British
reserve) that it “will take all feedback into consideration.” “A
spokesperson said: “We value all audience feedback and recognize
that restitution is an issue many people feel very strongly about.”
The museum also noted that such issues will be engaged with more
directly in its new master plan—although the spokesperson made no
mention of restitution itself.

“Though it will take time to realize, the museum’s developing
masterplan project provides a unique generational opportunity to
reconsider, rethink and rebalance the display of the collection,
introducing greater diversity of collections on display, expanding
museum narratives,” the spokesperson said. “And above all,
involving multiple voices.”

While the museum might be eager to move on, curator Dan Hicks of the
Pitt Rivers Museum and Professor of Contemporary Archeology at
Oxford University is preserving all of the tweets for prosperity.
He has collected the
1,000-plus responses via his handle @BrutishMuseum.

“These are hollow claims while the British Museum continues to
deny requests for the permanent restitution of the Benin Bronzes,”
Hicks said on Twitter, in
reference to the sculptures taken in 1897 in a military attack on
what is now Nigeria. “And hollow claims,” he added, “while the
British Museum continues to allow BP sponsorship to art-wash the
neo-colonial extractivist projects of oil companies, at a time in
which the effects of climate climate change continue the violence
and dispossession suffered across the Global South.”

Ciraj Rassoo, a professor of history at the University of the
Western Cape, also found the letter disconcerting. She tweeted: “Very odd to
talk of solidarity, the politics of diversity, inclusion and
colonial legacies without acknowledging colonial violence and its
implications for collections.”

The post Critics Mercilessly Mock the British Museum for Its
‘Hollow’ Statement on the Black Lives Matter Movement appeared
first on artnet News.