15 Why Do People Take What Doesn’t Belong to Them?
15 Why Do People Take What Doesn’t Belong to Them?
Why do people take what doesn’t belong to them?
When it comes to theft and art, you may think of thrilling heists like in the movies “Ocean’s Eight” (2018) or “The Thomas Crown Affair” (1999 or 1968). Or you may have watched the recent documentary “This is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist” (2021) about the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist in 1990. These are the highly publicized or imagined losses that the public connects to the art world. But there are many less visible types of loss and theft that don’t get talked about as much. In this chapter, we’ll talk about colonial theft and related museum acquisition, repatriation/restitution debates (regarding return of the objects to the country or owner of origin), looting (illegal removal of cultural objects from their place of origin), ideologically-motivated destruction, intellectual theft, and the impacts of these losses. The title of this chapter implies a notion of ownership over ancient and historic arts. But it is important to fundamentally consider the question of ownership. Does anyone actually own the past and objects or monuments that represent that past?
These topics aren’t fun like heist movies but some examples are quite famous, like the removal of marble sculptures from the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, between 1801-1812 CE. The so-called ‘Elgin Marbles’ (Fig. 15.2) were taken by the British Lord Elgin as his personal property, claiming he had permission from the Ottoman government that ruled Greece at the time. Outcries of looting and vandalism from the British public compelled him to not keep them. But he didn’t return them to Greece. He sold them to the British government. Eventually, the marbles went into the British Museum collection, where they remain today.
After Greece gained independence, they wanted the Acropolis sculptures back, calling for repatriation. The British Museum continually denies repatriation requests by the Greek government and international bodies like UNESCO. The Greek government and many citizens feel the loss of these art objects are a loss of their heritage and the practical potentials that heritage offers local communities (like economic benefits from tourism). Threats like looting and other forms of cultural destruction are long-established and continuing (sometimes growing), impacting the identities, heritage, and perspectives of cultures that have been poorly treated, underrepresented, and ignored.
How did this stuff get here? Why is it here?
Most museum-goers don’t ask these questions as they view objects, but we will. Remember Ana De Orbegoso’s Neo-Huaco #3 (Fig. 8.15) from “Who Came Before Us?” Andrew Hamiliton (2020, para. 7), curator at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) that owns De Orbegoso’s artwork and the Portrait Vessel of a Ruler (Fig. 8.14), states that Neo-Huaco #3 “emphasizes the commodification of Andean antiquities and the contemporary art market….” Why would De Orbegoso foc