#just learning about how fucked up the acquisition and decontextualization of the benin bronzes is

[girlhaggard]

the art historical canon is clearly founded upon western/european narratives, and this bias has always been abundantly clear throughout my education in the discipline. it manifests itself in academic texts or museum exhibitions which indiscriminately lump together african, oceanic, asian, and indigenous american art despite these works originating from wildly different cultures, contexts, and time periods; through the flippant recognition of "primitive" art as it relates to european modernist sensibilities; when entry-level art history classes discuss european theft of foreign artifacts through the lens of a colonial savior complex as opposed to the cultural genocide it actually is. we discuss the missing relief sculptures of the parthenon not as left but as part of the patronizing Elgin Marble narrative: we are saving these historically significant works from the turmoil of the global south! in reality we are re-writing the cultural histories of these important and significant civilizations. we are disrespecting their histories and customs and the people which built those from the ground up. this theft and western/colonial re-contextualization, this purposeful reframing of the canon to favor european conventions and sensibilities goes so much deeper than even the most woke art history program will dare to delve into.