I have mixed feelings about Reed's views on museums. In Mumbo Jumbo, Reed describes museums as prisons for stolen art work in an attempt to quash "inferior" cultures. To a certain extent, I understand where Reed is going with this argument. Artifacts are what make a cultural, we gather around our prized possessions and celebrate them. If I had to put it in terms Americans would understand, it would be as if someone took the Declaration of Independence (our most prized possession as a nation) and put it on display far away from us only to be glanced at in passing.
On the other hand, isn't a museum also a place to celebrate different cultures? Isn't that why there are revolving exhibits to display new and interesting artifacts gathered from around the world. Museums can also be viewed as spreading culture (maybe they should "put' Jes Grew in a museum?). Think about it, without museums, how much would we really know about the rest of the world? Through museums we are able to analyze and learn for ourselves the beauties of other cultures. Granted, some of the means by which we have acquired certain pieces are questionable.
It's sort of a trade off, I suppose. Without museums, it becomes harder for the general population to learn about the rest of the world, what drives their cultures and makes them a community. Conversely, without certain pieces in their homeland, that community loses a sense of identity and a unifying bond. It comes down to a choice between cultural unification or cultural awareness, a choice that is not as black and white as Reed makes it seem.
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While I was reading I was reminded of the whole issue between the British museum and Greece over the parthenon pieces that Greece built a whole museum to put them in, but the British doesn't want to give up such an exhibit even though it's Greece's history. Artifacts have just become collectors items to boast about.
And the fact remains that in many cases, these artifacts that supposedly inform us of other cultures have mostly been taken without permission, and in many cases they are not objects that the original culture sees as "art" but rather as sacred relics, objects that are part of a living, active culture. To forcibly remove them from that context and lock them away in a glass case so files of bored schoolchildren can "learn about" these other cultures by staring at a mask in a box and (maybe) reading a small explanatory card--how does Reed's model of theft and "detention" not apply? Should the traditional cultures be compelled to "donate" to "our" education against their will? And *has* this educational project measurably yielded a greater appreciation for cultural diversity after more than a century of modern museum culture? The American public seems to me as ignorant about African cultural diversity and history as we've ever been.
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