News
Milwaukee Art Museum Returns Two Jars to David Drake’s Descendants
The Wisconsin museum’s ownership transfer was followed up by a Virginia museum’s announcement of the return of another “Dave the Potter” vessel this week.
Cultural Repatriation
Book Review
The Looter Who Built Your Favorite Museum
A new book maps the network that allowed Douglas Latchford to violently rip Khmer statues from their homes and funnel them into Western institutions.
News
Harvard Admits Owning Hair Samples of 700 Native American Students
The university said it will return the samples, some of which were used in research that directly or indirectly supported scientific racism.
Books
The Heist (or Repatriation) of the Century
Portrait of a Thief imagines what would happen if some overly confident 20-somethings proved the life of museum objects isn’t as clear-cut as it seems.
Opinion
An Unlikely Pair Doing the Work of Repatriating Indian Heritage
Recently, Art Recovery International and India Pride Project have collaborated to successfully recover and return priceless cultural objects stolen from India.
Opinion
Repatriation is a Start, but True Healing for Benin Requires More
Equity should be discussed in the form of European and American institutions partnering with the Benin government to create sustainable museums.
Opinion
Austria Should Repatriate the Mexica Headdress
The headdress in Austria is the only one of its kind and it's not only a work of art, but a representation of the identity and landscape of Mexico that was stripped from the nation by colonial forces.
Opinion
The Louvre Shouldn't Exhibit Trafficked Antiquities from Libya and Syria
The museum forgets that it is already a violent graveyard of colonial-era cultural trophies removed from their homelands under dubious circumstances.
Opinion
How the Labels in the British Museum's Africa Galleries Evade Responsibility
Despite the British Museum’s active participation in work towards restitution, the current display and captioning fail to be forthright or responsible.
Opinion
Stumbling Towards Repatriation
We need to make it clear to our museums that we do not want to walk around in galleries of stolen artworks.
Opinion
The British Museum Isn't Doing Enough to Fight Illegal Antiquities Trafficking
While the museum presents its attempt to identify trafficked antiquities as an altruistic enterprise, its policing of the antiquities market also distracts from its historic role in acquiring looted objects.
Interview
One Museum’s Complicated Attempt to Repatriate a “Benin Bronze”
The RISD Museum has held this Benin bronze head in its collection for 80 years. "No one would have given it up unless under duress," the curators say. But tracing its provenance and repatriating it is no simple matter.