Some of us started a debate about the sense or nonsense of UNICEF selling Non-Fungible tokens (NFTs) and investing in crypto-currency. While computer-generated greeting card designs may devaluate more quickly than you can spell "NFT", the following article cleverly connects the discussion of 'what is a NFT' with some or the more thorny questions on 'ownership and copyright'. There is a lot of potential for someone getting angry about something - as told in the following article that appeared in The Guardian last week, and was picked up by Ken Gibbs.
Row about Congolese statue loan escalates into legal battle over NFTs
By Daniel Boffey
The Guardian
View Original
A statue depicting the angry spirit of a Belgian officer beheaded during an uprising in Congo in 1931 is at the centre of a tug of war between a US museum and a Congolese gallery at the site of the rebellion.
The statue of Maximilien Balot, a colonial administrator, has travelled to Europe but the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is accused of stonewalling requests for a loan to the White Cube gallery in Lusanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The row has developed into a legal dispute after the White Cube sought to raise funds by selling digital images of the Balot statue – known as non-fungible tokens or NFTs – resulting in accusations from the VMFA of a breach of copyright.
A spokesman for the VMFA in Richmond, Virginia, said the “image was lifted directly from the museum’s website without permission, which violates our open access policy and is unacceptable and unprofessional”.
Renzo Martens, a Dutch artist and director at the White Cube, said: “We have downloaded the image from the internet, as there is no other material made available by the VMFA. We do not have copyright for the image, we use it under the doctrine of fair use.”
It was during a revolt against the rape of the wives of men who had refused to work at a palm nut plantation in Lusanga that Balot was hacked to death.
The brutal Belgian retaliation that followed led to the revolt of the Pende people, one of the last significant rebellions against colonial rule before independence was secured three decades later. A statue was carved of Balot’s angry spirit in an effort to control it, experts say.
The statue was purchased in 1972 by Herbert Weiss, an emeritus professor at City University of New York while he was on a field trip near Lusanga, formerly known as Leverville after William Lever, the founder of Unilever. Weiss donated it to the VMFA.
The row highlights the tensions between western institutions displaying artefacts dating from the colonial era and the countries from where artistic and cultural works were taken.
The VMFA has 300 employees and an annual revenue of $21.3m (£15.6m), while the White Cube was established by former plantation workers and is supported by fund raising by a cooperative of artists known as Congolese Plantation Workers Art League (CATPC).
Cedart Tamasala and Matthieu Kasama, two representatives of the CATPC, visited the VMFA in February 2020 where they first asked for a loan of the statue.
A documentary-maker travelling with the two men caught the response from their guide, Prof Richard Woodward, a former curator of African art. He told them: “That would be a very interesting possibility to explore to be able to share the work back. As a museum that cares for the preservation of these objects we go through certain formalities about an agreement and shopping and display. You know, conditions of security and things like that.”
In subsequent correspondence, assurances were given over the White Cube facility and insurance plans but the VMFA said it was initially unable to positively respond as the statue was already out on loan. According to the chain correspondence, the museum then said in October 2021 that it was too early to make decisions about a loan for 2023.
A spokesperson for the VMFA added in a statement that decisions over loaning the sculpture had not been possible last year as the White Cube building, inaugurated in 2017, “was not complete”.
Tamasala said bringing back the statue even if only for a loan was an important way for locals to reconnect with their past.
He said: “The lost item, the Balot sculpture, was made for the main purpose, to control the spirit of dead Balot, which could wander and harm the Pende or their surroundings. Currently, what role does she play?
“It is objectified and classified or imprisoned – a sterile museum with so many objects looted in Africa, with no other purpose than to make money or educate their own population.
“We have the strong impression that they are not ready to lend it to us; it can be lent to a museum in Switzerland or elsewhere, but not to a museum in the plantation for the resistance against which, among other things, it was designed and sculpted.”
By Daniel Boffey
The Guardian
View Original
A statue depicting the angry spirit of a Belgian officer beheaded during an uprising in Congo in 1931 is at the centre of a tug of war between a US museum and a Congolese gallery at the site of the rebellion.
The statue of Maximilien Balot, a colonial administrator, has travelled to Europe but the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is accused of stonewalling requests for a loan to the White Cube gallery in Lusanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The row has developed into a legal dispute after the White Cube sought to raise funds by selling digital images of the Balot statue – known as non-fungible tokens or NFTs – resulting in accusations from the VMFA of a breach of copyright.
A spokesman for the VMFA in Richmond, Virginia, said the “image was lifted directly from the museum’s website without permission, which violates our open access policy and is unacceptable and unprofessional”.
Renzo Martens, a Dutch artist and director at the White Cube, said: “We have downloaded the image from the internet, as there is no other material made available by the VMFA. We do not have copyright for the image, we use it under the doctrine of fair use.”
It was during a revolt against the rape of the wives of men who had refused to work at a palm nut plantation in Lusanga that Balot was hacked to death.
The brutal Belgian retaliation that followed led to the revolt of the Pende people, one of the last significant rebellions against colonial rule before independence was secured three decades later. A statue was carved of Balot’s angry spirit in an effort to control it, experts say.
The statue was purchased in 1972 by Herbert Weiss, an emeritus professor at City University of New York while he was on a field trip near Lusanga, formerly known as Leverville after William Lever, the founder of Unilever. Weiss donated it to the VMFA.
The row highlights the tensions between western institutions displaying artefacts dating from the colonial era and the countries from where artistic and cultural works were taken.
The VMFA has 300 employees and an annual revenue of $21.3m (£15.6m), while the White Cube was established by former plantation workers and is supported by fund raising by a cooperative of artists known as Congolese Plantation Workers Art League (CATPC).
Cedart Tamasala and Matthieu Kasama, two representatives of the CATPC, visited the VMFA in February 2020 where they first asked for a loan of the statue.
A documentary-maker travelling with the two men caught the response from their guide, Prof Richard Woodward, a former curator of African art. He told them: “That would be a very interesting possibility to explore to be able to share the work back. As a museum that cares for the preservation of these objects we go through certain formalities about an agreement and shopping and display. You know, conditions of security and things like that.”
In subsequent correspondence, assurances were given over the White Cube facility and insurance plans but the VMFA said it was initially unable to positively respond as the statue was already out on loan. According to the chain correspondence, the museum then said in October 2021 that it was too early to make decisions about a loan for 2023.
A spokesperson for the VMFA added in a statement that decisions over loaning the sculpture had not been possible last year as the White Cube building, inaugurated in 2017, “was not complete”.
Tamasala said bringing back the statue even if only for a loan was an important way for locals to reconnect with their past.
He said: “The lost item, the Balot sculpture, was made for the main purpose, to control the spirit of dead Balot, which could wander and harm the Pende or their surroundings. Currently, what role does she play?
“It is objectified and classified or imprisoned – a sterile museum with so many objects looted in Africa, with no other purpose than to make money or educate their own population.
“We have the strong impression that they are not ready to lend it to us; it can be lent to a museum in Switzerland or elsewhere, but not to a museum in the plantation for the resistance against which, among other things, it was designed and sculpted.”
The photo depicts the Diviner’s Figure representing the Belgian colonial officer, Maximilien Balot, 1931 Pende culture. Photograph: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts / Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
This raises a number of issues:
ReplyDeleteI personally feel that the rush to invest in or sell off NFTs may be a bit premature. By virtue of their digital makeup it would seem easy to craft a near duplicate which can be proven to be different and thus not affecting copyright. If a child’s expression is sufficient to make an NFT, a different child with a somewhat different expression might become more appealing and thus reduce the value of the original NFT leading one to think that they are ephemeral. Or of possibly highly variable value. Is this the sort of item which UNICEF should be trying to exploit ?
I am unclear who regulates NFTs ? In a case where there is a debate about ownership or the appropriate use to which an NFT is put, whose laws will be used to adjudicate ?
With respect to the Congolese statue (separate from the NFT debate), I have to declare an interest. I was born African and how Africans deal with spirits and ancestors is very different from the way in which western societies handle them. Where artefacts have a religious or cultural significance, one would expect that western societies would take a sympathetic view of the impact of the loss of such an item and work out how to accommodate its loan or return to where it has significance. One thinks of Benin Bronzes and the Elgin Marbles which play to some of the same sensitivities.
Just a passing thought: In this digital age, we are able to scan an artefact very precisely and use the scanned data to re-create an identical object. If the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) which has suddenly become coy about sharing the Congolese statue with the White Cube, then it would seem simple for them to clone two copies of the statue – one for themselves and one to be loaned to other institutions (naturally for money), paving the way for the original to be returned to where it has local significance. Now, why didn’t we think of this before ?