Synthèse, Art Restitution, notion places and forms of power

ART RESTITUTION

(Places and forms of power)

To what extent can we say that art restitution is used as a counter power today ?

I/ Art restitution as a Political Power

a) The Mission of the Monuments Men

b) The restitution of cultural poperty stolen during WW2 (= still an issue today)

II/ Art restitution as a Cultural Power

a) Art restituion in the Pacific

b) Ghanaian works of art

III/ Art restitution as an Economic Power

a) The black market

b) Parthenon Marbles or Elgin Marbles ? A debate which devides Europe

Ideas :

-Understand the concept of art restitution

-Distinguish its two historic roots : postcolonial and postwar restitutions

- Understand the place of art in societey and in the creation of identity

-Understand the issues art restitution raises, concernong ownership, cultural property…

-Understand how valuable art is, for those in power, for those who owns it, and for those who protect it

Intro : I will discuss the notion « Places and Forms of power » illustrated by the theme Art restitution. Firstly i would give the definition of the notion «places and forms of power: Power is the ability to influence the behavior of people. In order to live together members of a community accept rules and laws. This helps to create social cohesion but can also lead to conflicts and tensions.

Well, Art plays an important rôle in the world. It represents things relating to feelings, thinkings… Every works of art share a message and influence people.

Art is most of the time makes to illustrate an idea,

How can we consider art as a form of power ?

First we will see how art restitution can be a form of political power, then a form of cultural power and finally a form of economic power.

I will illustrate the notion with three documents :

the first is The monument men, a book written by Robert M.Edsel.my second one is a report from CBS Sunday Morning entitled « When half a billion dollars’ worth of art vanished ». Then my last document is an article written on the website modernghana.com. When willbritain return looted golden Ghanaian artefacts ?

I/ POLITICAL POWER

Art has always been considered has a kind of langage. A langage intented to convey ideas more easily than a speech. And in history, we can find a lot of evidences showing art as a political power. A power to denounce and revolt against a political regime and actons. So we can understand that during the WW2 nazis destroyed many works of art like books, just because they knew that litterature could reveals

...