In 2011, The Card Players, a painting by Paul Cézanne, sold for a record $269.4 million.
In 1990, The Concert, by Johannes Vermeer, along with 12 other pieces of art, was stolen from Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The 13 pieces had a value of over $300,000,000. A reward of $5,000,000 is still being offered for information on the heist.
The Mu'tafikah stole thousands of artifacts and artwork from a countless number of museums around the world. Think how much money that would be worth if sold for ransom or in the black market. Instead, they send it all back to its original home, whether that be Asia, Egypt, or another place around the world. This shows how much it meant to the Mu'tafikah for this art to get back to its original location, risking their lives, and not for any personal gain other than the knowledge that the art is back where it belongs (in their opinion).
Art, as the Mu'tafikah seem to understand it, is more than just a painting or sculpture hanging on a wall or set up in a museum for people to constantly walk by, admire (for what reason?), and to continue on their way to the next "masterpiece". The Mu'tafikah seem to think that art is an experience. Art is more than just what is within the frame to which it is confined. Viewing an Egyptian sarcophagus next to hundreds of other mostly unrelated pieces in a giant hallway surrounded by tons of other people waiting to catch a glimpse is far different than traveling deep into the heart of Egypt, down to the burial chamber of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh and seeing the sarcophagus next to all of the pharaoh's belongings. However, what about the extreme inconvenience that comes with the "full experience"? The Mu'tafikah obviously think that you only deserve to see the art if you go the extra mile to get to the art.
Obviously, society has chosen a different path to art viewing. Across the entire world are art museums devoted to displaying thousands of artifacts, paintings, sculptures, and other various art mediums. Generally, you walk inside, pay admission (unless you have a pass), and are free to wander the various exhibits. At the art institutes I've been to, the art is sorted loosely by era, movement, or location.
The Mu'tafikah are a group who think it is some sort of crime to keep art in museums like this. They call the Metropolitan Museum of Art the Center for Art Detention. Personally, I love the idea of traveling deep into the jungle to see an ancient piece of art, but thats unrealistic in most situations, and I do still want to see the art. Besides, there are still artifacts in the world that are still hidden, some known, some unknown.
The question you bring up here intrigues me as well. I personally love to peruse art museums, taking in the work that is far removed from its origin for my own enjoyment. I think that the Mu'tafikah believe not that you have to go the extra mile to be privileged enough to see the art, but more that the art is not just for display--it makes up a central part of whatever culture it comes from--almost as if it is part of the heart of the culture. And so because of this, it should be left alone. We do not cut ourselves open and expose our hearts because they are too essential to our existence, and I think art to the Mu'tufikah is viewed in the same way.
ReplyDeleteBut there's also the conviction, which is central to the Mu'tafikah's aims, that these "artifacts" have been stolen from *living* cultures. And in these cultures, "art" is not this separate category of experience, sealed off in special buildings to be viewed, worshiped, and guarded. It is a part of daily life, of religious/spiritual practice, and these objects have been "stolen" from these people and detained in museums, for "our" edification and enjoyment. In this view, the restoring of the artifacts to their original context would also mean resurrecting these dormant "gods"--Reed depicts the Mu'tas as working to amend the very cultural imbalance his novel sets out to expose. There's something patronizing, in this view, of us paying and lining up to gawk at treasures robbed from another culture's graves (literally, in many cases), all while patting ourselves on the back for our capacious curiosity and interest in diversity.
ReplyDelete