King Leopold, Dead Animals, and a Museum of Itself

Hi everybody! I'm in Brussels, Belgium. I'm actually about to leave, and then I'll be in London for a few days visiting my dear friend from Kenyon, Sarah. Sarah and I shared a room for two academic years. We discussed the other day how it was really good that if we had to share a room, it was with each other--but that we're really glad that we don't share a room with one another or live in a dorm anymore, too. I'm so excited to see her!

But Brussels: this is a fascinating town, for sure, and I definitely hope to be back. I came to see the Royal Museum for Central Africa, which was built in 1886 as part of King Leopold II's project to gain support for his violent colonial exploits in central Africa, and I'll make this post about the museum. I'll put up another one with pictures from the town of Brussels.

So, this museum has a well-deserved, terrible reputation as a storehouse for ill-gotten colonial plunder--collections in some ways not dissimilar to those at the Musée du quai Branly. The exhibitions are, for the most part, out-dated and offensive (the agricultural section dates to the 1960's with models of plants that date to the 1920's, I think.) However, the museum is in the process of renovating, and has a few up-to-date, well-curated exhibitions, and has taken a much more responsible approach to its violent colonial past than the Quai Branly. In many ways, it had to do so, because the curators have so many rooms of really just ridiculous exhibits (don't worry, I'm getting to the dead animal part), and what else could one say in this day and age about them? The only way that the Musée du quai Branly gets away with what it does (and I know that I haven't talked about it much on this blog...I've been trying to a. spare you from too much of my work and b. not publish everything on the web before I get it into articles and the, um, dissertation...), is that it has a brand-new post-modern, post-colonial museum with which to mask the dirtier details of its past. To be clear, the Royal Museum's current curation is by no means perfect, but I do want to say that I find it to be thoughtful and responsible.

The Visitor's Guide has many good quotations from the visitor's log and pedagogical content that sets the tone for visitors to the museum. One of my favorite's is from a 2002 museum visitor: "A museum that has become a museum of itself." It is really true. It is as if you hadn't had to money to redecorate your house in a long time, and so you had to be really clear with all of your guests that you understand that your carpet and wallpaper are unattractive, but that you're keeping them because now you consider them antiques and historical documents.

OK, let's start out with a little Leopold II:





For all of his many faults, this man was not shy--in taking what was not his and in having his image sculpted and painted.



And now, the outside of the museum:







And now shall we go inside?




First exhibition hall.




From one of the newer exhibits.




From one of the newer exhibits.




1960's era exhibition on agriculture in Central Africa.




My other favorite visitor's comment from the Guide to the Museum: "Nice animals. . . but they're dead." It is really amazing how many of these creepy dioramas there are:










And of course, being the saavy man that he was, King Leopold II knew that no museum of Africa was a proper museum of African without a French garden designed by a French architect: