Back to Benin - New Art, Ancient Legacy

In November 2025, Museum de Fundatie will return without condition, the only Benin bronze plaque, marking a significant step in confronting colonial legacies. This act of restitution forms the basis of the exhibition Back to Benin: New Art, Ancient Legacy, which brings together 10 contemporary Nigerian artists of Edo origin. Through new works inspired by the plaque, the artists dialogue with history, symbolism, and cultural memory.

The Benin bronze plaque in Museum de Fundatie collection plaque, which depicts a figure popularly known as a mudfish in Edo Culture, has been acquired in 1932 by the museum’s founder, Dirk Hannema. Back to Benin: New Art, Ancient Legacy puts 10 contemporary Nigerian artists of Edo origin in dialogue with the bronze plaque, which, as with such artefacts, is part of the historical record of the Benin people.

Though the British sacking of the Benin Kingdom in 1897 left a wide hole in Benin’s history, its arts and traditions have continued to flourish through the work of contemporary artists and bronze casters.
Among them are Leo Asemota, Minne Atairu, Victor Ehikhamenor, Jonathan Favour, Taiye Idahor, Osaru Obaseki, Enotie Ogbebor, Abraham Oghobase, Osaze Amadasun and Phil Omodamwen, who were invited to participate in this exhibition.

Treating the object as a point of departure, they have created new works that explore the theme of restitution beyond the act of returning physical objects. These artists cast a contemporary look on the history, culture and philosophy of the Benin Kingdom, the symbols and symbolism of its art, and the materiality of artefacts such as the plaque. The exhibition thus seeks to (re)construct the different facets and multidimensional worlds that the plaque represents or evokes. Thereby its contributes to the resistance of the erasure of its existence and the knowledge it constitutes.

The artworks in the exhibition come in a variety of media and offer reflections on the 1897 sacking and its aftermath, the symbolism of the mudfish and other Edo motifs and figures, Edo cosmogony and cosmologies. These elements are reappropriated, created and re-imagined as the living legacy of the history and heritage of the Benin Kingdom.

Back to Benin: New Art, Ancient Legacy is accompanied by an extensive catalogue, with contributions by curator Aude Christel Mgba, Professor Kokunre Agbontaen-Eghafona, Osaisonor Godfrey Ekhator-Obogie, and artists Minne Atairu and Victor Ehikhamenor.

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