Terrible Beauty: Elephant – Human – Ivory
Tue, 20 July – Sun, 28 November 2021

For the past 40,000 years, humans having been using tusks to create musical instruments, jewellery, and beautifully carved objects for decorative and devotional purposes. Early humans carved the tusks of mammoths, but when they became extinct, those of other animals including walruses, narwahls, whales and elephants were harvested instead. In the more recent past, animal tusks have come to symbolize injustice and brutality, with the African forest elephant now listed as Critically Endangered and the African savanna elephantas Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™. One of the newly-opened Humboldt Forum’s first exhibitions, Terrible Beauty: Elephant – Human – Ivory, addresses this topic with a series of discussions and films, artistic events, and educational activities. They look at the material’significance in different cultures around the world and from pre-historic times to the present day, as well as the social and ecological consequences of its use. Some of the highlights include a mammoth’s task which visitors can touch

In 1989, CITES (a multilateral treaty to protect endangered species) banned international trade in African elephant ivory, responding to a decline in the population of African elephants over the previous decade from 1.3 million to around 600,000. It nevertheless continued to allow occasional sales of stockpiles, and the effects of the ban are disputed. In 2017, China banned the sale of ivory within its borders. Although WWF reported two years later that this resulted in a reduction in demand, again the evidence is not straightforward. In 2018, the UK government approved the Ivory Act enforcing a near total ban on the trade of ivory in the UK, with the exception of objects which contain less than 10% of ivory by volume and were made prior to 1947, pre-1918 items of outstandingly high artistic, cultural or historical value, and pre-1918 portrait miniatures with a surface area of no more than 320cm². Roland Foord, a lawyer from Stephenson Harwood, summarised the response of UK art dealers in this post. See below for a debate on the issue organised by the Courtauld Institute, with participants including Alistair Brown, Policy Officer at the Museums Association, art dealer Martin Levy and Will Travers OBE, CEO of Born Free Foundation. In March 2021 the EU also introduced proposals to ban the trade in ivory, again causing controversy in the art market.

The Humboldt Forum, which has taken nearly 20 years to finish, is designed to display the German state’s extensive collection of non-European art, including holdings from the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art. Much of this art was acquired while Germany was a colonial power, and the museum’s location - inside the residence of the Prussian kings who oversaw what is today considered to be looting - has been a source of considerable controversy. In response to criticism, the new museum’s General Director, Hartmut Dorgerloh, has expressed a determination that exhibitions like Terrible Beauty should address “problematic issues” and “stimulate discussion”. Watch this space!