The newly developed work „At the Threshold“ by Emeka Ogboh is a series of portraits of Benin Bronzes. The Bronzes are currently held in the collection of the State Ethnographic Collections of Saxony (SES). By this intervention the artist draws attention to a largely debated part of the State Art Collections Dresden, addressing the presence and absence of the bronzes at their place of origin and in the collections of German museum. Simultaneously, however, he time raises the question of how European and non-European art are in fact mutually conditioning each other.
One consequence of the Benin Bronzes having been removed from their place of origin in 1897 is that they were stripped of specific life stories. They ceased to have the individual identity and autonomy they had in their original context. Celebrated objects that were once emblematic of religious and political power have become reduced to a state of imposed stasis in the Western museums.
