Total denial of supplies to the police and military forces of a host country is hardly consistent with an image of responsible citizenship in that country.
Many public relations opportunities are available through the sponsorship of programs, special exhibitions and services. These can often provide a creative and cost effective answer to a specific marketing objective, particularly where international, governmental or consumer relations may be a fundamental concern.
Source: MetroMobiltan, Hans Haacke, Weber Gallery, New York, 1985.
Back in the days of empire, the British did not know quite what to make of the wondrous works of art. Thus in 1897 when troops of the punitive expedition sent out by London entered Benin city to seize control of and "pacify" what is now southern Nigeria, they discovered statues, plaques and masks so exquisitely designed and so expertly fabricated that the invaders concluded the trove could not possibly be the product of what the colonial mentality judged to be an unsophisticated people....But a century after the European scramble for the continent, controversy continues to hound African art....[The Africa95] exhibitions have reopened a rancorous debate over the validity of African art. This time the question is not who created the art--Africans clearly wielded the chisels and brushes--but whether European critics and scholars can appreciate and understand art forms that spring from a tradition so different from that of the West's art-for-art's-sake mind-set.
Source: "AFRICAN VISIONS", Barry Hillenbrand,
Time International, November 27, 1995, Arts & Media, p. 69.