Like many exhibitions, "Afghanistan: A Timeless History" tells a story. It's not the story of Afghan art, though; nor, despite its title, the story of Afghanistan itself -- a country whose millennia of strife are expressed in every artifact now on display at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.
No, the exhibition tells the story of humankind's love-hate relationship with art: in particular, it sheds light on the impulses to acquire, preserve or destroy artworks.
The appropriation of one country's cultural heritage by another often accompanies the desire -- or the act -- of appropriating its territory, too. Throughout history, "conoisseurship" has gone hand-in-hand with colonialism and conquest. Greece disputes to this day the 1801-03 purchase by British collector Lord Elgin of marble sculptures from the Athenian Parthenon. Elgin bought the marbles from Greece's then-rulers, the Turks. Similarly, Old Master canvases from European collections seized by the Nazis in World War II are still lost, and many are presumed destroyed.