fluktor -|||- study - office - newsletter August 26, 2005

The Times of Tibet, 08/24/2005
Freedom Struggles to Fly at Asian Art Museum’s China-sponsored Tibetan Exhibit
By Giovanni Vassallo

As part of the team of Tibetan community members and Tibet activists negotiating with the Asian Art museum, I was invited to preview the Tibetan exhibit currently at the Asian Art Museum, entitled, "Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World" prior to its public display during the summer of 2005. As I walked into the first room to which I was escorted, I immediately came upon the first exhibit piece near the entrance called the "Vajrabhairava mandala," a beautiful, golden lotus-like piece. As I was marveling at its beauty, I could not help be become astonished to notice a fly buzzing around the mandala within the glass case and trying to find a way out. Apparently, the exhibitors had missed the fly before they had trapped it with the object. It was a strange first impression of the exhibit. I am reminded of it whenever I think about the exhibition. It reminds me of the Tibetan tragedy, a story of a yearning for freedom not yet realized. Yet surely the fly, whose life span is very short, would die enclosed in that glass case unless somehow it was released.

The museum did not allow for the release of much contextual information related to the exhibit. It had arrived under the auspices of the Chinese government. The Asian Art museum is one of four American institutions that negotiated with Chinese authorities to bring this collection of Tibetan art and artifacts from the Potala and the Norbulingkha palaces in Lhasa, Tibet to western audiences. Tibetans and many of their supporters encourage all to see the exhibit, but people should be aware that it does an injustice by failing to fully inform the public of the Tibetan people's tragedy, the ongoing repression in Tibet, the rightful owners of the art objects and how they were obtained. Undoubtedly the treasures are inspiring in their own right; however, many visitors told me that they sensed a certain coldness and spiritual bareness when experiencing the exhibit, as I did.

Ownership of the Tibetan Art Objects

Many of the exhibit pieces rightly belong to either the Tibetan people or to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, a person alive and well but forced into exile in India for the past 46 years due to China's illegal occupation of Tibet. According to Tenzin Tethong, former Chief Cabinet Member of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan government-in-exile: "…the art on display…actually has a owner whose permission I am certain the Chinese officials did not seek when they negotiated this exhibition. Since almost all the artifacts come from the Norbulinkha and the Potala, the summer and winter palaces of the Dalai Lamas, they rightfully belong to the current 14th Dalai Lama, a person who, as you know, is alive and well, and living in Dharmsala, India. Although a monk, one who has forsaken ownership of material possessions let alone art treasures, I don't believe he has formally renounced ownership or willed them to the Chinese government. In this sense, one can rightfully call the exhibition "stolen art" because it has been taken from someone without his consent."

The Situation in Tibet

Many Tibetans are strongly opposed to the exhibit because they believe that the Chinese government is using it to further its propaganda that the Tibetan Buddhist religion and art is alive and well in Tibet. On the contrary, Chinese government policies are aimed at suppressing Tibetan Buddhist religion and the Tibetan identity. The Chinese government has outlawed the Dalai Lama, named a puppet as the Panchen Lama, ever since the Dalai Lama declared a different boy to be incarnation of Tibet’s second most-revered lama. The Karmapa Lama, often considered the third most revered lama was forced into exile since the Chinese government refused him access to his spiritual teachers, who resided in India.

The public should know that in leaked secret Chinese state documents, that they have outlined plans of a campaign to win western audiences over to their version of the truth about Tibet as a counter to the success of the worldwide Free Tibet movement. Therefore, this exhibit could easily be interpreted as another attempt by the Chinese government to influence people to think benignly of their tight control of Tibet.

The exhibit ignores the historical context of the Tibetan situation. Except in a mere two or three paragraph’s the exhibit’s catalogue bare touches on the Tibetan tragedy. Someone new to Tibetan issues who sees the exhibit for the first time who does not have the opportunity to view the scant mention in the catalog would walk away with no knowledge whatsoever that the current Dalai Lama has been exiled for 46 years and would not know that somewhere between 430,000 to over one million Tibetans died directly or indirectly due to China’s illegal occupation of Tibet. There is no mention that after China’s invasion in the 1950s that over six thousand of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries were destroyed, leaving only mere handful left standing. These were the centers of Tibetan learning, their schools, libraries, churches, and community centers. It is ironic that the Chinese government claims to protect Tibetan culture, yet destroyed so much of it.

Hundreds of Bay Area Tibetans and their supporters have protested at the exhibit and plan to do so for its duration. 54 years on, the occupation is still fresh in their minds. Unfortunately, their suffering, an extension of what has and is currently happening in Tibet, continues.

Bay Area Friends of Tibet Response to the Exhibit

Some people have questioned the position of the Bay Area Friends of Tibet in regards to the museum. Some are confused at what appears to be the Tibetan community’s contradictory response to the exhibit. Some Tibetans have called for a complete boycott of the exhibit while others, including board members of the BAFoT agreed to arrange, provide or participate in some of the cultural or educational activities inside the museum held in conjunction with it. At the same time our board and members also participated in protests launched by the Tibetan community, outside the museum. How could it be that we both protested and collaborated with the exhibit? The reason is simple. Our mission is to educate the public about Tibet.

We believed that it was extremely important that the general public be informed about the exhibit’s missing context. At the same time we believed that we would do a disservice to the general public if we did not participate in the programs held in conjunction with exhibit for several reasons. One reason is that the museum was planning to use Nepalese, Chinese or other performers due to the apparent boycott of the exhibit by many Tibetan artists. We discussed the matter with member of several local Tibet groups, including the Tibetan Association of Northern California, San Francisco Regional Tibetan Youth Congress, Tibet Justice Center, Students for a Free Tibet, and the Committee of 100 for Tibet. The majority of the community representatives agreed that it was important to do what we could to have genuine Tibetan artists in the Asian Art museum auxiliary programming. We convinced the museum to include a film festival with alternative views about Tibet to be held in conjunction with the exhibit. We pointed them in the right direction to genuine Tibetan artists, performers and speakers. The museum did not place the restrictions on the performers or speakers invited to the auxiliary programming as they did with everything with the displays within the confines of the three rooms of the Chinese-sponsored exhibit. Audience members would later see those performers, artists, or speakers speak about the true facts of the situation in Tibet. Many times their audiences were more receptive to hearing from these Tibetans inside than those who remained outside the museum’s front doors. Sometimes it is more skillful to communicate our feelings to people when they are more comfortable. Our aim was to educate people inside the museum and to educate outside. Therefore, in reality, we weren’t really being that controversial. We did and are continuing to do our best to deliver our fuller educational message about Tibet to the maximum number of possible listeners, no matter the venue.

The museum officials claim that it is not their job to delve into the politics surround the exhibition, rather their job is merely to show the art. This position misunderstands what the political issue is. BAFoT and other Tibetan organizations communicated to the museum that the issue is whether the Chinese Government has undertaken a concerted effort to destroy Tibetan culture, while simultaneously claiming that it is protecting Tibetan culture. Months before the opening of the exhibition we wrote to the museum to inform them that:

"Given this, presenting Tibetan culture in an exhibit, without mentioning the cultural destruction currently taking place in Tibet, is a distinctly political act favoring the Chinese Government. This is especially true when the exhibit is sponsored and ultimately controlled by the Chinese Government. There is no "non-political" way to hold an exhibit of this kind. One can only try to present a balanced view, and a presentation that does not include Tibetan viewpoints is not balanced."

As Tenzing Chonden, former North American representative of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile put it, "Not to mention anything about cultural destruction [of Tibet] shows total disregard for the truth. It's quite an affront to Tibetan people."

Museum’s Moves

I wish that all they did was show the art, however, that is not all they did. They actively complied with the Chinese government political restraints to the show. For example, Tibetan Buddhists believe that the Buddha of Love and Compassion, Chenresig, has taken a human form, in the body of the current 14th Dalai Lama. The museum prominently displays a statue representing this Buddha, but ironically, they refused to meet the Tibetan community’s request that a picture of the Dalai Lama be included with the exhibit. The chief curator of the exhibit explained to the Pacific News service that the reason for not including the picture is that the Chinese government would surely close it down. I understand that when a curator tried to include pictures of all 14 of the Dalai Lamas with the exhibit, those pictures were removed, ostensibly because it also included a picture of the current Dalai Lama.

A trusted source informed me that the Chinese government pressured the museum management and required that certain personnel write self-criticisms and apologize for allowing the Tibetan sand mandala exhibit go forward with a display of the Tibetan national flag and a picture of the current Dalai Lama. The source said that the personnel were forced to comply or face the refusal affecting their employment at the museum. This is not the first time that China has been accused of having a long strong arm at the participating museums in United States.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that a viewing of the art presented could enrich the casual viewer’s knowledge about Tibetan culture. The Asian Art Museum made attempts to be sensitive to the concerns of the Tibetan community, inviting representatives to discuss the exhibition and even offering alternate space and forums for different voices to be heard. In these respects, they should be lauded. However, I believe that their active political support to the regime that has caused so much suffering to the Tibetan people can not be approved. Their overall response questions their social responsibility in this exhibit. They sought limited Tibetan consultation and only somewhat considered the impact of the exhibit on the Tibetan community. The museum’s refusal to include a mere picture of the person whose belongings they displayed is the outward symptom of this disconnect. By proceeding as they did, they set themselves up to at least appear as a partner in China’s colonization of Tibet. As Tenzin Tethong wrote: "because the situation in Tibet still remains unresolved and unsatisfactory, decades later, we [the Tibetans] are naturally sensitive to anything that has to do with Tibet, especially if it does not seem to speak the complete truth."

I pray that the true and complete facts of the Tibetan situation be allowed to fully and freely fly in a spirit of forgiveness and conciliation.

+++++++++++

Giovanni Vassallo
Since June 2003 Mr. Vassallo has been the President of Bay Area Friends of Tibet (BAFoT). Previously, he was Secretary of the organization and has been active with group for the past seven years. Mr. Vassallo is a former Buddhist monk who was enrolled by his parents in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Katmandu, Nepal, where he lived for close to one year at the age of ten years old. He continued as a monk in a Buddhist center in Northern California until sixteen years old. Later, he was Vice-President and President of Student for a Free Tibet (SFT) chapters at Santa Rosa Jr. College (SRJC) and San Francisco State University (SFSU). He obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations from SFSU in 2002 and is married to a Tibetan lady with whom he has a five-year-old son. Mr. Vassallo is active in several Bay Area Tibet groups. He has been a volunteer with the Tibet Justice Center (TJC) and is on the Board of Directors of the Committee of 100 for Tibet (C100), a Tibet support committee that includes 17 Nobel laureates. He is also proud to be a member of the Tibetan Association of Northern California (TANC). Mr. Vassallo made trips to visit Tibetan communities in India and Nepal where he had the opportunity to tour several Tibetan organizations in Dharamsala. In September 2003, Mr. Vassallo co-organized with the University of San Francisco, several Tibet-related events held in conjunction with a visit by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to San Francisco. He attended the 4th International Tibet Support Group conference in Prague, Czech Republic, in October 2003. He helped co-organize numerous San Francisco Bay Area Tibet Day annual cultural fairs and has been one of the leading organizers for the San Francisco Bay Area’s annual March 10th, Tibetan Uprising Day commemorations, marches and demonstrations and other Tibet-related events year-round. He also works as an administrative analyst at the University of California, San Francisco.

http://www.timesoftibet.com/articles/566/1/Freedom-Struggles-to-Fly-at-Asian-Art- Museum%92s-China-sponsored-Tibetan-Exhibit/print/566

__________________

with kind regards,

Matthias Arnold
(Art-Eastasia list)

http://www.chinaresource.org
http://www.fluktor.de

__________________________________________

An archive of this list as well as an subscribe/unsubscribe facility is
available at:
http://listserv.uni-heidelberg.de/archives/art-eastasia.html
For postings earlier than 2005-02-23 please go to:
http://www.fluktor.de/study/office/newsletter.htm


	August 26, 2005: [achtung! kunst] San Francisco: "Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World"

	The Times of Tibet, 08/24/2005 Freedom Struggles to Fly at Asian Art Museum’s China-sponsored Tibetan Exhibit By Giovanni Vassallo As part of the team of Tibetan community members and Tibet activists negotiating with the Asian Art museum, I was invited to preview the Tibetan exhibit currently at the Asian Art Museum, entitled, "Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World" prior to its public display during the summer of 2005. Freedom Struggles to Fly at Asian Art Museum’s China-sponsored Tibetan Exhibit As part of the team of Tibetan community members and Tibet activists negotiating with the Asian Art museum, I was invited to preview the Tibetan exhibit currently at the Asian Art Museum, entitled, "Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World" prior to its public display during the summer of 2005. As I walked into the first room to which I was escorted, I immediately came upon the first exhibit piece near the entrance called the "Vajrabhairava mandala," a beautiful, golden lotus-like piece. As I was marveling at its beauty, I could not help be become astonished to notice a fly buzzing around the mandala within the glass case and trying to find a way out. Apparently, the exhibitors had missed the fly before they had trapped it with the object. It was a strange first impression of the exhibit. I am reminded of it whenever I think about the exhibition. It reminds me of the Tibetan tragedy, a story of a yearning for freedom not yet realized. Yet surely the fly, whose life span is very short, would die enclosed in that glass case unless somehow it was released. The museum did not allow for the release of much contextual information related to the exhibit. It had arrived under the auspices of the Chinese government. The Asian Art museum is one of four American institutions that negotiated with Chinese authorities to bring this collection of Tibetan art and artifacts from the Potala and the Norbulingkha palaces in Lhasa, Tibet to western audiences. Tibetans and many of their supporters encourage all to see the exhibit, but people should be aware that it does an injustice by failing to fully inform the public of the Tibetan people's tragedy, the ongoing repression in Tibet, the rightful owners of the art objects and how they were obtained. Undoubtedly the treasures are inspiring in their own right; however, many visitors told me that they sensed a certain coldness and spiritual bareness when experiencing the exhibit, as I did. Ownership of the Tibetan Art Objects Many of the exhibit pieces rightly belong to either the Tibetan people or to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, a person alive and well but forced into exile in India for the past 46 years due to China's illegal occupation of Tibet. According to Tenzin Tethong, former Chief Cabinet Member of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan government-in-exile: "…the art on display…actually has a owner whose permission I am certain the Chinese officials did not seek when they negotiated this exhibition. Since almost all the artifacts come from the Norbulinkha and the Potala, the summer and winter palaces of the Dalai Lamas, they rightfully belong to the current 14th Dalai Lama, a person who, as you know, is alive and well, and living in Dharmsala, India. Although a monk, one who has forsaken ownership of material possessions let alone art treasures, I don't believe he has formally renounced ownership or willed them to the Chinese government. In this sense, one can rightfully call the exhibition "stolen art" because it has been taken from someone without his consent." The Situation in Tibet Many Tibetans are strongly opposed to the exhibit because they believe that the Chinese government is using it to further its propaganda that the Tibetan Buddhist religion and art is alive and well in Tibet. On the contrary, Chinese government policies are aimed at suppressing Tibetan Buddhist religion and the Tibetan identity. The Chinese government has outlawed the Dalai Lama, named a puppet as the Panchen Lama, ever since the Dalai Lama declared a different boy to be incarnation of Tibet’s second most-revered lama. The Karmapa Lama, often considered the third most revered lama was forced into exile since the Chinese government refused him access to his spiritual teachers, who resided in India. The public should know that in leaked secret Chinese state documents, that they have outlined plans of a campaign to win western audiences over to their version of the truth about Tibet as a counter to the success of the worldwide Free Tibet movement. Therefore, this exhibit could easily be interpreted as another attempt by the Chinese government to influence people to think benignly of their tight control of Tibet. The exhibit ignores the historical context of the Tibetan situation. Except in a mere two or three paragraph’s the exhibit’s catalogue bare touches on the Tibetan tragedy. Someone new to Tibetan issues who sees the exhibit for the first time who does not have the opportunity to view the scant mention in the catalog would walk away with no knowledge whatsoever that the current Dalai Lama has been exiled for 46 years and would not know that somewhere between 430,000 to over one million Tibetans died directly or indirectly due to China’s illegal occupation of Tibet. There is no mention that after China’s invasion in the 1950s that over six thousand of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries were destroyed, leaving only mere handful left standing. These were the centers of Tibetan learning, their schools, libraries, churches, and community centers. It is ironic that the Chinese government claims to protect Tibetan culture, yet destroyed so much of it. Hundreds of Bay Area Tibetans and their supporters have protested at the exhibit and plan to do so for its duration. 54 years on, the occupation is still fresh in their minds. Unfortunately, their suffering, an extension of what has and is currently happening in Tibet, continues. Bay Area Friends of Tibet Response to the Exhibit Some people have questioned the position of the Bay Area Friends of Tibet in regards to the museum. Some are confused at what appears to be the Tibetan community’s contradictory response to the exhibit. Some Tibetans have called for a complete boycott of the exhibit while others, including board members of the BAFoT agreed to arrange, provide or participate in some of the cultural or educational activities inside the museum held in conjunction with it. At the same time our board and members also participated in protests launched by the Tibetan community, outside the museum. How could it be that we both protested and collaborated with the exhibit? The reason is simple. Our mission is to educate the public about Tibet. We believed that it was extremely important that the general public be informed about the exhibit’s missing context. At the same time we believed that we would do a disservice to the general public if we did not participate in the programs held in conjunction with exhibit for several reasons. One reason is that the museum was planning to use Nepalese, Chinese or other performers due to the apparent boycott of the exhibit by many Tibetan artists. We discussed the matter with member of several local Tibet groups, including the Tibetan Association of Northern California, San Francisco Regional Tibetan Youth Congress, Tibet Justice Center, Students for a Free Tibet, and the Committee of 100 for Tibet. The majority of the community representatives agreed that it was important to do what we could to have genuine Tibetan artists in the Asian Art museum auxiliary programming. We convinced the museum to include a film festival with alternative views about Tibet to be held in conjunction with the exhibit. We pointed them in the right direction to genuine Tibetan artists, performers and speakers. The museum did not place the restrictions on the performers or speakers invited to the auxiliary programming as they did with everything with the displays within the confines of the three rooms of the Chinese-sponsored exhibit. Audience members would later see those performers, artists, or speakers speak about the true facts of the situation in Tibet. Many times their audiences were more receptive to hearing from these Tibetans inside than those who remained outside the museum’s front doors. Sometimes it is more skillful to communicate our feelings to people when they are more comfortable. Our aim was to educate people inside the museum and to educate outside. Therefore, in reality, we weren’t really being that controversial. We did and are continuing to do our best to deliver our fuller educational message about Tibet to the maximum number of possible listeners, no matter the venue. The museum officials claim that it is not their job to delve into the politics surround the exhibition, rather their job is merely to show the art. This position misunderstands what the political issue is. BAFoT and other Tibetan organizations communicated to the museum that the issue is whether the Chinese Government has undertaken a concerted effort to destroy Tibetan culture, while simultaneously claiming that it is protecting Tibetan culture. Months before the opening of the exhibition we wrote to the museum to inform them that: "Given this, presenting Tibetan culture in an exhibit, without mentioning the cultural destruction currently taking place in Tibet, is a distinctly political act favoring the Chinese Government. This is especially true when the exhibit is sponsored and ultimately controlled by the Chinese Government. There is no "non-political" way to hold an exhibit of this kind. One can only try to present a balanced view, and a presentation that does not include Tibetan viewpoints is not balanced." As Tenzing Chonden, former North American representative of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile put it, "Not to mention anything about cultural destruction [of Tibet] shows total disregard for the truth. It's quite an affront to Tibetan people." Museum’s Moves I wish that all they did was show the art, however, that is not all they did. They actively complied with the Chinese government political restraints to the show. For example, Tibetan Buddhists believe that the Buddha of Love and Compassion, Chenresig, has taken a human form, in the body of the current 14th Dalai Lama. The museum prominently displays a statue representing this Buddha, but ironically, they refused to meet the Tibetan community’s request that a picture of the Dalai Lama be included with the exhibit. The chief curator of the exhibit explained to the Pacific News service that the reason for not including the picture is that the Chinese government would surely close it down. I understand that when a curator tried to include pictures of all 14 of the Dalai Lamas with the exhibit, those pictures were removed, ostensibly because it also included a picture of the current Dalai Lama. A trusted source informed me that the Chinese government pressured the museum management and required that certain personnel write self-criticisms and apologize for allowing the Tibetan sand mandala exhibit go forward with a display of the Tibetan national flag and a picture of the current Dalai Lama. The source said that the personnel were forced to comply or face the refusal affecting their employment at the museum. This is not the first time that China has been accused of having a long strong arm at the participating museums in United States. Conclusion There is no doubt that a viewing of the art presented could enrich the casual viewer’s knowledge about Tibetan culture. The Asian Art Museum made attempts to be sensitive to the concerns of the Tibetan community, inviting representatives to discuss the exhibition and even offering alternate space and forums for different voices to be heard. In these respects, they should be lauded. However, I believe that their active political support to the regime that has caused so much suffering to the Tibetan people can not be approved. Their overall response questions their social responsibility in this exhibit. They sought limited Tibetan consultation and only somewhat considered the impact of the exhibit on the Tibetan community. The museum’s refusal to include a mere picture of the person whose belongings they displayed is the outward symptom of this disconnect. By proceeding as they did, they set themselves up to at least appear as a partner in China’s colonization of Tibet. As Tenzin Tethong wrote: "because the situation in Tibet still remains unresolved and unsatisfactory, decades later, we [the Tibetans] are naturally sensitive to anything that has to do with Tibet, especially if it does not seem to speak the complete truth." I pray that the true and complete facts of the Tibetan situation be allowed to fully and freely fly in a spirit of forgiveness and conciliation. +++++++++++ Giovanni Vassallo Since June 2003 Mr. Vassallo has been the President of Bay Area Friends of Tibet (BAFoT). Previously, he was Secretary of the organization and has been active with group for the past seven years. Mr. Vassallo is a former Buddhist monk who was enrolled by his parents in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Katmandu, Nepal, where he lived for close to one year at the age of ten years old. He continued as a monk in a Buddhist center in Northern California until sixteen years old. Later, he was Vice-President and President of Student for a Free Tibet (SFT) chapters at Santa Rosa Jr. College (SRJC) and San Francisco State University (SFSU). He obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations from SFSU in 2002 and is married to a Tibetan lady with whom he has a five-year-old son. Mr. Vassallo is active in several Bay Area Tibet groups. He has been a volunteer with the Tibet Justice Center (TJC) and is on the Board of Directors of the Committee of 100 for Tibet (C100), a Tibet support committee that includes 17 Nobel laureates. He is also proud to be a member of the Tibetan Association of Northern California (TANC). Mr. Vassallo made trips to visit Tibetan communities in India and Nepal where he had the opportunity to tour several Tibetan organizations in Dharamsala. In September 2003, Mr. Vassallo co-organized with the University of San Francisco, several Tibet-related events held in conjunction with a visit by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to San Francisco. He attended the 4th International Tibet Support Group conference in Prague, Czech Republic, in October 2003. He helped co-organize numerous San Francisco Bay Area Tibet Day annual cultural fairs and has been one of the leading organizers for the San Francisco Bay Area’s annual March 10th, Tibetan Uprising Day commemorations, marches and demonstrations and other Tibet-related events year-round. He also works as an administrative analyst at the University of California, San Francisco. http://www.timesoftibet.com/articles/566/1/Freedom-Struggles-to-Fly-at-Asian-Art- Museum%92s-China-sponsored-Tibetan-Exhibit/print/566 __________________ with kind regards, Matthias Arnold (Art-Eastasia list) http://www.chinaresource.org http://www.fluktor.de __________________________________________ An archive of this list as well as an subscribe/unsubscribe facility is available at: http://listserv.uni-heidelberg.de/archives/art-eastasia.html For postings earlier than 2005-02-23 please go to: http://www.fluktor.de/study/office/newsletter.htm