{"id":111,"date":"2005-04-09T15:09:00","date_gmt":"2005-04-09T22:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/?p=111"},"modified":"2022-10-04T13:51:26","modified_gmt":"2022-10-04T20:51:26","slug":"stolen-art-cultural-destruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/2005\/04\/stolen-art-cultural-destruction.html","title":{"rendered":"Stolen Art & Cultural Destruction"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a working artist I read a lot of art-related news, and I recently came across some reports concerning two controversial exhibits of national treasures, one exhibit from Tibet and the other from Iraq. Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World<\/em> is a traveling exhibition now showing at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York. The Gold of Nimrud: Treasures of Ancient Iraq<\/em> will also be a traveling exhibit, purportedly to be launched in October 2005. The exhibits are controversial because they present artifacts from countries under military occupation\u2014and the occupiers are the ones organizing the exhibits.<\/p>\n

Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World<\/em> has been the subject of controversy and protest since its inception. The exhibit is a collection of over 100 Tibetan, Nepalese, Mongolian, Indian, and Chinese sacred and ritual objects. What is being shown for the first time outside of Tibet are 300-year-old treasures from the Lahaska Potala Palace, a Tibetan Buddhist holy place that\u2019s equivalent to the Vatican. Ritual objects of gold and silver encrusted with pearls, rubies, jade, and red coral, along with dazzling paintings of gods and demons, provide a glimpse of Tibet\u2019s splendor.<\/p>\n

The showing at the Rubin Museum was greeted by a coalition of the Students for a Free Tibet<\/a>, the Tibetan Youth Congress<\/a>, and the Tibetan Women\u2019s Association, who made it quite plain that they were displeased with the handling of Tibet\u2019s sacred art.<\/p>\n

The groups charge that the museum is colluding with the Chinese government, which occupies Tibet militarily. Lhadon Tethong, the executive director of Students for a Free Tibet, said of the Rubin Museum, \u201cThey know they are participating in a propaganda exercise. They are allowing themselves to become a platform, part of the Chinese strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The protesters evidently struck a nerve because the Rubin Museum is not using the Chinese published exhibit catalog as part of their presentation. A Rubin curator met with protestors before the show\u2019s opening in an attempt to defuse the demonstration, but as a spokesperson for the protest, Tethong angrily replied \u201cIf Russia had won the cold war and taken over your country, then took the Declaration of Independence on a worldwide tour, how would he feel?\u201d It\u2019s difficult to argue with that position.<\/p>\n

In 1949 the Chinese invaded and militarily occupied Tibet, and the Dalai Lama was forced into exile. At the time there were more than 6,000 monasteries and temples across the land. However, by the late 1970\u2019s the Chinese communist government had succeeded in destroying all but eight monasteries. That Tibetan sacred art is \u201con loan\u201d to American museums from the Chinese government, the very government that for fifty years has methodically crushed Tibetan culture, only serves to legitimize the military occupation.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine anyone not understanding the Tibetans who protest against the occupation of their country. It\u2019s easy to sympathize with them when they criticize American museums for so sheepishly providing Beijing with legitimacy regarding its illegal occupation of Tibet. Obviously the Chinese government is exploiting Tibetan art for political gain.<\/p>\n

But while it\u2019s easy for Americans to condemn China\u2019s occupation of Tibet and their manipulation of Tibetan art, it\u2019s not so easy for some Americans to do the same when considering the national treasures of Iraq. The Gold of Nimrud: Treasures of Ancient Iraq<\/em>, is an exhibit of 300 gold and ivory objects dating from Iraq\u2019s 8th century. The antiquities will soon be traveling to Europe and the US. Excavated by archeologists in 1989 at the Assyrian capital of Nimrud, these 2,800 year old works represent the finest jewelery of the ancient world.<\/p>\n

Just prior to the US \u201cshock and awe\u201d attack and invasion of Iraq in 2003, the staff of Iraq\u2019s museums packed away their priceless collections and sequestered them in secure storage rooms\u2014hoping to spare the artworks from US bombs. The Nimrud jewels had already been moved to the vaults of Baghdad\u2019s central bank for safe keeping in 1990 due to the first war with the US.<\/p>\n

When Bush began his \u201cpreemptive\u201d war to eliminate Iraq\u2019s weapons of mass destruction (remember that excuse?), bombs destroyed Iraqi water, sewage, and electricity plants. Aside from the human misery this caused, another result was that Baghdad\u2019s central bank vaults were flooded with sewage-contaminated water, severely damaging the Nimrud jewels. While the gold objects survived the deluge, most of the ivory pieces suffered from fragmentation, disintegration and mold. Art experts and historians mounted a painstaking restoration of the damaged ivory artworks that managed to save a few of the priceless items.<\/p>\n

As the Nimrud treasures where steeping in waste water, the rest of Iraq\u2019s art museums were left totally unguarded by the American occupation army. A whirlwind of looting left every one of Iraq\u2019s museums pillaged and nearly empty. Invaluable collections of antiquities from the dawn of civilization were shattered, turned to dust, or carted off to be sold on the black market, all under the noses of the American liberators.<\/p>\n

In a clear propaganda ploy enacted to show the world how much the US cared for Iraqi culture, the Nimrud treasures were put on display in Baghdad on July 3rd, 2003. US occupation troops rushed the jewels from Baghdad\u2019s central bank to the looted Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad where the chief US official in Iraq at the time, Paul Bremmer, could be photographed at the \u201cexhibit\u201d<\/a> by the press. The showing lasted all of two hours before US troops moved the jewels back to the bank vaults. Many archaeologists were outraged that the publicity stunt had endangered the fragile ornaments. Professor Elizabeth Stone, a specialist in Iraqi archaeology at New York State University said, \u201cI think it is an act of propaganda. It is to show that nothing really happened to the museum. No curator in the world would allow this sort of exhibition unless ordered to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nimrud Gold exhibit was supposedly arranged by a Danish firm, but seeing as how the preliminary agreement for the exhibit was made with Iraq\u2019s so-called Minister of Culture, which at the time of the agreement was a position in an unelected government appointed by the US occupation forces, it\u2019s not hard to see the US as the actual organizer of the exhibit.<\/p>\n

The Minister of Culture is said to have \u201cagreed\u201d to the traveling exhibition because it will \u201crepresent a positive story to tell about Iraq.\u201d The show will purportedly open in October 2005 at an undisclosed location in an unnamed European country. It will then travel to 11 other cities in Europe, the US, and reportedly Tokyo.<\/p>\n

The highly secret itinerary of this traveling exhibit indicates the political problems faced by its organizers. The show was originally to open in Berlin, but those plans fell through. Now another unnamed venue is being considered for the inaugural exhibit, but no one is saying just where that might be. Rumors say the show will travel to Paris, Rome and London\u2026 but no one will say for sure. Allegedly the British Museum was approached as a venue, but \u201cscheduling\u201d problems made the display impossible. It has been said that the Royal Academy was also asked to host the show, but no details have been forthcoming.<\/p>\n

Is this exhibit starting to sound like a political hot potato? Wait, it gets better. Rumor has it the exhibit will stop in New York and Washington, but as to which museums in those cities will present the exhibit, your guess is as good as mine. The exhibit will come to California, so they say, but not a soul will verify when or at what venue. It is said that money raised from fees and ticket sales will be channeled to Baghdad\u2019s sacked National Museum, which is the greatest irony of all.<\/p>\n

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell once said of the war on Iraq, \u201cIf you break it, you own it.\u201d Iraq\u2019s museums shouldn\u2019t have to pay for the enormous damages wrought upon them by having their national treasures paraded in the capitals of the countries that inflicted the destruction. It\u2019s time for reparations\u2026 and it\u2019s time for Iraqis to handle their own affairs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a working artist I read a lot of art-related news, and I recently came across some reports concerning two controversial exhibits of national treasures, one exhibit from Tibet and the other from Iraq. Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World is a traveling exhibition now showing at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York. The Gold of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artists-and-the-iraq-war"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}