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Tibetan Rights Group Calls Bowers Museum Exhibit Stolen Art
For Immediate Release
Contact: Minnie Cancellaro 510-486-0588; Dennis Cusack 415-954-4475
Berkeley, CA—A Tibetan rights group is urging visitors to challenge the Bowers Museum on the true ownership of the Tibetan art in its new exhibition entitled Tibet! Treasures from the Roof of the World. The precious artifacts, many of them from the Potala Palace, the seat of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government, were loaned to the Museum by the Chinese government, which acquired them by illegally conquering Tibet in 1951. “This art belongs to the Dalai Lama and to the Tibetan people,” said Minnie Cancellaro, Executive Director of Tibet Justice Center. She added that the art is only a fraction of the precious art, artifacts and texts looted from Tibet since the occupation began.
“The Dalai Lama has long urged people to see and appreciate Tibetan Buddhist art and culture for their beauty and sophistication,” Cancellaro said. “But while the Chinese government has allowed this art to be displayed here, in Tibet it has spent the last 50 years trying systematically to destroy the culture that created it. The Chinese government would like nothing more than to reduce Tibetan Buddhist culture to a collection of museum pieces.” The Dalai Lama, based in exile in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala, often refers to what is taking place in Tibet as a “cultural genocide.”
The exhibition, which opens at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, on Sunday, October 12, 2003, will feature such 17th century artifacts as the seal of the Fifth Dalai Lama, a statue of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion, and beautiful handpainted thankas, intricate drawings of various Buddhist deities. Tashi Tsering of Tibet Justice Center observed: “In Tibet, the mere possession of a picture of the Dalai Lama is punishable by imprisonment and torture. Ngawang Choephel, an American-educated Tibetan musicologist, was recently released from prison in Tibet after he was jailed for the crime of videotaping traditional Tibetan music and dance. That is the respect the Chinese government truly has for the Tibetan people and their culture.”
The Bowers Museum, sensitive to Tibet’s history and the Dalai Lama’s status as both the spiritual and secular leader of the Tibetan people, asked the Dalai Lama for permission to display the art. The Dalai Lama granted it, on condition that the Museum describe the art and its historical context fairly. At the same time, he noted that he hoped visitors would come to understand that the culture that produced it is under threat in Tibet.
Nonetheless, the Museum in some respects appears to be bowing to Chinese pressure to prevent the American public from understanding the true political implications of the exhibit. While several Tibetan individuals and groups have been invited by the Museum to participate in events planned in connection with the exhibit, the Museum has conditioned the involvement of at least some on not displaying pictures of the Dalai Lama and staying away from discussion of the human rights situation in Tibet. “Over 130,000 Tibetans live in exile from our country because we are not free to express our beliefs in our occupied homeland,” said Tsering. “Those of us in a free country must speak up for the Tibetans in Tibet who cannot. People who visit this exhibit should contact Tibet support groups to learn about the true history of the Tibetan people and the reason they will not see His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s photograph in the Bowers Museum.”
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