arham chowdhury <arhamhch@yahoo.com> wrote:
To: arhamhch@yahoo.com
From: arham chowdhury <arhamhch@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:32:12 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [banglaart] Fwd: The Price of Priceless Objects
Shahidul Alam wrote:Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:55:25 +0600
From: "Shahidul Alam" <shahidul@driknet>
To: shahidulnews@drik-amsterdam- 01.drik.net
Subject: The Price of Priceless Objects
Stop Press: Ten crates containing rare archeological treasures of
Bangladesh have been bundled out of the national museum and are said
to be bound for Guimet Museum in Paris, via flight AF 6731 (dep: 1205
Saturday 1st Dec 2007). Preparations had been made to secretly remove
the items through a shipment order by the French Embassy made to
Homdbound Packers and Shippers. Trucks and forklift arrive secretly in
museum in early hours of morning. But the news leaked and media
professionals and protesters gathered outside the musuem. Under heavy
police presence Homebound vehicles (Dhaka Metro Umo 11-0814, pho 11
3634, U 14 0187) and Fork lift trucks all bearing "Save The Children
Cyclone and USAID Sidr Emergency Relief " signs were used to remove
the priceless items.
Protesters clashed with police. Shekhar Shashwata was arrested, and
some media professionals roughed up. Eventually protesters were able
to get Shekhar released. Police officer Morshed who made the arrest,
claimed he "knew nothing about what was happening across the road."
The lack of transparency surrounding the exhibition has led to huge
controversies where leading citizens have demanded that the government
and the French Museum allow experts to inspect the items being taken
away. Past allegations of art objects (in 1958 and 1962) having been
taken to France and never returned have increased the suspicion.
While the government has appointed an expert committee to investigate
the matter, in an unprecedented move, government and French Embassy
officials have, without informing members of the committee or the
media, taken the items out of the museum in what resembled a police
conducted museum robbery.
Protesters are asking international media to disseminate the news, and
prevent the artifacts from being taken away in this manner. Bangladesh
is under emergency rule where protests and gatherings of any form are
illegal, and police have wide ranging powers. After a recent unrest at
the universities arrest warrants were issued against 8,300 largely
unnamed people. Teachers arrested after the event are yet to be
released. There have been accusations of torture in custody.
-----------
This was breaking news. Shishir Bhattacharjee, Nisar Ahmed and Rahnuma
were racing against the clock. The pukur churi (daylight robbery,
lit:pond stealing) had to be stopped. Bangladesh is awash with
conspiracy theories and I needed to be convinced that something
irregular was really taking place. A major exhibition of Bangladeshi
heritage in a well-known western museum seemed a good thing. I wanted
hard facts. Facts emerged, and eventually tumbled out.
The issue in question was a proposed exhibition at the Musée National
des Arts Asiatiques - Guimet, in Paris, where some of the most prized
archeological objects collected from the five major museums would be
on display in an exhibition announced on the Museum website as
"Masterpieces of the Ganges delta. Collections from the Bangladesh
Museums." The only suggestion that things might not be going entirely
as planned came from the notice "dates to be confirmed." The France
Guide still lists the original dates: 24/10/2007 to 03/05/2008.
Doubts had been raised about the transparency of the process through
which the exhibition had been arranged. With leading national experts
calling for a stay order and the court requiring the government to
demonstrate that due process had been maintained, things were getting
murky. A hastily called press conference by the French Embassy landed
them in further trouble. The Ambassador was promptly withdrawn.
Unconnected some say, but unusual in a country where the departure of
western ambassadors is generally accompanied by considerable fanfare.
"Some Bangladeshis who want to improve the image of Bangladesh abroad
have been supporting the exhibition", the new ambassador stressed. The
suggestion that the Bangladeshi experts who had questioned the
intentions of this prestigious museum and the French government
itself, and even had the audacity to suggest that the French might
possibly have intentions not entirely in keeping with Bangladeshi
interests, were unpatriotic, was perhaps unintentional.
Not a hair on Sita's head was singed as she had walked through the flames.
But she had been doubted, and she felt only the test of fire could
prove her innocence and her loyalty. Who is loyal to Bangladesh is now
the question. Protagonists of the proposed exhibition at Guimet
promptly dismissed the ones who demanded transparency, as Talibans and
enemies of the state. My beard didn't help.
The fact that these very experts had over the years been the mainstay
of collecting, creating and nurturing these collections, didn't appear
to affect the French argument. Given Kwame Opoku's recent statement
"Musée Guimet in Paris which incidentally also holds thousands of
stolen/illegal objects from China and the rest of Asia," one would
have expected the French to be more concerned with damage control. Or
was this an attempt to gain what they could before the cat got out of
the bag? Els Van Der Plas, the director of the Prince Claus Fund in
the Netherlands, held Guimet in high regard and had respect for the
director. June Rollinson of the British Council in Dhaka, also spoke
highly of the Guimet. Mark Haworth-Booth, former senior curator of the
Victoria and Albert Museum in London, was an old friend and had been a
guest teacher at Pathshala. He fully supported museums lending work to
each other but felt a shared copyright of the photographs (the
contract gave Bangladesh no rights over the images of the artifacts)
would have been the normal practice.
However it was Mark's comment "I do not think that professionally-run
museums would lend an object if it had no accession number." that got
me going. The appendix listing the items, obtained by court order, was
a farce. The number of items varied in different reports. We managed
to obtain the French internal listing which had 20 more items than the
Bangladeshi list. These had been obtained in a joint excavation
(France and Bangladesh) in Mahasthangar, and were all marked
'reserved'. Items had been clumped together without individual listing
(eg.'93 punch-marked coins'). Insurance value was sometimes missing.
The basic documentation of a normal museum inventory, like period,
condition and markings were missing. A large number of items had no
accession numbers. And this was a listing of the most precious items
belonging to Bangladesh, many of which Bangladeshis themselves had
never had the opportunity of seeing! Not even the nation's leading
scholars, researchers historians or archeologists. Certainly, it was
the Bangladeshi side that should have provided these details, but with
UNESCO stressing 'due diligence' on the part of the borrower, to
accept such a precious consignment on the basis of such flimsy
documentation, was fishy. More importantly, there was no way in which
even the most diligent officials could verify that the objects lent,
were indeed what had been returned.
This was what the French press release had insisted was 'complete
documentation'.
When Jos van Beurden sent me his soon to be published article
"Diplomats and smuggling of art" providing extensive and well
documented instances of how majority world countries had their art
objects stolen by wealthier ones via diplomats, it seemed as if it is
the image of France and not of Bangladesh that needs rescuing.
With some juggling of schedules, I was able to combine a trip to Paris
to show a newly made film, with the possibility of a trip to the
Guimet.
Musée du quai Branly, the museum inviting me, was also on the 'wanted'
list put together by Opoku and others. I needed no further convincing.
I was off to Paris.
Quai Branly had sent a car to pick me up from Charles de Gaulle
airport, and it was with considerable curiosity that I asked the
driver what he thought of the Guimet Museum. Xavier had never heard of
the place. I must have been unlucky with my driver, for Michel
Philpott of Le Monde du, who had invited me, did indeed know the
Guimet. It was perhaps not amongst the finest in the world, but still
an important museum. It was also within walking distance.
The following morning, my Armenian photographer friend Ruben and I
decided to pay the Guimet a visit. I had my HDV video camera with me.
I had done a few other things in preparation too, like writing to the
press officer Helene Lefevre, asking for an appointment. She did
respond to my mail, but no appointment had been granted. I had been
concerned that the Bangladeshi government had no rights over the
photographs taken by the French photographer, but a mail to him also
failed to elicit a reply. So Ruben and I were taking our chances. With
my own work having been shown at the Centre Georges Pompidou fifteen
years ago, I thought I had the credentials as an artist. I also had my
press pass.
Crossing the Seine on a sunny Paris day, looking back at the Eiffel
Tower, walking through the manicured pathways with Parisians striding
by in their haute couture, I could picture Doisneau photographing the
famous kiss.
Finding the museum in the busy Paris map was not easy. Tucked away in
the edge of a roundabout in Avenue D'Iena, was our famous Musée
Guimet. Two homeless people had camped outside on the footpath, and
children were having lunch on the short staircase. This represented
the reality in all our countries but is distant from the image the
establishment generally tries to provide.
I felt at home as I walked through the small entrance. This was far
less pretentious than our own national museum. The informality of the
place was comforting. The elderly gentleman beside us as we stood at
reception overheard me asking about the Bangladeshi exhibition.
Speaking with an American accent he remarked on what a fine show it
would be. "It was taking time, but it would definitely be there."
I was in journalist mode, and having discovered that he was Ambassador
Dean and a board member of Guimet, gently led him on to the sort of
work the museum was known for. He pointed out that the museum had just
restored the head of a Cambodian statue to its body after 500 years.
"Where was this statue?" I asked in as innocent a tone as I could
muster. "Right here in this museum" was the proud board member's
reply. The head that was France's gain, was presumably Cambodia's
loss.
I was lucky. Both the director of Guimet Jean-Francois Jarriage and
the curator of the show Vincent Lefevre, were available that day, and
didn't appear to have any appointments at that time. I handed over my
card, and spoke to Anna the director's secretary, over the phone. She
hadn't seen my card then, but when I explained over the phone that I
was from Bangladesh, I could sense a chill. Suddenly everyone clammed
up. Neither the director nor the curator was able to see me, and no
one in the museum would make any comment. Perhaps it was years of
colonialism that had shaped our behaviour, or our rustic mannerisms of
hospitality. I couldn't help wondering how a visiting journalist who
had arrived at the doorstep of any of our museums, would have been
drowned with cups of sweet tea laced with condensed milk by the time
the director had come over.
It was only a month ago when I had walked through the national museum
at Siem Reap, aghast at the rows of ancient Cambodian statues whose
heads were missing. One wonders where the heads have landed up.
Ambassador Dean's quest for restoration might just result in Guimet's
acquisition of the remainder of the bodies.
"Masterpieces of the Ganges delta." France's gain, Bangladesh's loss?
--
Shahidul Alam
Drik Picture Library Ltd.
http://shahidul.wordpress. com
www.drik.net
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