Culture

Peru: Recovery of Cultural Heritage Increases

by Paola Pinedo García via “InfoSurHoy“

LIMA, Peru – Peruvian cultural artifacts illegally sold on the international black market are being returned to museums and archeological sites from where they never should have left.

The joint efforts by the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have led to the repatriation of 3,018 pieces belonging to Peru’s cultural heritage since 2007.

Alongside the repatriated items, an additional 31,640 artifacts were recovered in Peru, according to Katie Navarro Vásquez, the director of recoveries in the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage Defense at the Ministry of Culture, which is dedicated to preventing and controlling the illegal trafficking in artifacts, and recovering and repatriating them domestically and internationally.

Prevention and security measures are carried out at three units the Ministry of Culture has established in Peru – at Lima’s Jorge Chávez International Airport, the Santa Rosa complex on the southern border with Chile and in the Postal Services office (Serpost) in the Peruvian capital.

“Our figures for rescued and repatriated items lead us to believe that our control units at strategic exit points from the country have definitely deterred traffickers from trying to smuggle heritage items through these points,” Navarro said.

Ongoing luggage and parcel checks at these three places are carried out by Ministry of Culture personnel alongside officers from the National Police and Customs, she added.

“Peru realized that the loss of its heritage is like somebody ripping out the pieces of our living jigsaw puzzle,” said Cecilia Bákula Budge, former director of the National Institute of Culture of Peru – today the Ministry of Culture – and current head of Peru’s Central Reserve Bank Museum. “I am confident that though we still have a lot to do, we are making progress on an uphill battle in terms of recoveries.”

Thanks to this, 340 cultural pieces destined to be smuggled out of the country were prevented from leaving Peru between January and May after 1,044 pieces were kept from being smuggled out of the country in 2013 and 1,870 in 2012.

“There has been a downward trend since 2007 in trafficking of cultural artifacts,” Navarro said. “This [is due to] our three units’ work. Now, [those] trying to smuggle cultural heritage are aware that we are at the main departure points in the country and that deters them. For us, it’s important that cultural heritage does not cross the border since, once outside, rescuing the pieces – though not impossible – is certainly more difficult [due to] long repatriation processes.” . . . .

“Hanoi Girl Digs Deeper into Vietnam Cultural Strata”

Very Impressive! **DB

“Hanoi Girl Digs Deeper into Vietnam Cultural Strata”

by TUOITRENEWS

“A Hanoi girl has initiated a program to help her like-minded peers delve deeper into Vietnam’s traditional cultural art heritage and arouse their pride in it.

In June 2012, Nguyen Thu Ha, nicknamed Ha Lemy, founded a project called “Toi Xe Dich” (I move), a nonprofit project to help young people like herself explore further the country’s traditional art items and cultural relics and matters.

A graduate of Hanoi Foreign Trade University, Ha was named runner-up of the 2012 “60s chinh phuc nha dau tu” (60s Contest), a playground launched by Viet Youth Entrepreneurs (VYE) to encourage students to display their knowledge, express their opinions, and improve their English skills.

Right after the contest, she expanded her “Vietnam Travel Radio” project, which she submitted to the contest, into “toixedich.com,” focusing more on promoting the country’s culture and art among local youths and tourists.

“Infatuated with the country’s culture and art, I believe that ‘moving’ here isn’t limited to trips taken by many of today’s youths. Each of ‘Toi Xe Dich’ trips is a reflective journey to explore and look back on time-honored traditional values. The trips turn participants’ pride into motivation to contribute to the country later,” Ha, who now works as a marketing agent for a local company, talked about her project.

Some hundreds of local youths have joined Ha’s various activities, including “Windy Day” trips around Hanoi and to Laos, visits to Hanoi’s icons Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam (the country’s first university) and historically significant Long Bien Bridge, and “Viec Lang” (Village Matters) talks discussing a wide variety of cultural matters in great depth.

With only some ten youths partaking in her first activity in the beginning, her trips now draw over 300 young cultural, art buffs each. . . . .”

A Legacy of War: Fake Art in Vietnam

Old Article but Still Interesting **DB

A Legacy of War: Fake Art in Vietnam

by Seth Mydans via “NY Times“

“HANOI, Vietnam — Even the director of the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum here doesn’t know how many of the artworks and artifacts under his care are genuine and how many are extremely skillful copies. But he says he is going to try to find out.

Many works at the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum could be copies that were made to replace the endangered originals during the Vietnam War. Now it is unclear which are real and which are fake.

Bui Thanh Phuong in his home, with works by his father, Bui Xuan Phai. He called the unmonitored art switch “a disaster.”There are nearly 20,000 of these mystery objects, on the walls and in storage, including paintings, sculpture, lacquerware, pottery, ancient statues and traditional crafts.

“We are making efforts to have a comprehensive review of items on display and in our warehouse,” said the director, Truong Quoc Binh. “After we evaluate the whole exhibit, we will try to label them all to show if they are original or not.”

Mr. Binh has been addressing questions about authenticity a lot lately. Curators and artists have been aware of the issue for years, but it became a matter of public discussion only in April, when it was raised at a conference on copyright in Danang.

In large part, the confusion is a legacy of the war with the United States, which ended in 1975, and to a lesser extent of a brief border war fought with China in 1979.

In the late 1960s, fearing that the United States would bomb Hanoi, then the capital of North Vietnam, museum officials removed hundreds of important artworks for safekeeping in the countryside.

To replace them on the museum walls, it commissioned copies: some by the original artists, some by the artists’ apprentices, some by skilled copyists in the museum’s restoration department. They were brilliant reproductions — or variants, as the Vietnamese called those paintings copied by the original artists.”

Coming Exhibition: Chinese Painting~ Legacy of the 20th Century Chinese Masters

“Chinese Painting~ Legacy of the 20th Century Chinese Masters”

“Summer” (1985) by Chu Teh-chun [Zhu Dequn]

Who:

Leisure and Cultural Services Dept.
Hong Kong Museum of Art
Musée Cernuschi
Asian Arts Museum of Paris
Musée National des Arts Asiatiques Guimet

When: June 13, 2014 – Sept. 21, 2014 (Sat.-Sun 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.)

Where:

Hong Kong Museum of Art
10 Salisbury Road
Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong

How Much: Standard ($10) Seniors 60+ ($5) Students ($5)

More Information: Here.

“Paris has long been a European art and cultural hub where the liberal atmosphere enabled different streams of thought to burgeon and thrive, and since the 20th century this city has seen generations of Chinese artists hone their painting skills. Following the trend to learn from the West new ways of transforming traditional conventions, these artists left their motherland in search of inspiration. Visiting museums and learning under the guidance of masters, they acquired Western painting skills and perceptions, pioneering a revolution in Chinese painting art circles.

Artists like Liu Haisu, Xu Beihong, Lin Fengmian and Pan Yuliang left early for France. These young Chinese artists had a mission. After returning to China, they contributed immensely to the introduction of artistic trends from overseas, the development of oil painting and bouleversement of Chinese painting. They also founded fine arts schools in the country, cultivating in a new generation of painters the aspiration to further their studies in France. Among these students, Zao Wou-ki, Chu Teh-chun and Wu Guanzhong became well-known figures in the international art scene, anchoring the notion of ‘creating the art of an era’.

This exhibition showcases almost a hundred works, including oil paintings, Chinese ink paintings, sketches, lithographs, sculptures and more, demonstrating the impact and revelation of European art on 20th century Chinese painting. Exhibits have been composed from the collections of the Musée Cernuschi, Asian Arts Museum of Paris, the Hong Kong Museum of Art and several major institutions in France.

The Musée Cernuschi holds one of the finest Chinese art collections in France, and its Chinese painting collection comprises the works of various Chinese painters who travelled to France during the 20th century, illustrating their different practices and inclinations on the blending of Chinese and Western painting skills.”

“Is Culture at Risk in Myanmar?”

by Jeffrey Brown via “PBS.org“

“In the immigration line at Yangon airport as I waited to present my passport the radio played — can it be? — “Red River Valley,” sung by a woman in Burmese. On the way into the city I see the driver take his seat on the right hand side — British style — as I’d expected. But then I realize we are driving on the right hand side–American style. Huh? Apparently, a ruling general once visited the U.S. and thereafter decreed that the Myanmar’s people should drive on the right hand side as well. But steering wheels stayed as they were. I am not looking forward to being in a hurry and watching — or perhaps closing my eyes — as a driver attempts to pass on the left, without being able to see until it’s rather (too?) late.

We are here to report on a country opening up to the world, politically, economically and culturally. A ruthless military dictatorship clamped down on all opposition, prohibited free expression and kept the country closed off and shrouded in a North Korean-like secrecy for more than five decades. That has begun to change in the last five years or so, dramatically in the last two. It’s tentative, uncertain — and some people we talk with are quick to doubt how far it will go — but it can be seen even in little ways and even in the first days here: The magazine in my hotel room features an article by the editor on how the ‘country is living a lie’ believing that real political reform will come from the ruling military. Just a few years ago that could not have been published. In a small shop I see figurines of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner long held under house arrest. On the streets there’s a great deal of construction. Not the ‘crane on every corner’ I saw years ago in Shanghai as it began its incredible transformation. But a beginning — money clearly flowing in, new office buildings (and soaring rents), some ‘hip’ hotels and restaurants, a city being reshaped. Modern buildings sitting next to grand but dilapidated older ones. . . .”