On Thursday, the Freeman Center for East Asian Studies opened the exhibit titled, “Tibetan Heritage: Paintings by Gesang Yixi.” More remarkable than the paintings themselves is what is not on display. We are taken aback at the willingness of the Center to ignore the obviously political implications of rendering sacred Tibetan iconography in an aestheticized manner. A Chinese-educated artist, growing up under the Cultural Revolution, has been given the authority to represent “Tibetan heritage.” The “heritage” presented in the artist’s work is grounded in Chinese academic appropriation.
The curatorial choices made on the part of Professor Patrick Dowdey have grave implications for a heritage that, for the last 55 years, has been under constant assault by the Chinese government. His failure to acknowledge the political significance of such art must be seen as silent complicity.
What is at stake here is not the artistic integrity of Gesang Yixi. There is little point in emphasizing the resemblance of some of Yixi’s portraits of smiling “national minorities” to Mao-era propaganda posters—something any visitor familiar with such work will immediately recognize. Rather, what seems most regrettable is that the curator did not expose the deep ambiguities in Yixi’s work. For examples of works by the artist not on display, please view the artist’s catalogue on display at the exhibit. On the cover is a painting depicting the Dalai Lama’s Potala Palace illuminated by an emblazoned Chinese Communist Party Flag. Portraits of Chairman Mao surround the palace with Chinese soldiers receiving Katag – scarves traditionally offered by Tibetans as a sign of respect – from Tibetan monks. Monks, who under Chairman Mao were executed, tortured and forced to fornicate in the streets with nuns.
For some, the extent of Chinese Government’s oppression may be unclear. The Chinese Communist Party’s “liberation” of Tibet, beginning in 1949, brought about the deaths of over one million Tibetans, the destruction of six thousand monasteries and the imposition of communist rule on a culturally and politically distinct people. The resulting upheaval forced the Dalai Lama, the religious and political leader of Tibet, to flee in 1959, followed by hundreds of thousands of Tibetans, and led to mass execution, rape, and destruction. Imprisonment, torture and religious persecution continue today.
The Freeman Center’s exhibition comes in the wake of a traveling exhibit that has been displayed on both coasts at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and the Rubin Museum in New York. Entitled, “Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World,” the exhibit displayed artworks selected and promoted by the Chinese Government, most taken from the Chinese Government-occupied Potala Palace. It is clear, then, that curatorial choices play a significant role in presenting politically volatile material. Unfortunately, Professor Dowdey’s willingness to ignore such volatility in putting “Tibetan Heritage” on display makes the Freeman Center’s exhibition dangerously misleading.
Professor Dowdey’s curatorial silence leaves the viewers of this exhibit susceptible to a subtle propaganda that legitimizes China’s imperialist rule of Tibet.
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