Asemus - A new way to Share Museum Collections
On the occassion of the launching of the Asia-Europe Museum Network (ASEMUS), Ambassador Delfin Colomé, Executive Director of Asia Europe Foundation , delivered the following speech.
* By DELPHIN COLOMÉ
'Mr
Chairman, [...], Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends, it is a great
pleasure for me somebody who is Catalan, born in this splendid
city of Barcelona, where I still have a part of my family and a number
of very good friends, some of them attending this event today
to launch this ASEMUS programme. I would like to beg for your indulgence:
I am not going to speak Catalan today, because of the rules of my
own international commitment, but let me just say: Bon
dia, benvinguts, I moltes gracies a tots per la vostra assistencia
I interes en aquesta presentació, meaning good morning,
most welcome and thank you very much to all of you for attending this
presentation. A few days ago, in Paris, I had the opportunity to visit
the Guimet Museum in Asian Art, some two months after it had reopened
its doors. The museum had been completely remodelled. Only the façade
of the building has been retained, an old palatial house that formerly
housed the Asian collection built up by Emile Guimet, a French private
citizen, together with other state collections. The rest of the structure
had been remodelled in accordance with the most current developments
in modern museology. 
The new Guimet represents the second largest investment
by the French government in a museum, dwarfed only by the pharaohic
works on the Louvre Museum. As a result, the Guimet is now a must-see
stop for visitors to Paris, especially those from Asia. And the splendour
of the museum's structure is matched by the splendour of the works it
houses. I enjoyed its Southeast Asian collections especially
the Cambodian pieces and its old Chinese masters.
Strolling through the museum's fascinating halls, happily
in the company of statues, images, and paintings, I was once again made
aware of the tremendous imbalance that exists between museums in Europe
and Asia, in terms of the importance of their collections of art from
the other region. Asian art in Europe, and European art in Asia: the
balance is blatantly in favour of the European institutions.
The historical factors behind this imbalance are easy
to detect. Many European collections benefited from a colonial past,
which brought an enormous quantity of Asian art from the colonies to
the metropolis, under the patronage of a growing class of collectors
the burghers and the bourgeoisie avid to build specialized
collections. In Asia, the late advent of independence in many countries
hindered the establishment of institutions to house their own artistic
legacy. The list of reasons goes on.
The result is very clear today. Taking as my sample only
the last three months of my endless trips through Europe preaching the
virtues of the Asia-Europe Foundation, I have seen two splendid collections
of Asian art in Europe. One collection was in Stockholm, the other in
Dublin, two cities without a notable imperial or colonial past. The
great former empires boast even more impressive Asian collections: Britain,
with its British Museum; Spain, with its very interesting collection
in the Convento de los Agustinos in Valladolid, despite the lack of
historical links with countries other than the Philippines; and France,
certainly, the Guimet Museum being the best example of its inheritance.
But I have seen very few examples of Greek, Roman or Gothic
Art in any Asian museum I have seen so far. Apart from the pieces found
in a few Japanese collections, how many masterpieces of Dutch or Spanish
Golden Age can you see in this part of the world? This applies to contemporary
art too: Where are Rembrandt, Chagall or Picasso in Asia?
The next question would appear to be: How may we bridge
this gap?
I was at the General Conference of UNESCO, in 1983, when
Melina Mercouri, the Greek Minister of Culture and outstanding actress,
made a dramatic appeal for the return of the Parthenon friezes, which
to this day are still at the British Museum. Her passionate attack on
colonial exploitation created a moment of high international tension
at the conference, traditionally a masterpiece of the most boring diplomacy.
Two years later, at the International Music Council, some
African countries followed the trail blazed by Ms Mercouri and claimed
a share of the royalties earned by Western companies and artists, basing
their claim on the profoundly African roots of jazz!
As you can imagine, such claims are condemned to certain
if spectacular failure. At least for now. But as far as
museums are concerned, it may be within our power to address this artistic
and cultural imbalance between the two regions. The best policy for
dealing with an international hot potato may be to aim for slow and
steady progress, marked by concrete steps.
However, let me give an answer to the eventual question
as to why a Foundation like ASEF has been engaged and committed on launching
this initiative of ASEMUS. When in the early nineties the European and
Asian leaders realised that a better understanding between the two regions
should be improved, they created a Foundation to work in that direction,
taking care mainly of the relationship between our two civil societies.
This was a very innovative experience. For the first time
in history, 25 sovereign countries put their money in a private Foundation,
which for some theoretical people meant a kind of 'privatisation' of
international politics.
On the other hand, the fact that the leaders have created
a Foundation, instead of an inter-governmental agency, was also an interesting
innovation. It is very clear that states, making abstractions of all
the classical theories of conventional political science, have to be
aware that the new concept of civil society is a key concept to understand
and to be understood. We have the recent examples of Seattle or Gothenburg,
or even the one, here in Barcelona, last weekend, when thousands of
people were trying to stress their opinion in the streets.
Our main mandate with ASEF is to bridge, to provide spaces
of liberty for the citizens to build their own contacts. European citizens
with Asian citizens. Asian with European. Hand in hand. As equals.
If our mandate is intended to bridge the several gaps
existing between Asia and Europe, we have to support specially these
initiatives which sometimes are difficult to be faced by the classical
approach taken by the states.
And, especially, when we are trying to solve some problems
of imbalance between the two regions that can be manipulated, if not
distorted, in the name of the political correctness, which would impede
any kind of practical solution.
Within the framework of ASEMUS, we have brought about
a series of meetings between museum curators from Asia and Europe, to
help them get to know each other better, to share their problems and
successes, and even to find common solutions to technical problems.
This network is operating quite well. The curators have
built up a common trust that will facilitate an increase in the number
of loans between museums in the two regions in the near future. These
experts are aware that an imbalance does in fact exist, and that an
equitable policy of exchanges could be in the interests of their own
institutions.
New technological advances, chiefly in the field of information
technology, will facilitate the establishment of more intense and effective
cooperation between the great museums of Asia and Europe. ASEF will
also help in this regard. ASEMUS is a flagship project for ASEF, because
it perfectly fits in the Foundation's philosophy.
Our Board of Governors, which met in Lisbon last May,
approved a budgetary commitment of half a million Singapore Dollars
(i.e. some US$ 300,000} to develop a series of actions to give ASEMUS
the convenient cruise speed between this very ICOM congress in Barcelona
and the next ICOM Meeting, in Seoul, by summer 2004.
At the end of the day, art is not merely European or Asian.
Art is the world's heritage, and the entire world has the right to enjoy
it. Definitely, ASEF will help the ASEMUS success.
In a most Asian tradition, there is a Samurai's maxim
that says that 'to know and to act are one and the same'. We must be
sure that, in ASEF, we are going to be consistent with this philosophy
to make ASEMUS possible.
Thank you very much, moltíssimes
gracies a tots.' *
Ambassador
Delfin Colomé is a writer and musician, as well as the Executive
Director of the Asia-Europe Foundation.
E-mail:
delfincolome@asef.org