The controversy-dogged zodiac animal head bronzes donated to the National Palace Museum Southern Branch by Hong Kong actor Jackie Chan (成龍) are to be removed this month, National Palace Museum Director Lin Jeng-yi (林正儀) said yesterday.
Accompanied by his deputy, Lee Ching-hui (李靜慧), Lin made the remarks during a question-and-answer session at a meeting of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee in Taipei.
The meeting was convened to discuss the museum’s decision to remove the 12 bronze replicas, which were donated in December last year by Chan, who is also a member of China’s Political Consultative Conference.
Critics panned the donation as a propaganda ploy by Beijing.
Following the public outcry, the National Palace Museum made a decision to remove the replicas from the Southern Branch’s entrance area, which Lee confirmed yesterday when she told lawmakers that they would be gone on Monday next week.
According to National Palace Museum officials, Lin brought together several Chiayi County residents at a forum on Oct. 8, where they made the decision to remove the replicas from their current location, but the museum has not decided what to do with them.
At yesterday’s meeting, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Apollo Chen (陳學聖) said he is opposed to removing the replicas.
He asked the museum’s Southern Branch head Wang Shih-sheng (王士聖) whether the museum had sought any opinions from academics on its decision.
Wang said the museum had asked experts what they thought of the decision, and that it was “a 50-50 split for and against.”
“The National Palace Museum should refrain from listening only to experts who are in favor of the statues’ removal,” Chen said.
KMT Legislator Ko Chih-en (柯志恩) asked Lin to comment on five proposals for dealing with the replicas after their removal that were made during the forum, including returning them to Chan, putting them in storage, scrapping them, recycling them or auctioning them.
Lin said there is a sixth option, which is to establish a committee after the replicas’ removal to clearly define the purpose of the National Palace Museum Southern Branch and to arrange future exhibits at the branch accordingly.
In response to Ko’s query as to why the National Palace Museum had not proposed any budget for removal work, Lin said a few architects told the museum that the job could be completed with merely “a few tens of thousands of [New Taiwan] dollars,” and therefore the allocation of a specific budget is not warranted.
Since the removal work is due to be conducted on Monday, no disruption would be caused to the visitors, as the museum would be closed, Lee said, adding that the replicas would be kept in storage until a decision on their future is made.
The 12 bronze sculptures donated by Chan are replicas of bronzes looted from China’s Old Summer Palace by British and French forces in 1860.
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