NEW YORK—At times saddening and at times uplifting, the Truthfulness Compassion Tolerance International Fine Art Exhibit is creating awareness about the persecution of Falun Gong in present-day China at the Paterson Museum, in Paterson, N.J.
The public exhibit of mostly oil paintings—what one viewer called a "new Renaissance style"—is running through Feb. 23 and primarily depicts the persecution of the peaceful spiritual practice.
"I think it's a human rights story that should be told," said Paterson Museum director Giacomo De Stefano after the exhibit's opening last Wednesday. "I'm pretty humbled by the whole thing. It's made me do a little bit of investigating myself to review it. I'm like a typical American—if it's not force-fed to me, I don't see it. And I'm a little embarrassed, to be honest."
In deciding to hold the show, museum curator Joseph Costa said, "I thought that this would be a show that many, many people would be able to see its significance because people are being persecuted all over the world. There's different cultures [where] it's happened to many different people."
Many viewers said they did indeed see the exhibit's significance.
"Very interesting, I never knew about this. These are sad stories of course, but they are creating awareness. I had no idea that this was happening," said Dhana Reynoso, a banking specialist for HSBC. "In today's age, in the 21st Century, I never knew that killings, genocide and these things are still happening throughout the world and that people are actually being killed, not just adults but kids. And they are suffering through labor camps."
"I see the paintings, they are very good," said Mohamed Ahmed, a New Jersey contractor who has lived in Sudan. "The government in Sudan is similar to China … I hope the regime in China will collapse soon and the Chinese people are freed. They are good people, hard workers and can do a lot of good."
"I think it's great," said Eli Zwillenberg, a freelance writer who connected the persecution of Falun Gong in China with the persecution faced by Tibetans in China. "Me and my family have been a supporter of the freedom of Tibet for as long as I can remember."
Falun Gong, whose three main principles are truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, is a meditation discipline and spiritual practice that was banned in China in 1999 by the Chinese Communist regime after it had grown rapidly in popularity. The Chinese government's own estimates put the total number of practitioners at 70 million. Since then, the U.S. government, the United Nations, the European Union, and many human rights organizations have confirmed and condemned the widespread and deadly persecution of the practice.
A number of the exhibit's artists themselves have been persecuted in China, including imprisonment and torture. One such artist who was onsite at the exhibit was artist Zhang Kunlun, who was detained and shocked with electric batons for refusing to give up practicing Falun Gong.
The paintings tell a vivid story with a progression in topics, from the spiritual beauty of the practice to the torture and death of practitioners to the worldwide efforts to put an end to the persecution.
Zwillenberg commented on a painting depicting a Falun Gong woman escaping from jail. "I found it very striking. The work on it is excellent, it must have taken quite a while to complete. I'm a bit of an art critic myself and it's excellent.
"The contrast of light and dark, the radiance out of darkness, not only being the theme of the piece, is expertly done as far as technique. It' very well done, sort of a new Renaissance style."
Reynoso said she was captivated by a painting called "My Son," that depicts a Falun Gong practitioner who was beaten to the brink of death and sent home, where he died.
"They sent him back to his family, his mother, like nothing ... It was not human what they did to him," said Reynoso. "In China, they can't voice their opinion, and they don't have any human rights as China is a communist country. You cannot even speak, and practice your faith or your own beliefs like here and sometimes we take that for granted."
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