Dear Editor,

WHAT’S that old joke? “It’s déjà vu all over again!” That was what I thought reading in the Sunday Chronicle of August 7 an article which sought to regurgitate a shock-horror-scandal story first aired a little over two years ago in sections of the press, between May and August 2014, about damage supposedly caused to works in the National Collection of Art by wood ants (termites) at the National Gallery, Castellani House.It is not a coincidence, however, that, two years later, these detractors felt it necessary to suddenly spring into action once again, insisting that ‘neglect, neglect, neglect!’ had still caused damage to art works, though now identified as being caused not by wood ants — a notable change of detail — but by woodworm.

The reason for this sudden activity was that, after two years of restraint on my part in not responding publicly to the unethical misrepresentation of matters of government administration regarding my work as Director and Curator of the National Gallery — which featured in the media well into 2015 -– I finally, quite recently, submitted to the Government of Guyana a detailed report of my own of the events of this period.

ONLY ONE ASPECT
In responding to your article, and for the first time also correcting a significant fact that has stood in the public record since 2014, let me state that only one aspect of this report dealt with the critical matter of a false report of wood ants ‘infesting’ art works, submitted from within the gallery in mid-May 2014 to those in authority; which Mr. Gajadhar, as a gallery committee member, would have received at that time. Very soon after, this allowed his friend and close colleague, prominent artist Mrs. Bernadette Persaud, at the time with a major exhibition on show at the gallery, to complain in another section of the press that her painting had been left ‘propped up’ for four years and allowed to be destroyed by wood ants at the gallery.

Returning to work in July 2014 after many months of leave, my receipt of this appalling, barely one-page report made understandable the vehement hysteria and confidence with which Mrs. Persaud had hurled her accusations into the public domain in May 2014. Though it did not make excusable, I submit, the editors of the highly regarded and highly believed newspaper, in an astonishing editorial some days after, had backed up her complaints word for word and had thrown in a few other issues for good measure in late May 2014.

MY INITIAL RESPONSE
I am obliged to repeat here what I had stated in my initial response to this matter in June 2014 in the Stabroek News, and in my recent report of 2016; that is, that the woodworm is a very manageable, localised problem found in sections of woods used for frames or stretchers of some paintings, which had been identified, reported to me, and treated by necessary spraying by gallery staff over many years; there had been no reports for several years about the far more deadly, spreading scourge of wood ants colonies.

It is therefore amusing and significant that Mr. Gajadhar, taking over from Mrs. Persaud in 2014, has now switched the vehement public accusations from wood ants to talk about woodworm.

Incidentally, woodworm is caused not by a worm, but by a beetle which lives in some woods but whose damage can be seen after several months, or sometimes several years, depending on the type or species of wood so infected. This includes the famed silverballi which Mrs. Persaud so proudly described as the wood used for her paintings in her letter of response to mine in early July 2014: there being several types of silverballi, at least five or six, some are more resistant to insect damage and decay than others.

Responding further to your article, I note with some bemusement the information that a ‘priority list’ of some 27 works had been noted for ‘urgent attention’ in 2014, but that since then another 29 works had been added (my emphasis) to the list.

Why then was nothing done, it seems, in the interim to the first priority list? How can this be, after two years and all the hysteria of concern and accusation, and the ‘urgent attention’ that was needed at the time? What were the problems that made these works a priority, and why are there no details? And why has there been no action, supervised by a management committee of which Mr. Gajadhar was a member?

DELIBERATELY VAGUE
The alarm is raised, again with no details, about Dr. Denis Williams’s ‘Human World’, regarded as the founding work of the Collection. Why the reference to ‘something’ being wrong with the ‘state’ of this work, which ‘the untrained eye’ might not see, yet which was still exhibited for some months despite needing ‘urgent repair’? Once again, we have a description which is deliberately vague yet possibly sensational enough for an impressionable public.

Additionally, the ‘three storage rooms’ in the gallery, so glibly referred to, were always considered temporary and far from ideal. The two garages in the gallery compound were upgraded and adapted with the installation of storage racks for works by 2000, and after not one, but two expert conservation projects on the collection, in 1997 and 2000. At this point (2001) I informed the Management Committee that we needed more storage — which I saw as a short-to-medium term requirement and which would have given us not only a two-level facility which was designed, but critically, a large enough space for an examination room and further workshop space, where all art works in or coming into the gallery for whatever purpose would be examined for cleaning, damage, repair, reframing, fumigation, before being taken for display into the gallery. The cost of such a facility, to be built at the far end of our back lawn, was projected at $18 million, a whopping sum at the time, which the government simply did not have in an era of rigid IMF oversight.

I remember the chill within me as we were told at our meeting that we would have to make do and make the best of the available facilities; which we did, with further upgrades referred to in my letter of June 2014. This work has, however, been excruciatingly slow, delayed over several years by many matters that were out of our control; but this certainly does not make acceptable Mr. Gajadhar’s sweeping and vehement description of storage as ‘very very poor’ (again with no details).

Storage is only one crucial and necessary part of collections’ preservation. A look at the interiors of our storage garages will reveal no space, nor should there be in storage for proper examination, let alone repair, cleaning or (re)framing of art works. And the space outside the facility is completely restricted now by structures relating first to a security building to the east, and much closer to the gallery building and our storage, the structures of a national egovernance project. Both occupy the wonderful space which years before I had hoped would be established as a secure site to do our important work of ‘routine maintenance’, and thus the care and preservation of the National Collection.

SELECTIVELY BLIND
Has Mr. Gajadhar been selectively blind, seeing only woodworm but not the highly limited space which Castellani House now must operate in?
How relevant, moving and painful, then, was it for me to read the recent comments of Ms. Jennifer Wishart, long-term administrator and the institutional memory of the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology, on August 13 last, that ‘over the years’ she had learnt that ‘in order to change something, we need to build something’. I dare to say here that these were things that I had dared to see ahead of me, hence my advice and urging to literally build a space to those with whom I worked and to whom I had to report regarding the current and future work of the National Gallery. Indeed, I must repeat here an earlier wish that such plans for critical workspaces might be incorporated in plans in the foreseeable future for a new, dedicated National Gallery complex.

I note, in closing, the negatively crafted messages that seem to have been sent out from those in authority, such as then Director of Culture Dr. Rose in 2015, characterising ‘infestation’ and our lack of ‘technical competence’ to manage this in a project proposal for conservation experts. But expert conservators are not needed for insect extermination when competent local companies do this job. Indeed, my own draft proposal to another Latin American country some years ago, referred to in 2014, was for conservators to work on specific areas and common issues of repair of paintings, incorporated with a basic introductory training programme in this field for promising young people who might form a future conservation work force serving our local/national institutions.

But with such woeful melodrama regarding our dire needs, no wonder the Argentine ambassador is quoted, speaking poetically about ‘the long road to bring back to life’ (twice mentioned) the National Collection. What information was given to the ambassador to lead him to such characterisation of the National Collection, I wonder?

The tone of your article, finally, is another example of misrepresentation. The description of the ‘horror story’ of the collection is used more than once in breathless scandal sheet style, enhanced by unnecessary exclamation marks and a large, shocking pink headline which turns out to be possibly unjustified, as the ambassador is quoted as saying that a team might not come from his country after all to provide conservation services to Guyana.

My disappointment overall has been that your article was the work of a professional journalist indulging in the option of hyperbolic language, repetition, and a lack of critical detail; added to a bold and possibly inaccurate headline, rather than employing professional practice and standards which would guarantee always the independent and balanced purveying of information that the reading public deserves.

I trust that my comments here might go some way to redressing the unfortunate bias of this article, whose sole purpose seemed to be to mislead rather than to enlighten its readers.

ELFRIEDA BISSEMBER