Such Jorge Azcon as Javier Lambán responded with harsh words this Wednesday to the statements made by the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, on the conflict of Sijena’s strengths dismissed by court decision between 2016 and 2017, on which Sumar considered that the return was “politicized” and the Aragonese that this interpretation of the conflict is “an insult”.
The current president of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, indicated that the minister “is not trained» to keep his position. While the socialist Javier Lambán, maximum defender of the recovery of Sijena’s property during the years he was at the head of the government of Aragon, when “his return” took place, considered that the property of politicians should be “preserved” like Urtasun.
Additionally, a year after the goods were returned, Lambán posted a tweet in 2018, celebrating the anniversary, in which he expressed “the independence movement is a deadly solvent of democracy and coexistence. There is no agreement with him. It can only be fought with law and truth. “Sijena is the perfect opportunity to defend the rule of law and the truth.”
With Urtasun: “Amnesty for the Sijena affair”
The controversy over Sijena’s assets resurfaced this week in the Senate due to Junts’ demand for “amnesty” in the Sijena case. More specifically, Senator Francesc Xavierduring the government control session in the Senate this Tuesday, described the restitution of property in Aragon by judicial decision as “spoliation”, and asked the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, that the case be “amnestied”.
Urtasun took up the challenge of the independence movement and declared that the “leadership” was “politicized», “based on the territorial confrontation” of the Executive of Mariano Rajoy within the framework of the application of art. 155.
An interpretation denied both by the president of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, and by the former president, Javier Lambán, since both defend that the action was in accordance with the law and had nothing to do with the conflict secessionist or law enforcement. THE section 155.
In fact, secessionists are now reportedly pushing for Sijena’s “amnesty” to take place, given that the Catalan government’s Minister of Culture, Carles Puigdemont, Luis Puigis accused of an alleged crime of disobedience for refusing to deliver works of art from the Lleida Museum to the monastery located in Villanueva de Sijena.
The Sijena Museum
In addition, the pro-independence senator suggested that the works of Argón were now neglected and asked the minister if he could guarantee that the pieces currently in Aragon are in the same “optimal” conditions as when they were in the era. National Art Museum of Catalonia and the Lleida Museumbecause “it is unfortunately today an invisible heritage”.
Some statements foreign to the cultural reality of the moment in Aragon, knowing that last September precisely the Aragonese president, Jorge Azcón, announced the reopening of the Sijena monastery for next year, and with this, visitors will be able to enjoy the the 99 works recoveredas well as the adaptation and rehabilitation of different rooms. The reason why the works have not yet been exhibited is due to some pharaonic works made in the museum complex for more than 2 million euros.
In this regard, Javier Lambán stated in his X account that “Minister Urtasun incurs ignorance and bad faith“, adding that “let us preserve our legacy of politicians like this.” In addition, the socialist counts on “justice for the imminent return of the paintings of the chapter house.” We are referring to the murals of the chapter house, which the MNCA must return by decision of 2016, but which remain in limbo while waiting for the Supreme Court to rule.
In this context, Azcón, in announcing the reopening of the monastery, emphasized that the works in Sijena will not end until “the entire heritage of the monastery” is recovered, referring to said assets that are still guarded by the National Macaw Museum of Catalonia. This is why he demanded that the representatives of the PSOE and Sumar in Aragon “and demand that he rectify“.
The Sijena platform Yes
It should also be remembered that even the citizen platform Yesasked the Ministry of Culture in mid-May that the “decolonization” that Urtasun advocates for American museums also be applied to the MNAC.
“The origin of the contents of many large urban museums must not only be sought in the lands colonized centuries ago far from Spain, but also in the castles, palaces, churches and archaeological remains, which ended up being looted, sometimes legally, by abusing economic difficulties poor people or the ignorance of its inhabitants, and others, in a completely illegal or arbitrary manner”, they emphasized in their letter sent to Urtasun.
“The Royal Monastery of Santa María de Sijena was stripped of immense artistic riches and only part was recovered after great efforts over decades. But not everything came back. The case that worries them, because of its importance, is that of the murals of the Chapter Houselooted in October 1936, during the civil war,” they note.
Although at first this appears as an act of “salvation” of the pictorial work, it then becomes an “appropriation”, “with arguments of cultural colonization by the MNAC (National Art Museum of Catalonia) which has kept them in deposit and without title deed since 1939″, reflects Sijena Sí in the letter.
