Venezuela: Research on arts and culture with Hector Feliciano

The Andean Development Corporation (CAF), in alliance with the Ibero-American New Journalism Foundation (FNPI) and the Bigott Foundation, will hold from May16 to 20 in the CAF headquarters in Caracas a Workshop on Investigative Reporting on Arts and Culture, led by journalist Hector Feliciano, as part of the Program for Media Training and Knowledge Update for the Media, which CAF has been successfully promoting since 2003, jointly with FNPI.

CAF President & CEO Enrique García said that the strategic alliance of CAF with the Ibero-American New Journalism Foundation was aimed at promoting a positive transformation in the business and professional practices of Latin American journalism, offering opportunities for training and exchange for professional development in forums and workshops, such as the one on investigative reporting on arts and culture.

"We are involved with these activities because of our conviction that journalism is one of the most important tools for solving our problems. Clearly journalism not only informs but also analyzes and guides public opinion on a variety of issues. Journalism also has the function of overseeing that the actions of society develop in the right way. For these reasons CAF values journalism. Our link with this event is a clear example of the importance that we give to this profession," García added.

The Ibero-American New Journalism Foundation (FNPI) was created in 1994 on the initiative of Colombian journalist and writer Gabriel García Márquez, Nobel laureate for Literature in 1982. The initiative stemmed from his desire to share experiences and stimulate the vocation of young reporters, as well as his conviction that practical and participative workshops are an effective teaching method. In these events, experienced teachers discuss with students the carpentry of the profession, stimulating debate, innovation, professional ethics to promote improvement of the media.

Cultural reporting is traditionally seen as a light descriptive area on a level with the home and travel sections of the newspapers. However, journalists who go more deeply into the area of culture and the arts find a complex web of political, economic and social relations which is difficult to disentangle without adequate tools.

The workshop led by Hector Feliciano aims precisely to offer participants tools to answer the question: "How to do investigative journalism on art and culture." In the workshop, selected journalists will review their own investigative work in preparation; and will make contributions and give advice in stimulating group criticism, frank conversations, specific suggestions and joint discussions. The workshop will also cover the great international debates and tendencies in culture, and possible areas of cultural research in our countries.

Sixteen professionals were selected for the workshop - five from Venezuela and ten from other Latin American countries - with at least three years continuous experience in professional journalism in Latin American media.

Also during the meeting, Feliciano will present his research masterpiece, "The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art.” Feliciano was awarded a fellowship by the National Arts Journalism Fellowship Program (NAJP) of the Columbia University School of Journalism in New York for this work.

Hector Feliciano and The Lost Museum

Puerto Rican Hector Feliciano lived in France for over 18 years where he was editor-in-chief of World Media Network, a European newspaper group. He also worked as artistic director of the Cultural Affairs Office of the Paris City Government. He was European cultural correspondent for the US newspapers Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. He now writes from New York for El País (Spain) and El Clarín (Argentina). He studied history and art history at Brandeis University. He later obtained his Master’s from the School of Journalism of Columbia University, and a doctoral diploma in Comparative Literature from the University of Paris.

His book, "The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art,” is an example of an extensive work of journalistic research. In 2004, Emecé and Destino published the final version of the book, which has now been published in seven languages. In Argentina, the book has been in the top 10 lists, and in Spain is already in its fourth edition. Gaillimard will soon publish the new French edition, Le musée disparu.

To research the book, Feliciano spent over eight years tracing the history of the looting of art by the Nazis. He located over 2,000 works of art, which had disappeared since the war, in museums, galleries, private collections, and auction houses in Europe and the United States. In the Louvre alone he found 400 unclaimed pieces.

Since the publication of his book, thousands of paintings and other works of art have been returned by museums and collectors to their legitimate owners, and hundreds of families around the world have resumed their claims, prompting a wide-ranging international debate among governments, museums, merchants, collectors and public opinion.

Feliciano organized the First International Symposium on Cultural Heritage at Columbia University in New York. He was also a member of the working group for the new studies program of the Columbia University School of Journalism, and member of the committee of experts of the US Presidential Commission on Holocaust Assets. He was also a member of the US government delegation to the International Conference on Nazi Gold held in 1997 in London, and to the Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets held in Washington in 1998.