DGA to exhibit works of its collection at the UN

SANTO DOMINGO. The General Directorate of Customs (DGA, after its initials in English) will exhibit 30 works by Dominican artists on February 25 at the UN headquarters in New York. This event is promoted by the Heritage Cultural Foundation of the Directorate General of Customs.

The important event for the Dominican Arts is linked to the program of official activities promoted by the Dominican Government abroad through various institutions on the occasion of the celebration for the 171 anniversary of Dominican independence.

Appreciating the significance of the Dominican exhibition at the UN Headquarters involving 24 outstanding Dominican painters, Pedro Vergés, Ambassador, permanent representative to the Organization of American States (OEA, after its initials in English) and President of the of the Cultural Heritage Foundation of the DGA, named Miguel Cocco as a visionary and founder of the collection.

Pedro Vergés pointed out that Rafael Camilo, former Customs Director and Fernando Fernandez, current DGA director, they have preserved and strengthened on a high, the mission of the Foundation.

The Directorate General of Customs has expressed satisfaction for the opportunity to show a representative exhibition of the Dominican art, which will allow the country to show the world this part of the Dominican culture, from February 25.

The travelling exhibition the Dominican Customs has been promoting beyond its borders, expresses its greater interest in approaching a valuable representation of the Dominican plastic the international community, from this different arts scenario.

Mr. Fernando Fernández, general director of customs, thanked Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, general secretary at the United Nations, and other authorities of this organism, for the opportunity that has been given to the Dominican Republic to present its art in such a distinguished audience, symbolism of union and liberation of the cultures around the world.

Fernando Fernández stressed that this kind of initiative is not expected on the part of an organism like Customs, whose function is to control and manage the cross-border trade. However he said that to strengthen the desire to move forward and achieve the goals and desires of the Dominican people, art and culture cannot be alien to any establishment of institutions or States. "Whoever has the vocation, the resources and will to put them into practice, must take it in a context of comprehensive action", he said.

While thanking the Permanent Mission of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations on behalf of its Ambassador Francisco Cortorreal, the Dominican Consulate in New York, whose holder is architect Eduardo Selman, as well as the Cultural Heritage Foundation members at DGA, who are directed by Don Pedro Vergés, the Customs director said that the fact of trying to translate a customs purpose through the arts, could be something unexpected, the Dominican Customs has achieved.

The Directorate General of Customs has a collection with over 600 works that you can admire in the environment of the main headquarters of the Dominican Customs. The works exhibiting are iconic creations related to emblematic Dominican painters, which reflect the genuine reality of the Dominican people in with a great a great cultural richness.

The Dominican Government on behalf of his Excellency President Danilo Medina, the fact of reaching the big stage at the UN is an unexpected step, a unique opportunity, which strengthens the internationalization of a cultural event the Customs has been internally promoting in the Dominican Republic, and that has planed to extends it to other cultures with the hope it is assessed as a manner for the country opens to the world.

This traveling exhibition began at the Museum of Art of the Americas (AMA) of OAS, by an initiative of the the Cultural Heritage Foundation of the DGA and the Permanent Mission of the Dominican Republic to the OAS.