Yesterday, the office of the Third Dzogchen Rinpoche received feedback from some people who purchased prints of the Third Dzogchen Rinpoche's artwork, saying that they bought replica paintings at the gift shop of the Third Dzogchen Rinpoche Cultural Art Museum for prices ranging from 1,000 to 5,000 yuan per piece. Upon learning of this, Rinpoche immediately instructed the office to call the Third Dzogchen Rinpoche Cultural Art Museum to inquire about the situation. Rinpoche personally spoke on the phone with the duty manager assistant, Ren Xue, at the cultural art museum to understand the situation. Ren Xue said, "Some of the paintings are brought in by outside art companies and are all replicas of the Buddha's paintings. There are Western-style paintings and Chinese-style paintings, priced at 3,000 to 5,000 yuan per piece." The Third Dzogchen Rinpoche said that such high prices are outrageous and immediately said seriously, "The Third Dzogchen Rinpoche Cultural Art Museum is an independent institution, and I have no authority to intervene in your cultural art museum. However, those artworks are related to me. You must immediately call your museum director, operations manager, and the company or individual who is reproducing and selling my paintings as prints, and inform them or the company's responsible person that although they have purchased some of my paintings and they belong to their property, or they have the right to sell certain paintings, I have no right to interfere. However, I must express my opinion. How can their replicas or prints be priced at 1,000 to 5,000 yuan per piece? I am deeply shocked and cannot understand. There is no ink trace with my personal signature on the paintings, which means that you are using my paintings to exploit others' money without considering their interests. Don't you think your greedy behavior has already overshadowed the conscience of humanity? Don't you think there is a problem with your mindset? Shouldn't you seriously reflect on the opinions I have raised? Of course, I am not aware of the production cost of your paintings, but you should provide an explanation for this matter and promptly make a reasonable price adjustment. Remember, whether you are a cultural art museum or a company, your profit should be generated under reasonable conditions, because after all, those are prints without my personal signature, just wall decorations. Of course, they will definitely bring artistic enjoyment to people, but they have no collectible value."
Therefore, the office hopes that the institutions that have the printing rights to the artworks of the Third Dzogchen Rinpoche will treat this matter seriously and fairly, and face the buyers with reason and fairness.
Office of the Third Dzogchen Rinpoche
October 29, 2014
https://www.hhdcb3office.org/html/information/comprehensiveness_2014_10_29.html