LA MOCA – the false dichotomy between censorship and sensitivity

The familiar “he said/ she said” binary so beloved of the media has shaped the controversy over LA MOCA’s whitewashing of a political mural as an opposition between those who define it as censorship and those who define it as sensitivity. Here is the LA Times:

“Censorship,” some cry, referring to Deitch’s removal of Blu’s antiwar mural on the north wall of the Geffen. Others say it’s sensitivity, not censorship, as Deitch was concerned that the mural — which pictured coffins covered in dollar bills — would be offensive to some in the neighborhood, as there’s a Veterans Affairs hospital and a war memorial to Japanese-American soldiers in close proximity to the museum.

“Crying” censorship (really – those crybaby free speech fanatics!) and claiming sensitivity, however, are NOT polarized assertions. Censorship is the suppression of speech or ideas considered disagreeable, offensive or otherwise objectionable. People censor for various reasons – and being “sensitive” to the feelings of others is often one of those reasons.

Being a private institution LA MOCA can legally censor as mush as it wants, but, please, let’s call Jeffrey Deitch’s action what it is: censorship. Where disagreement appears is when we begin discussing Deitch’s reasons for covering the piece: We may sympathize with his motivations or we may disagree that the possibility that a political mural may offend someone should be reason to whitewash it.

If being sensitive to the values and feeling of others becomes a valid determinant of what art can be put on display, sex, nudity, as well as any comment on religion or political topics will be out. As profit making seems to be the one indisputable positive goal in this country, our public spaces will be then fully dedicated to it (as long as it doesn’t become too artsy and controversial, of course) – why think about war profiteering when you can just go and buy something cool!

Hundreds Protest Smithsonian Censorship

This Sunday, Dec 19th, hundreds of artists, curators, queer and free speech activists, as well as other supporters of free speech gathered in front of Metropolitan Museum to take part in a rally demanding that the Smithsonian return the censored video by artist David Wojnarowicz, “A Fire In My Belly,” to the National Portrait Gallery’s Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in
American Portraiture. The group then marched up 5th avenue to the Cooper/Hewitt Museum. The event was organized by Art +, an ad hoc group with which NCAC has been working closely.

LA MOCA whitewashing – is it censorship?

A mural announcing LA MOCA’s upcoming Art in the Streets exhibition, a survey of street art over the past four decades, was painted over – upon orders from the Museum – shortly after it appeared on December 8th. Was this an act of censorship or an exercise of legitimate curatorial control? The answer may depend on your definition of both terms.

Here are the undisputed facts: Italian street artist Blu was commissioned by LA MOCA to paint a mural on one of the walls of the museum’s building. Work on the mural, which depicted coffins draped in American one-dollar bills (referring to the familiar image of flag-covered coffins of soldiers killed in war), commenced December 8^th, Wednesday. By midday Thursday, the museum had painted over the work.

As reported by the LA Times, “once MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch, who was in Miami for an annual art fair, returned home and saw Blu’s handiwork, he said no. Deitch later explained that he made the decision to remove the mural very quickly, unprompted by complaints…”

After several days silence, the Museum issued an official statement, explaining that the decision to paint over the mural was made because:

The Geffen Contemporary building is located on a special, historic site. Directly in front of the north wall is the Go For Broke monument, which commemorates the heroic roles of Japanese American soldiers, who served in Europe and the Pacific during World War II, and opposite the wall is the LA Veterans’ Affairs Hospital. The museum’s director explained to Blu that in this context, where MOCA is a guest among this historic Japanese American community, the work was inappropriate. MOCA has invited Blu to return to Los Angeles to paint another mural.

Blu has refused to return to paint another mural stating:

It is censorship that almost turned into self-censorship when they asked me to openly agree with their decision to erase the wall. In the Soviet Union they were calling it ‘self-criticism.

Coming almost simultaneously with the scandal over the removal of David Wojnarowicz’s Fire in My Belly from the National Portrait Gallery, the incident has received far less attention – a large part of the arts community appears to support Deitch in his one-man decision about the appropriateness of the mural.

So, back to our question: Was this an act of censorship or an exercise of legitimate curatorial control?

First off, this is a private museum receiving no government pressure (to our knowledge) so First Amendment rights are not concerned the way they were in the National Portrait Gallery case.

Still, if we define censorship as suppression of speech or ideas considered disagreeable, offensive or otherwise objectionable, this is, indeed, censorship.

So, the answer is, yes, LA MOCA has censored its Art in the Streets exhibition, even before the show has opened – not great advertising for a show on an art form that is notoriously political, provocative and unfriendly to the rules of polite behavior.

Public art is frequently subject to controversy especially when it concerns political subjects and does not just celebrate community or decorate a wall. A political statement writ large is sure to offend those who disagree with it whether a memorial is close to it or not. A museum can make the decision to show safe art in public and reserve it’s riskier gestures for its galleries (or avoid them altogether). But when planning a groundbreaking street art show, is that a good idea?

The relative silence around the removal of Blu’s work begs the question: have we reached a point where the consensus is that strong political statements should be avoided and where the potential that a war veteran may possibly be bothered by the idea that US soldiers are sent to die for economic interests is reason enough to whitewash an artwork? Are we no longer allowed to be angry? If not, why the rush of Wojnarowicz supporters to insist that Fire in my Belly is not an attack on Catholics? And what if it were, would it merit less support? (Wojnarowicz has many works that directly express his rather unrestrained anger at the Catholic church)

The removal of Blu’s mural and the silence around it sound a sinister note of the existence of quiet and insidious (self-)censorship: a type of censorship much harder to oppose than the heavy-handed bullying of right-wing Republicans and religious extremists.

NPG Censorship Protest in New York City – Sunday, December 19th, 1:00 PM

Stop the Censorship!

Put the Wojnarowicz video back!

Protest in New York City – Sunday, December 19th, 1:00 PM (details below)

Send a message to the Smithsonian Institution and all of its museums: Stop the Censorship.

Late in November the Smithsonian’s head, G. Wayne Clough, did something unconscionable and shocking – he ordered the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC to ‘remove’ a video by David Wojnarowicz from a museum show called Hide/Seek.  Demand that the video be reinstalled now.

A month into the show’s run Clough capitulated to the complaints of right-wing politicians and an anti-gay religious group, and yanked the four-minute piece titled “A Fire in My Belly.”

A New York Times editorial assailed the Smithsonian’s “appalling act of political cowardice.”

Is this any way to run a museum?

The Hide/Seek show is an important, groundbreaking exhibit about sexual identity and we urge you to see what’s still on display.

When he died in 1992, Wojnarowicz, an artist and writer with AIDS, left a body of work about the disease that remains unrivaled for its power and beauty.

Demand the video be reinstalled now so the public can see the exhibition as the curators intended.

Stand up for free expression, for art that challenges and even pushes our buttons.

Protest Sunday, December 19 at 1 PM in New York City and take collective action for free expression.

PROTEST DETAILS

Sunday December 19, 1:00 PM

GATHER on the Metropolitan Museum steps
Fifth Ave. & 82nd Street

Then MARCH to the Cooper-Hewitt/Smithsonian
FIFTH Ave. & 91st Street

Wear your free expression best and be part of the message.

Art+ is a New York City-based art action group – fighting censorship and homophobia

Web: http://artpositive.org/

Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/22tldrt

Email: info@artpositive.org

NCAC censored!

Censorship incidents on the web are more and more common, but it’s still rare when they happen to an anti-censorship organization like the NCAC.

Network Solutions, a company providing web services, has threatened to remove TheFileroom.org, an interactive archive of worldwide censorship cases administered by the National Coalition Against Censorship, unless a photograph of two naked children by Nan Goldin, contained on the site, is taken down.

Thefileroom.org was created in 1994 by Spanish-born artist Muntadas, and was one of the first Internet art projects. NCAC has been hosting and maintaining the site since 2000.

The Goldin photograph, entitled Klara And Edda Belly-Dancing (1998), which shows two naked girls laughing and playing, was included in the site in 2007, after the Elton John-owned photograph was seized by police in the UK at a gallery as part of a child pornography probe. The case was dropped.

The photograph had also been investigated in 2001 when it was part of another exhibition at the Saatchi gallery in London and was found not to be indecent. The image can be found in the monograph of Goldin’s works entitled The Devil’s Playground (Phaidon, 2003), has been offered for sale at Sotheby’s New York in 2002 and 2004, and has previously been exhibited in Houston, London, Madrid, New York, Portugal, Warsaw and Zurich. It is currently in an exhibition in Berlin.

In attempting to justify the take-down request, Network Solutions referred to its “acceptable use policy,” which prohibits the “Transmission, distribution, uploading, posting or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes, … material that is obscene, defamatory, libelous, unlawful, harassing, abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar, constitutes an illegal threat, violates export control laws, hate propaganda, fraudulent material or fraudulent activity, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable material of any kind or nature.”

When NCAC informed Network Solutions that the photograph is not obscene, a company associate responded “That’s your opinion.”  However, the photograph’s wide distribution and occasional review by legal authorities is clear evidence of its undisputed legality.  This arbitrary act to request the removal of an artwork, accompanied by a threat of the immediate deletion of thefileroom.org domain name from the Network Solutions registry, denying access to information about over a thousand censorship incidents, is a sinister sign of a growing trend where private web companies are becoming the new arbiters of what is moral or legal disregarding national or international free speech protections.

The incident comes in the midst of a host of government pressures on Internet intermediaries – service providers, hosts and domain name holders – to clamp down on a variety of Internet content. The removal of content by private companies without due process or even valid justification is a chilling development that threatens the future of an open Internet.

Protest against Censorship at National Portrait Gallery

This is from an attendant at the protest organized by Transformer on Thursday, Dec. 2nd: The protest’s silence was very effective.  The rows standing mute along the entire width of north steps of the Portrait Gallery for about 25 minutes until the museum closed at 7:00 was eloquent and impactful in a way beyond the quantity of supporters or passion of speeches.  Security guards did not try to disperse those standing in the path between the entrance and the sidewalk.

Photos: John Davis Malloy

Production of to Kill a Mockingbird will go forward!

Victory: the Flagler Palm Coast High School production of Harper Lee’s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD will be staged in the auditorium on February 24, 25, and 26 (two shows). It will be staged AS WRITTEN!

The production was canceled last month by the school’s principal, who was concerned about the use of the word “nigger” by characters in the play.

David Wojnarowicz – censored once again

If David Wojnarowicz were alive to witness his video, Fire in the Belly, attacked by the Catholic League and removed from the National Portrait Gallery, he probably would not have been surprised. Wojnarowicz’s work received its share of controversy during the culture wars of 1989-90. His essay Postcards from America: X-rays From Hell caused National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funding to be withdrawn from Artists’ Space, because of an essay by Wojnarowicz included in the catalogue to its show about AIDS, “WITNESS: Against Our Vanishing.”

Some 20 years before Bill Donahue of the Catholic League thought of using Wojnarowicz’s work to urge Republicans in Congress to review funding for the Smithsonian, the Rev. Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association used excerpted images from Wojnarowicz collages in a campaign to persuade Congress to hold back N.E.A. grants. (Wojnarowicz successfully sued Wildmon for misrepresenting his work.)

But what about the work itself? It is probably one of the worst effects of censorship that, in the throes of controversy, the complex work itself gets flattened to some one-dimensional image (of a crucified Christ eaten by ants or some such inanity). So, a few words about Wojnarowicz. David Wojnarowicz was a multimedia artist and writer, employing photography, collage, performance, painting and writing in his highly political and very angry work. One of his goals was to record an “alternative history” of lives made invisible in what he perceived as a mass mediated “Other World.”

Wojnarowicz’s started documenting his environment before he had any hope of communicating the results. From the age of 15 he captured the city streets in which he lived with a stolen camera on stolen film. The film, undeveloped, was lost, but the impulse to record a reality made invisible to a media culture produced the word portraits posthumously published in The Waterfront Journals, the autobiographical fragments in Close to the Knives and Memories that Smell Like Gasoline, as well as the compulsive layering of photographic images in the visual work. What Wojnarowicz recognizably documented was the trajectory of his life – a violent father, hustling in the streets of New York from the age of nine, extremes of destitution, and later, the AIDS pandemic, friends dying, his own diagnosis and “increased mortality.”

More than documenting facts Wojnarowicz was amplifying an emotional experience in the hope of offering recognition to those made to disappear by mass mediated reality. The photography and paint collages, for instance, share with the mass media the input of a large quantity of disparate information, and with the media savvy of someone who grew up with TV, Wojnarowicz makes the juxtaposition of industrial debris, porn images, money, dinosaurs and bandaged hands. Yet, contrary to the attenuation of affect brought about by the evening news, Wojnarowicz’s images resonate with each other communicating the emotional substance of a post-apocalyptic world. Wojnarowicz is a witness, giving testimony regarding something that is structurally invisible to media culture and unspeakable in its terms: an intense and painful emotional experience.

…and I wake up every morning in this killing machine called america and I’m carrying this rage like a blood filled egg and there is a thin line between the inside and the outside a thin line between thought and action and that line is simply made of blood and muscle and bone ….and as each T-cell disappears from my body it’s replaced by ten pounds of pressure ten pounds of rage and … the egg is starting to crack …the thin line between the inside and the outside is beginning to erode and I’m a thirty seven foot tall one thousand one hundred and seventy-two pound man inside this six foot frame and all I can feel is the pressure all I can feel is the pressure and the need for release. (David Wojnarowicz, from Brush Fires in the Social Landscape)

National Portrait Gallery Removes David Wojnarowicz Video from Exhibition

Yesterday (Nov 30^th), in response to complaints from the Catholic League and several Republican representatives the National Portrait Gallery decided to remove Fire in My Belly, a video by multimedia artist David Wojnarowicz. The video was part of Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, an exhibition exploring issues of sexuality and specifically gay sexuality (thought the official description of the exhibition carefully avoids explicit references to homosexuality).

Follow this link: A Fire in My Belly from ppow_gallery on Vimeo.

The Catholic League objected to the “homoerotic images” and said the exhibition offended Christians. Eventually they zeroed in on David Wojnarowicz’ 1987 video, which uses, among many others, images of crucifixes in a work which is part death elegy about the artist’s mentor and lover Peter Hujar, part angry tirade about the AIDS epidemic. The Catholic League, supported by Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), the presumptive incoming House speaker, and incoming Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), called the video “hate speech.”

Cantor reportedly called for the cancellation of the whole exhibition, which he called an “outrageous use of taxpayer money and an obvious attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season.” Boehner didn’t directly call for a cancellation but threatened the funding of the Museum saying “Smithsonian officials should either acknowledge the mistake and correct it, or be prepared to face tough scrutiny beginning in January when the new majority in the House moves to end the job-killing spending spree in Washington.”

Anybody is entitled to criticize an art show – call it offensive and “hate speech” if they so prefer – but should the National Portrait Gallery respond to complaints by interest groups and tailor their programming to their views? Remember the First Amendment? Government officials cannot and should not decide to discriminate among viewpoints, no matter how much pressure they get. We all pay taxes and a (very small) part of these taxes goes to maintain a vibrant and diverse cultural sphere that serves all Americans not just Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals. We may differ on cultural or social issues and argue about these issues – in the press, in public spaces, in galleries and performance spaces , but government officials cannot manage money so as to silence those with whom they disagree.

And let us be clear here: it is not the presence of a crucifix per se that offended Catholics (there are many gruesome crucifixes in national galleries), it is the use of the image of the crucifix in a video about AIDS, a work where the Passion of the Christ is used as an analogy to the suffering brought about by the AIDS epidemic. The Catholic League may insist that religious symbols are their property and others (especially homosexuals) cannot use them, and they can argue that point as much as they like, but a national museum is barred by the First Amendment and by its mission to serve all Americans to enforce the views of conservative Catholics on all of us.

The Smithsonian, of which the National Portrait Gallery is part, is a public trust serving the interests of all Americans. It betrays its mission the moment it ejects a work whose viewpoint some dislike.

Transformer Gallery, a non-profit visual arts organization, will begin showing the video work in their 1404 P Street, NW Washington, DC storefront project space beginning at 1 pm today, Dec 1st.

NCAC will be sending the letter of protest to the Gallery. Stay tuned for further developments!