The Smithsonian's Latest Censorship Scandal Is a Decades-Old Stunt from the Right-Wing Playbook [View All]

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AlterNet / By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

The Smithsonian's Latest Censorship Scandal Is a Decades-Old Stunt from the Right-Wing Playbook
Artist David Wojnarowicz warred with conservatives 20 years ago before his death from AIDS. Is this seriously happening again?

December 27, 2010 |


Earlier this month, when the Catholic League and conservative Congress members blew up over David Wojnarowicz’s “A Fire in My Belly,” a 1987 video piece on exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, it was ostensibly because an image of a crucifix crawling with ants offended their sensibilities.

Filmed by the artist in Mexico during Dia de los Muertos and meant as a sanguine commentary on AIDS -- which took Wojnarowicz’s life in 1992 -- the crucifix was lying on the ground (hence the ants) near other icons of the day, left in homage and celebration of deceased loved ones. Though the Jesus clip lasted mere seconds, a flash in a video that also included found footage and a short sequence of a man stripping off his pants and masturbating, the Smithsonian capitulated to the conservative groups’ demands over the crucifix. Smithsonian secretary G. Wayne Clough, against the wishes of NPG curators, removed the work from the group exhibit “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” widely seen as the first landmark-scale show celebrating the achievements of gays and lesbians in American art history.

Watch "A Fire in My Belly": http://www.alternet.org/story/149336/the_smithsonian%27s_latest_censorship_scandal_is_a_decades-old_stunt_from_the_right-wing_playbook/


The Smithsonian defended its position in a press release, stating that “A Fire in My Belly” was “perceived by some to be anti-Christian” and had “generated a strong response from the public” -- despite the fact that no one visiting the exhibit had complained before right-wing groups launched their crusade against the piece. “We removed it from the exhibition Nov. 30 because the attention it was receiving distracted from the overall exhibition,” continued the release, “which includes works by American artists John Singer Sargent, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Annie Leibovitz and Georgia O’Keeffe.”

Clough’s censorship of the piece in the context of a group exhibit called "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” not only reflected his cowardice -- he’s still not talking to journalists -- but his lack of understanding of the artist. As Philip Kennicott puts it in an excellent piece for the Washington Post, Wojnarowicz was a lapsed Catholic who explored the complexities of the church, “a complicated organization, monolithic only in the minds of its leaders... Wojnarowicz’s imagery was richly Catholic because Catholicism was richly malevolent.” (As many lapsed Catholics know, you can remove god from the equation, but you can never entirely shrug off the culture.) ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/149336/the_smithsonian%27s_latest_censorship_scandal_is_a_decades-old_stunt_from_the_right-wing_playbook/