NCAC Censorship News Issue #109
- A local group in St. Louis County, Citizens Against Pornography, joined with some community members in objecting to a dozen titles on the shelves in the teen section of the St. Louis County Library. The list includes Alice on Her Way by acclaimed author Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and The Little Black Book for Girlz: A Book on Healthy Sexuality by St. Stephen’s Community House. The library board is reviewing the books.
- Citing Building Department regulations, New York City officials ordered Cooper Union, a private art college, to remove from its facade a banner of Picasso’s portrait of Josef Stalin. The banner was part of an exhibition by the artist Lene Berg. Complaints had come from members of the local Ukrainian community who thought the banner “seemed to promote” Stalin.
- An Iowa comic book collector is facing obscenity charges because he recieved
manga (a Japanese style of comics) which he ordered from Japan. This is
a rare case of a criminal prosecution for possession of allegedly obscene
material solely for personal use. - A sculpture of the Kokopelli, a Native American fertility god and healer, was moved from the front of Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum in Blanding, Utah after a local group calling itself the “Values Committee” threatened a protest because the sculpture has a penis.
- Four posters from a national series of exhibitions called Art of Democracy were banned from display at the cityrun Addison Street Windows Gallery in Berkeley because they contained images of guns. Art of Democracy has toured fifty other locations without a problem.