On Saturday, March 26, the Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art + Design, along with partners Transformer and the National Coalition Against Censorship presented Culture Wars: Then and Now, a FREE one-day symposium examining past and current debates about freedom of expression and public support for the arts.

Press for Culture Wars:

Washington Post: Culture warriors’ cry to art museums: Toughen up against political pressure

Washington Post, AP Newswire: Corcoran Gallery in DC holds daylong summit on ‘culture wars’ over arts funding, free speech

Yale Daily News: Storr speaks on censorship

NBC.com: Culture Wars Symposium

Washington City Paper: Don’t Blame the Bloggers

::Click to read the full press release::

Related: PFA releases report on Hide/Seek censorship

Program:

Censorship Examined

10–11 a.m.

Robert Storr, Dean of the Yale School of Art, will examine visual arts censorship within the context of American culture and history.

Screening of Linda Lewett’s video Perfect Moment at WPA .

Culture Wars Redux – What did we (what do we) consider offensive?

11:30 a.m.–1 p.m.

Panelists include Philip Brookman, director of curatorial affairs at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and former curator of Washington Project for the Arts; Dennis Barrie, director of cultural and interpretive planning, Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement and former director of the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center; Jane Livingston, independent curator, author, and former associate director and chief curator at the Corcoran Gallery of Art; and H. Louis Sirkin, attorney who represented Dennis Barrie and CAC at the trial provoked by the Robert Mapplethorpe retrospective, The Perfect Moment, 20 years ago. The discussion will be moderated by Svetlana Mintcheva, director of programs at the National Coalition Against Censorship.

Screening of Martha Wilson’s performance Barbara Bush: All Washed UP and Guerilla Girls’ HERSTORY

Give me a Revolution: Artists’ Responses to Censorship

2–3:30 p.m.

Panelists include Mike Blasenstein and Michael Dax Iacovone from the Museum of Censored Art; Orameh Bagheri from LA Raw; Bill Dobbs of Art+; and Marshall Reese of Ligorano/Reese Collaborations. The discussion will be moderated by Victoria Reis, executive and artistic director of Transformer.

Free Speech & Arts Funding

4–5:30 p.m.

Panelists include Nora Halpern, vice president of leadership alliances, Americans for the Arts; Michael Keegan, president, People for the American Way; Robert Atkins, art historian, activist, author, and co-editor of Censoring Culture: Contemporary Threats to Freedom of Express; David A. Smith, senior lecturer in American History at Baylor University, Waco, TX and author of Money for Art: The Tangled Web of Art and Politics in American Democracy. The discussion will be moderated by Andy Grundberg, associate provost and dean of undergraduate studies, Corcoran College of Art + Design.

To register please visit https://getinvolved.corcoran.org/culturewars.