A painting, included in a juried exhibition show at the Mansfield Art Center in Ohio, was partially covered with black paper. The painting had been selected for inclusion in the show, but the management of the Art Center decided that the outside edges of the work, which were covered with clippings from pornographic magazines, should not […]
Don’t Let Them Eat Cake
Sweden’s minister of culture has been in the global news spotlight recently, and not for her nation’s propensity for neo-noir literature. Minister Lena Adelson Liljeroth was invited to attend and speak at World Art Day at Stockholm’s Museum of Modern Art. The engagement took a turn for the bizarre when Liljeroth was invited by artist […]
Colorado Academic Center Institutes Censorship Regime After Controversy Over Student Art Work
Until a few weeks ago, the Arts Building at the Aurari Higher Education Center in Denver featured several walls emblazoned with the kindly decree to “Post Artwork Here.” However, in light of recent controversy over the graphic work that student Estee Fox hung on one of these walls, the “authorities” (that blissfully meaningless blanket term) […]
Art Succeeds in Starting a Conversation, But Some Call for the Cancellation of the Project
Update: Lawrence, KS officials have banned the project, saying the proposed art installation would amount to animal cruelty. The Kansas code allows “with respect to farm animals” for “normal or accepted practices of animal husbandry, including the normal and accepted practices for the slaughter of such animals for food or by-products and the careful or […]
Art Censorship in 2011: Nudity, Sexuality, Religion, Politics, and… Meat?!
2012 has already brought a few cases of censored art to our attention: Microsoft Skydrive froze UK blogger Michael Ohajuru‘s storage account because Modigliani’s painting “Reclining Nude” violated Microsoft’s Code of Conduct which prohibits images that “depict nudity of any sort”; and ?zmir Metropolitan Municipality removed three photographs (below) from the exhibition “Aykiri” (Contrary) at the Izmir Art […]
Guest Blog: John Davis Malloy on the Smithsonian After Hide/Seek
It’s true that the Smithsonian’s Flashpoints and Faultlines forum was too late for Hide/Seek, but keeping the issues alive months after the exhibit closed may be the right timing for the future of this public institution. It was no surprise that in his welcoming remarks Wayne Clough described himself as having no choice but to […]
Christian Extremists Vandalize Art — Again and Again
Last October we reported about an incident at the Loveland Museum/Gallery in Colorado where a woman ripped into a lithograph after she busted the artwork’s plexiglass case with a crowbar. She did this because God told her to do it. In her explanation of the vandalism, Kathleen Folden refers to the similar destruction of Andres […]
WEAR IT PROUD
Button brought back from the March 2011 Culture Wars symposium with the Corcoran and Transformer DC.
In Censoring Art Gainesville State College President Violates Academic Freedom
Stanley Bermudez’ Heritage? (above) had been displayed for just over two weeks at the Gainesville State College Gallery before Martha Nesbitt, the President of GSC, ordered its removal. The painting, which layers images of a Klansman and a lynching upon a Confederate battle flag, drew protests spurred by a post on Southern Heritage Alerts. The […]
Smithsonian Regents’ Response to Censorship Outrage: what does it promise?
In response to the national outrage over the removal of artist David Wojnarowicz’ video Fire In My Belly from the National Portrait Gallery following pressure from the Catholic League and Republican Congressional leaders, the Smithsonian Board of Regents formed an Advisory Panel*.
Policing The Sacred – College Art Association Panel – Wednesday, February 9th, 12:30-2 PM
Policing The Sacred, organized by the National Coalition Against Censorship, looks at the volatile relationship between art, politics and religion.In recent decades the tensions between these have become intense, evident in the American culture wars of the 90s, the Danish cartoon uproar, and ongoing battles over artistic depictions of religious figures, including the recent removal of a David Wojnarowicz video from a show at the National Portrait Gallery. The panel, open to the public, takes place on Wednesday, February 9th, from 12:30-2 PM.
http://www.nationalportraitgallery.us/
ARTINFO reports: After outraging the art world, several of its funders, and a giant chunk of its constituency with its fatal decision to remove David Wojnarowicz’s “Fire in My Belly” from the National Portrait Gallery’s “Hide/Seek” show, the Smithsonian has chosen to respond to its critics in a dramatic, and rather odd, fashion: instead of […]
New Museum Opens – Museum of Censored Art
On Thursday, January 13th, a new museum opens in Washington, DC: The Museum of Censored Art, founded by art and free speech activists Mike Blasenstein and Michael Dax Iacovone. Mike and Mike are the iPad protesters, who were expelled from the National Portrait Gallery when they attempted to show David Wojnarowicz’s video Fire In My […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Art School Pulls Student Pieces From Exhibition
A photograph of a male nude by Savannah College of Art & Design student Nicole Craine was among the several artworks taken down before an Open Studio Exhibition at the school in October. Reportedly, the students were given no explanation as to why their work was taken down. College administrators later admitted that the content […]
20 Banned Album Covers
On occasion of the controversy over the sexually suggestive cover of Kanye West’s upcoming album “My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy,” Billboard has created a fun slideshow of 20 banned album covers. Check them out here: If you want to learn more about music censorship, you can check out NCAC’s Timeline of Music Censorship, which was […]
No no, a cartoon, naked man in it, no, Apple won’t have it
Take a look at this panel from an iPad graphic novel app based on James Joyce’s 20th century classic, Ulysses. There is a part in the story where a character, Buck Mulligan, strips down and jumps in the Irish Sea for a swim. Here it is in Joyce’s original: He nodded to himself as he […]
Fractured Fairey Tale
In one of the more recent public controversies to hit the NCAC’s arts advocacy radar, two murals from a series commissioned for a Cincinnati Arts Center (CAC) exhibition were recently destroyed – one vandalized by unknown actors, the other whitewashed by a disgruntled site owner. The two murals, by former street artist Shepard Fairey (whose […]
