Police Groups React to ‘Don’t Shoot’ Library Art
Provocative art about police brutality in a Madison, Wisconsin library is causing controversy.
Provocative art about police brutality in a Madison, Wisconsin library is causing controversy.
A group of international artistic freedom groups send a letter to the Cuban government requesting that authorities drop all charges against free speech performance artist Tania Bruguera.
At the 28th Session of the Human Rights Council in March 2015, Ms. Farida Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, presented her report on copyright laws and policies and their effect on artistic freedom. The report emphasizes the need to balance intellectual property rights with the need to empower creativity. It supports copyright exceptions and limitations that enable caricature, parody, pastiche and appropriation art, which all borrow recognizably from prior works in order [...]
The decision to quickly remove a student art project involving a teepee from a California college campus sent the wrong message about artistic freedom and claims of offense.
An exhibit of dolls at the Long Beach library was deemed too controversial because it included a depiction of police brutality. The library decided to go on with the show; NCAC offers some guidelines for curators who are faced with similar controversies.
A California college removed a teepee art project after complaints-- missing an opportunity to have a real discussion about some vital issues.
Artists in France are adapting NCAC's work.
A New York Times reviewer offers a scathing response to the New York Youth Symphony's decision to censor a young composer's Carnegie Hall debut.
A quick look at how Music Freedom Day was celebrated in New York City.
Is this really about copyright? Trumbull removes a painting of Mother Teresa from the public library amidst questionable claims of copyright infringement.
A new report shows that attacks on artists were on the rise in 2014-- even here in the United States.
Is the Museum of the City of New York censoring labor art--or merely exercising proper curatorial judgment?
The Charlie Hebdo massacres prompted worldwide calls to embrace and celebrate artistic freedom. But actions speak louder than words. As demonstrations in support of free speech were held in Paris and we all reconfirmed our commitment to an open exchange of ideas, two cultural spaces in the United States-– one a library, the other a university-– censored artwork.
On Sunday, Dec 21st, NCAC joined Secret Cinema and Spectrum to screen Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator in protest against the cancellation of The Interview. As NCAC noted in a statement regarding the cancellation, threats of violence have become increasingly successful in suppressing cultural expression. Before Sony Pictures Entertainment withdrew its film, The Interview, from all outlets of circulation and distribution, we saw London’s [...]
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) are urging University of Iowa president Sally Mason to issue a statement recognizing the First Amendment rights of Professor Serhat Tanyolacar and make clear that his artwork is fully protected under the First Amendment. The letter was issued in response to the forced removal from [...]
Don’t hold your breath for nipple reveals or cock shows – while artistic representations of nudes remain a regular target of censorship, the most compelling and controversial artwork in 2014 came from artists challenging social norms and exposing cultural fissures. There was the occasional use of female anatomy or children as subjects, but what each painting, photo, or mural on [...]
The audience coming to see John Adams' Death of Klinghoffer on Monday, October 20th, had to pass through a cordon of angry protesters crying "shame" and holding placards condemning the Metropolitan Opera of rather far fetched things like "taking terrorist $$$" or "glorifying terrorism." They must not have succeeded in shaming anyone as the house was full. The few hecklers in the [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) has joined the UK based Index of Censorship and other members of ARTSFEX, an international civil society network actively concerned with the right of artists to freedom of expression, in a statement condemning an alarming worldwide trend in which violent protest silences artistic expression that some groups claim is offensive. The below statement was issued [...]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE In a submission to a UN human rights review, anti-censorship groups document violations of freedom of information and expression in public schools, jails, and prisons New York and Copenhagen For more information contact Svetlana Mintcheva at 212-807-6222 In a new report to the United Nations assessing the United States’ compliance with its human rights obligations, two leading [...]
Jorge Marin's sculpture group Wings of the City has been on display in Houston's Discovery Green Park since early September. Almost predictably some viewers are objecting to the nudity of the sculptures. As usual those who object do it supposedly on behalf of the innocence of children - though Wings of the City has been exhibited internationally with no apparent damage to [...]
Cancelled commencement speakers, a rush of attempts to put trigger warnings on class content, student petitions to remove potentially disturbing artwork from campus… What is going on? Academia is no stranger to free speech battles. In the 1950s professors could be ousted for “treasonous or seditious acts or utterances” or for being members of an organization advocating the violent overthrow [...]
To celebrate NCAC's 40th Anniversary, we take a look at 40 threats to free speech.
Damien Hirst's The Virgin Mother is a large piece about even larger subjects: life, death, birth, and humanity. But is it too large for Old Westbury, L.I.? The Virgin Mother was previously displayed (there are several casts) at Lever House in Manhattan, outside London's Royal Academy, and on Fontvieille Harbour, Monaco. But now that it landed in posh Old Westbury, [...]
We're excited about the just-released Library Juice Press Handbook of Intellectual Freedom because, in addition to being a landmark resource on the state of free inquiry and expression, it features a new essay by NCAC's Svetlana Mintcheva on censorship, past and present, in the arts. Library Juice talks about the need for this handbook on their blog: The existing reference literature on intellectual [...]
Kennesaw State finally formally announced the reinstatement of Ruth Stanford's “A Walk in the Valley” to the opening exhibition at the new Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art. The piece, a commissioned work about Georgia author Corra Harris' homestead, was taken down two weeks ago, shortly before the formal opening on Saturday, March 1st.
The National Coalition Against Censorship received word that Ruth Stanford's "A Walk in the Valley" has been restored to the Kennesaw State University's Zuckerman Museum of Art. KSU had said “A Walk in the Valley” was pulled because it did not fit the "celebratory nature" of the museum's opening.
The the oft-delayed and highly anticipated role-playing video game South Park: The Stick of Truth is finally hitting the shelves next week. However, a leaked reviewer’s guide for European journalists has revealed that the version of the game that pub...
We urge the Center to reconsider the exclusion of Linda Cunningham’s timely and powerful "School Days" piece, and adopt exhibition policies that demonstrate a respect for the creative freedom of their members
Paul Carter/The Register-Guard As a dues-paying member of the Emerald Art Center in Springfield, OR, Linda Cunningham prepared a piece of work for the monthly members' show. The "pastoral" works of other members were accepted without incident, but Cunningham's three-dimensional piece was deemed "too controversial" and rejected by the executive board of the Art Center, according to The [...]
Court settlement extends San Bernardino County Government Center exhibit, to compensate for time during which paintings had been removed. Today NCAC and and the ACLU of Southern California were please to see the final court settlement that extends the exhibition time of three recently restored paintings at the San Bernardino County Government Center. The extended display period will compensate for [...]
**Victory! San Bernardino County Restores Artwork! NCAC congratulates artists, community members, and ACLU for defending First Amendment principles** Read the whole story in the San Bernardino Sun. This past September, NCAC received a call from an artist outraged at the removal of three paintings from the Hispanic National Heritage Art Exhibition at the San Bernardino County Government Center. Apparently [...]
NCAC Calls on Herberger Theater Center to Apologize for Cancelled Show and Commit to Guidelines Supporting Free Expression.
NCAC and ACLU-SC ask the county board to immediately restore artwork and establish best practices for managing future controversies in accordance with First Amendment principles.
Essam Political street artist Essam Attia, 30, was arrested last November for planting dozens of fake public service ads around Manhattan claiming that the New York Police Department (NYPD) used drones to spy on citizens. The pubic was quick to react, launching an online Free Essam campaign and a petition asking that all charges be dropped. We caught [...]
Betsy Schneider Are photos of a naked child offensive? Some folks in Sheboygan, WI, thought Betsy Schneider’s images of her growing daughter were offensive and recently pressured the Michael Kohler Arts Center to remove them from a group show. NCAC spoke to Schneider, an award-winning photographer, about her reaction to the ban, her now-teenage daughter’s response to all [...]
NCAC and the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri sent a letter urging the board to restore the art exhibition program at Dykes Library, located in the Kansas University Medical Center.
Last week brought us one of those rare occasions where Perez Hilton reported on the invocation of First Amendment rights, as Chris Brown declared he would fight a Los Angeles citation. Brown was fined $376 for "unpermitted and excessive signage" for graffiti he had painted on the outside of his Hollywood Hills home, after neighbors complained that the pictures terrified [...]
GENEVA, May 31, 2013–Today the Special Rapporteur on cultural rights, Farida Shaheed, delivered a landmark report on artistic freedom and expression to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. Shaheed is the first Independent Expert on cultural rights appointed by the U.N. The U.S-based National Coalition Against Censorship lauded the report as an important milestone for international mobilizing in support of free artistic expression as a human right.
The recent rather heavy-handed treatment of Marc Bradley Johnson’s MFA thesis project at New York’s School of Visual Art (SVA) raises some interesting concerns—especially for an institution that aims to play a leadership role in the bio-art movement. Johnson’s project consists of a refrigerator containing 68 vials of his sperm arranged on a grid. The artist originally intended to give [...]