UPDATE 8/11/2025: VICTORY! On August 8, 2025, the Smithsonian Institution reportedly installed a new display label acknowledging President Trump's two impeachments. The substance of the wall label is largely the same as the text in the temporary label that had been removed, though uses slightly softer language. As an organization committed to protecting the freedom of thought, inquiry, and [...]
Today the National Coalition Against Censorship condemned the decision made by the Whitney Museum of American Art to unilaterally cancel a performance organized by the Curatorial Cohort of its Independent Study Program (ISP). The museum claims that, in a politically provocative introduction of the work at an unaffiliated venue several months earlier, one of the visiting artists violated the museum’s [...]
UPDATE 7/9/2025: The Trump administration is calling for the review of an exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. The exhibition, which has been on view since 2022 and is titled Entertainment Nation, critiques and examines the entertainment industry and its influence on culture and social life by contextualizing works on view with relevant cultural and historical [...]
NCAC is alarmed to learn of the Rhode Island School of Art and Design’s decision to close its public campus cafe, which had been hosting To Every Orange Tree, a group exhibition of student, faculty, and community members’ work on themes of “political resistance, anti-imperialism, and Palestinian liberation.” RISD administrators claimed that “unofficial complaints” about the exhibition led to unspecified “safety [...]
January 23, 2025 — Today, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) expressed alarm at Chicago city councilmembers’ attempts to censor political artwork on view in an exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center. Government officials’ efforts to silence speech because of distaste for its political position raise acute First Amendment concerns. The artwork in question is a massive, two-sided papier-mache puppet [...]
(Left) Samia Halaby, Six Golden Heroes, 2021 & (Right) Alia Farid, Piquete en el Capitolo, 2023 UPDATE 2/02/2024: Success! NCAC has received reports that the artwork by Alia Farid, Piquete en el capitolio, has been returned to the original location selected by the exhibition’s curators–an implicit admission that MSU was wrong to relocate the work in the [...]
UPDATE - August 15, 2024: Following advocacy efforts and community concern, the Lubbock city council considered whether to fully reinstate the funding without any restrictions. In the final vote, the City Council approved a greatly reduced grant of $5,000 for security at FFAT. The Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (LHUCA) expressed disappointment, but assured its commitment to [...]
Image caption: Danielle SeeWalker, G is for Genocide, 2024 UPDATE 8/28/2025: VICTORY! On August 22, 2025, the Town of Vail, Colorado, agreed to settle the First Amendment lawsuit brought against it by artist Danielle See Walker. The case establishes a precedent that a government entity may not discriminate against an individual because it dislikes or [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) announces the launch of a new resource, Art Censorship Index: Post-October 7th, documenting the recent spike in censorship of art and artists invoking Israel or Palestine. Artworks and artists referencing the subject of Israel and Palestine have long been subjects of controversy and/or censorship, but following the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and [...]
In Brevard County, Florida, an artist and member of the Central Brevard Art Association (CBAA), John Cielukowski, participated in the Association's "Art in Public Spaces" initiative, which hangs art in publicly-owned buildings. For the Catherine Schweinsberg Rood Central Library, the artist submitted his painting A Mother's Love, which depicts a mother cow with an ear tag, separated from her [...]
MESA, ARIZONA - Today, the National Coalition Against Censorship's (NCAC) Arts and Culture Advocacy Program (ACAP) and the ACLU of Arizona released a joint statement responding to the City of Mesa's pledge to exercise greater control over artistic content in future exhibitions at Mesa Arts Center, which may lead to the prohibition of artwork that is deemed "controversial" or "critical" of government agencies. This commitment comes on the heels of the local and national [...]
NEW YORK - In a joint letter, the National Coalition Against Censorship’s (NCAC) Arts and Culture Advocacy Program (ACAP) and the ACLU of Arizona demand that officials in Mesa, Arizona, allow the opening of an art exhibit, Facing the Giant: Three Decades of Dissent, which includes a controversial work, My Florist is a Dick, by renowned artist Shepard Fairey. City officials [...]
Update 8/7/2023: The City of San Mateo has responded that it will reinstate its public exhibition programs after it establishes a more detailed review policy for the artworks that are invited for display. The City also confirms Mr. Rios' exhibition was met with "concerns from members of the public and City staff that the display was not supportive of [...]
Updated 9/27/2023 – On June 12, 2023 Chevron acknowledged that it had destroyed the Fencelines community art project, which the company has characterized as an act of vandalism installed solely along their properties. On June 28, however, the City of Richmond affirmed the assertions of project organizers, that a majority of the work was installed with permission on city-owned [...]
NCAC is asking the University of Kentucky (UK) to cancel recently announced plans to remove a 1930’s-era mural depicting aspects of Kentucky history, including slavery. Some students have demanded its removal because they consider it demeaning to people of color on campus. In 2018, the university commissioned an installation by Karyn Olivier, a noted Black artist, that was painted above [...]
NCAC urges Cleveland State University to remove the cover the University used to block from view a political text featured on a sculpture displayed on campus.
The University of Kentucky has unveiled a new site-specific public artwork by Philadelphia artist Karyn Olivier, commissioned in response to a heated controversy around a fresco that students said was traumatizing, creating a model for balancing conflict and tensions around campus art.
Early last Tuesday morning (March 6), the Kalamazoo City Commission voted 5-1 to remove Fountain of the Pioneers. The decision follows a flurry of recent protests by local activist groups, indigenous people, residents and historians. NCAC is concerned by the swiftness of this decision and cautions that such determinations should not be made in hasty emotional response to complaints.
A sneaker and apparel company has bricked over an iconic Harlem mural as they re-brand the exterior of their new store. Community members are concerned about the erasure of this tribute to the Harlem Renaissance and the the artists living and working in Harlem today and are questioning its legality.
Rep. Clay, in a statement issued by his office in St. Louis, said the painting's removal has “sent a chilling message to young Americans that their voices are not respected, their views are not valued, and their freedom of expression is no longer protected in the U.S. Capitol.”
The disciplinary charges constitute a neglect of Winthrop's role as a ‘marketplace of ideas’ and its responsibilities under the First Amendment.
A California government official removed an artwork from a public building because he determined that it was "obscene." The First Amendment exists to prevent this kind of thing, and the piece is back up.
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 thrifty management of one's herd [...]
The Marin County Civic Center has chosen to eliminate a nude painting by San Rafael artist Sylvia Cossich Goodman from a public exhibition. The full-frontal nude was accepted through what we can assume was a standard submission process, and was up in public for a week. So why take it down now? Because an employee complained it created "a hostile [...]
Button brought back from the March 2011 Culture Wars symposium with the Corcoran and Transformer DC.
Unveiled in 1922, Frederick MacMonnies' Triumph of Civic Virtue was called sexist from the get go. And sexist it unarguably is (to an extent that it borders on a parody of sexism): Virtue is a club-wielding man, while Vice is two women being trampled beneath Virtue’s feet. The statue stirred up so much public debate that the city held a [...]
A mural announcing LA MOCA’s upcoming Art in the Streets exhibition, a survey of street art over the past four decades, was painted over - upon orders from the Museum - shortly after it appeared on December 8th. Was this an act of censorship or an exercise of legitimate curatorial control? The answer may depend on your definition of both terms.
The Executive Director of the Springfield Business Improvement District (SBID) in Massachusetts has issued a formal apology for painting over the underside of a resident artists’ artwork. Robert Markey was asked to paint a "sneaker" for the "Art and Soles" project – giant sneakers covered the town in hopes to illustrate “what makes Springfield great.” He painted his “sneaker” with [...]
Over the holiday weekend, the town of Bemidji, Minnesota removed a piece of public artwork by Deborah Davis entitled Gaea. It is a statue of a beaver, one of ten in the city. The reason for its removal was over what was depicted on the beaver’s belly. The artist said it is supposed to be a depiction of two hands [...]
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 best known images include the [...]
Temecula city management, which was responsible for removing a nude artwork from an exhibition in January, has decided not to create a written policy for the selection of artworks in city-owned exhibition spaces. Instead, Temecula’s Community Services Director Herman Parker (or someone designated by him) will partake in the selection process. NCAC Director of Programs, Svetlana Mintcheva, says: It is [...]
In January, artwork by Jeff Hebron, which had been selected for inclusion in a Temecula, CA juried art exhibit (Visual Expressions 2010), was removed upon the request of the City Management. The problem: the painting depicted a nude figure. The gallery where the piece was to be shown is a city-owned space, which is why there are serious [...]
A billboard with the words "Don't Believe In God? You are not alone" was removed from a site in downtown Cincinnati because of threats received by the owner of the site. Even though both the freedom of religion (including the freedom to not believe in god) and freedom of expression are among the founding principles of the U.S., there are [...]
This week, “Walking Man,” a sculpture of a nude man, was removed from the public space in front of the Anton Art Center in mount Clemens, MI, because of individual complaints. That city officials should respond to the complaints of a few vocal community members by removing an art work from a public space is a disturbing violation of both [...]
