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Visual Art

Free speech community demands Daytona State College reschedule “Stranger Fruit” exhibition

By |2023-09-11T12:12:48-04:00September 11th, 2023|News|

As nonpartisan organizations dedicated to freedom of speech, thought, and inquiry, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida (ACLU-FL), and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) are deeply disturbed by reports indicating that Daytona State College canceled an upcoming exhibition at the school's Southeast Museum of Photography because it refers to [...]

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NCAC to Celebrate Free Speech Defenders Juno Dawson, Coco Fusco, John Sargent, Madeline Scotti, Nadine Strossen

By |2023-08-21T16:59:30-04:00August 14th, 2023|News|

NEW YORK— Every year, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) honors leaders in the fight for free speech defenders during its benefit, LET ME SPEAK: a Celebration & Benefit of Free Speech & Its Defenders. This year’s event, presented by Macmillan Publishers, will highlight the contributions of Juno Dawson, Coco Fusco, John Sargent, Madeline Scotti, and Nadine Strossen. Critically acclaimed [...]

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NCAC, ACLU of Arizona, demand the immediate rescheduling of exhibit that features Shepard Fairey’s “My Florist is a Dick”

By |2023-08-11T11:23:02-04:00August 10th, 2023|News|

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 [...]

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NCAC, ACLU NorCal encourage the City of San Mateo, California, to reinstate Public Art Exhibit Program | Updated

By |2023-08-08T10:02:42-04:00July 28th, 2023|News|

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 [...]

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ELLIS Alicante and Don’t Delete Art collaborate on the intersection between AI and Art

By |2023-07-10T18:54:55-04:00July 10th, 2023|News|

The collaboration will focus on online protection of artistic freedom  Alicante, 10 of July 2023– The ELLIS Alicante Foundation in Spain and the Don’t Delete Art initiative in the USA have joined forces to foster the responsible development of trustworthy, human-centric Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the context of art. Both institutions have pledged to give visibility to the negative [...]

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NCAC calls on Chevron to return public art installation

By |2023-06-29T11:01:18-04:00June 29th, 2023|News|

The National Coalition Against Censorship's Arts and Culture Program (ACAP) has demanded that the Chevron Products Company in Richmond, California return the Fencelines public art installation to its organizers. The installation, which had been approved by the City of Richmond, powerfully conveyed the thoughts and aspirations of local residents regarding their community, their proximity to oil refineries, and the [...]

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Through Don’t Delete Art Manifesto, Free Speech Orgs Combat Social Media Policies that Suppress Artistic Expression

By |2023-06-15T10:28:23-04:00June 15th, 2023|News, Press Releases|

NEW YORK— Don’t Delete Art (DDA)—a collaborative initiative uniting advocacy groups and artists in the defense of artistic freedom online—held A Day of Action today in New York City and online. The actions are an extension of the group’s Manifesto campaign, which urges social media companies to integrate artistic perspectives into content moderation policies. The day's activities are documented [...]

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Artists, Free Speech Orgs to Protest Suppression of Artistic Expression by Social Media Companies

By |2023-06-08T10:56:45-04:00June 8th, 2023|News, Press Releases|

New York, NY— Don’t Delete Art (DDA)—a collaborative initiative uniting advocacy groups and artists in the defense of artistic freedom online—will lead A Day of Action on June 15, 2023, in New York City and on social media. The actions are an extension of the DDA Manifesto campaign, which urges social media companies to update their content moderation policies [...]

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ACLU, NCAC oppose removal of abortion-related art from exhibition at Idaho college art gallery

By |2023-03-03T15:12:55-05:00March 3rd, 2023|Blog, Letters, News, Press Releases|

Lewis-Clark State College announced that it will pull several artworks addressing abortion care from an upcoming exhibition for fear of violating the state’s No Public Funds for Abortion Act LEWISTON, Idaho – In a letter sent to Lewis-Clark State College President Dr. Cynthia Pemberton, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, and the National Coalition Against [...]

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A CENSORSHIP TSUNAMI

By |2023-03-10T16:51:24-05:00March 2nd, 2023|Censorship News Articles, News, Press Releases, Statement|

The National Coalition Against Censorship is deeply concerned by the decision to cancel the publication of a self-help book by cartoonist Scott Adams because of offensive remarks he made on YouTube. It comes during a time of an increased policing of ideas. We are in the midst of a national censorship crisis in public schools and libraries. Pressure on [...]

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NCAC, CAA contact Macalester College to assist in response to TARAVAT controversy

By |2023-03-10T16:55:35-05:00February 24th, 2023|Blog, Letters, News, Press Releases|

Image caption: Taravat Talepasand, Demons, Dictators, Blasphemy, and Man, 2016. The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) and the College Art Association (CAA) have contacted Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to express concerns about how its campus gallery handled the controversy surrounding an exhibition entitled TARAVAT.  The college's efforts to address local concerns have profoundly impacted the artistic freedom [...]

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NCAC, FIRE release joint letter on censorship of State College of Florida art exhibition

By |2023-03-10T17:33:32-05:00February 23rd, 2023|Blog, In The News, Letters, News, Press Releases|

Photo Credit: Clifford McDonald, Good Trouble, 2023 The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) are alarmed by reports of the apparently politically motivated censorship of an art exhibition entitled "Embracing Kindness" at the State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota’s Bradenton campus. Please see our letter attached, which outlines our concerns below: Click [...]

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NCAC and CAA denounce Arkansas Tech University’s handling of Controversial Exhibition

By |2023-02-23T21:15:18-05:00February 7th, 2023|Blog, News, Press Releases|

The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) and the College Art Association (CAA) expressed their deep concern with Arkansas Tech University’s handling of its on-campus exhibition, Artifacts, by artist Dominique Simmons. According to the artist's statement, Artifacts sought to acknowledge “the past, good and bad,” as it relates to the American South and included fraught imagery. However, the university’s museum [...]

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Following advocacy efforts by NCAC and DDA, Meta pledges to improve transparency around “shadowbanning”

By |2023-02-23T21:16:17-05:00December 9th, 2022|Blog, In The News, News, Press Releases|

New York - The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), which represents 59 education, publishing, religious and arts organizations, and Don’t Delete Art (DDA), a collaborative project between NCAC and several other organizations and artists, welcome Meta’s recent announcement of Instagram policy updates that promise to improve transparency around downranking for the platform’s professional account users. The announcement follows several [...]

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NCAC and DDA Join Other Organizations to Demand Internet Infrastructure Providers Stop Censoring User-Generated Content

By |2022-12-02T13:26:11-05:00December 2nd, 2022|News, Press Releases|

NEW YORK – Today, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), which represents 59 education, publishing, religious and arts organizations and Don’t Delete Art (DDA), a project of NCAC and several other organizations and artists, joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation and over 50 other organizations and institutions in supporting Protect the Stack, a statement calling on internet infrastructure providers not [...]

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Artistic Freedom and the Internet Infrastructure

By |2022-12-02T13:27:52-05:00December 1st, 2022|Blog, News|

Companies providing core internet infrastructures—including internet service providers, website host companies, payment processors, and more—rarely have substantial contact with their users, user-generated content, or user activities. And, even though they typically lack expertise, authority, resources, and policies to regulate user content with consistency, many online infrastructure companies do just that. The result has severely restricted free speech on the internet, [...]

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Censorship at the Orange County Museum of Art

By |2022-11-09T18:10:15-05:00November 9th, 2022|Blog, News, Press Releases|

In the Fall of 2022, the much-anticipated reopening of the Orange County Museum of Art was marred by the censorship of a painting by renowned artist Ben Sakoguchi in the museum’s California Biennial 2022: Pacific Gold.  A few months prior to the opening, the artist was informed of concerns coming from the museum’s education department that some of the [...]

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NCAC responds to NY Town’s Move to Censor Civil Rights Mural

By |2022-10-05T10:28:05-04:00September 16th, 2022|News|

Photo Credit: Jerald Braddock The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) has written to the Town Supervisor of the Town of Greenburgh, New York, regarding its recent call to remove the depiction of Minister Louis Farrakhan, and potentially other controversial figures, from a new town-commissioned mural overseen by the artist known as Kindo Art. The mural was initially commissioned to [...]

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NCAC Objects to Removal of Artwork by Public Officials in California

By |2021-08-09T12:31:17-04:00July 26th, 2021|News|

The National Coalition Against Censorship is concerned that the City of Encinitas’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Arts has removed several works from an exhibition because of apparent discomfort with some of the content of those works.  The censored artist, Elena Karavodin, was selected by the city to produce a number of works for an exhibition in one of [...]

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Smart Tactics: Curating Difficult Content

By |2021-03-19T09:26:09-04:00October 29th, 2018|Resources|

SMART TACTICS: Curating Difficult Content examines the internal and external pressures curators must navigate when considering potentially controversial material. Combining decades of advocacy experience with extensive interviews and curatorial surveys, this volume includes both a report on what happens behind the scenes in art institutions and a handbook for confronting the challenges of curating difficult content. 

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University of Kentucky Unveils Installation to Encourage Dialogue about Race

By |2020-01-03T15:51:06-05:00August 28th, 2018|Blog|

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.

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NCAC Condemns Government Policy Depriving Americans of Access to Art by Guantanamo Detainees

By |2018-01-25T12:48:58-05:00November 28th, 2017|Press Releases|

The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) vehemently objects to the violation of the public’s right to access art by Guantanamo detainees and thus fully participate in the political conversation around Guantanamo. The new directive also violates the human rights of the detainees under international norms and further destruction of the work would impermissibly suppress documents of historical importance.

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Censored on Campus: Paul Rucker’s Exhibition on Race in America

By |2020-01-05T23:16:13-05:00October 31st, 2017|Blog|

Paul Rucker's traveling exhibition REWIND, an urgently relevant multi-media installation that addresses the history of racial injustice in America, was closed to the public by York College of Pennsylvania, less than one week into its run. Paul sat down with NCAC to discuss the incident.

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Reclaiming the Native American Swastika Symbol: An Interview with Steven Leyba

By |2020-01-03T15:46:30-05:00September 21st, 2017|Blog|

In August, Artspace, a non-profit organization that manages spaces around the country where artists live and work, ordered the removal of an exhibition from the lobby of its property in Everett, Washington. The exhibition contained works by one of its residents, Steven Leyba, an artist of Native American and Jewish descent. Some of the works in the exhibition featured the swastika [...]

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