Get inside.
DATE: Sunday, 12/19
TIME: At: 1:00 pm
A march to protest the Smithsonian’s Censorship of David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in My Belly from the National Portrait Gallery’s current Hide/Seek exhibit
Organized by Art Positive: artpositive.org
March begins at:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
From there it will proceed to:
The Cooper-Hewitt/Smithsonian at 91st Street.
Begging the question of whether it’s still “street art” if you commission it for a Museum, Jeffrey Deitch, director of LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art, had a freshly completed mural by Italian street artist, Blu, immediately white washed.
Looks like street art to me!
The rather heavy-handed mural depicting military coffins draped with out-sized dollar bills instead of flags (get it?), graced the north wall of the Geffen Contemporary Building for only the time it took to document it as part of the exhibit for the show’s catalog.
MOCA’s official statement says that the mural was “inappropriate” and pointed out that The Geffen Contemporary building’s north wall sits directly in front of the Go For Broke Monument that commemorates Japanese American soldiers and is very near the Veterans Affairs building.
Deitch told reporters that the issue is not censorship but timing: “Blu was supposed to fly out the second-to-last week in November, so we could have conversations about it in advance,. But he said he had to change his flights, so he ended up working in isolation without any input.”
Immediate comparisons to the Smithsonian/Wojnarowicz debacle show just how sensitive the creative community is these days to any hint of censorship.
But, Deitch dismisses any similarity in the cases:
“Look at my gallery website — I have supported protest art more than just about any other mainstream gallery in the country. But as a steward of a public institution, I have to balance a different set of priorities — standing up for artists and also considering the sensitivities of the community.”
Deitch also claims that he and the artist are “on friendly terms, ” but Blu’s blog features a photo of the naked wall with the capton, “A really nice, big wall, in downtown L.A.”
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ADDENDUM: Via Hyperallergic: Blu claims that Deitch’s mural kill is indeed “censorship”; airs e-mail exchanges that challenge Deitch’s statements. This, likely, will turn into a fine back and forth. And in this hypersensitive atmosphere where artists, arts institutions, and pressure groups feel they are at war, issues like this one are bound to escalate. It is my own opinion that MOCA may not have dealt honestly with the artist and the public, but that the removal of the mural was not censorship. The commission was a blunder and the PR has been less than honest: period.
James T. Bartlett has resigned as National Portrait Gallery commissioner, in protest of the Smithsonian’s removal of David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in My Belly from the “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” exhibition.
Since its decision to withdraw the Wojnarowicz piece in deference to complaints from William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, who dubbed it “hate speech” and to pressure from certain members of congress, the Smithsonian has been bombarded with criticism from other members of congress, supporters of free speech and the arts, friends and supporters of the artist, the Andy Warhol Foundation, and many of it’s own members, including Bartlett.
Created by the artist in response to a diagnosis of AIDS, and in a signature religion-probing gothic style, the video was removed from the (now ironically named) Hide/Seek, an exhibition of gay portraiture, at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery on November 30th.
The yanking of Fire in My Belly followed threats from Republican leader, Representative John Boehner of Ohio and Representative Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, who threatened the Smithsonian by claiming that the venerable institution was misusing taxpayer funds and they could look forward to losing funding in future.
Though the exhibit was privately funded, the Smithsonian does receive some public funding. But National Portrait Gallery officials have stated that their quick response was prompted by a fear that a swift news cycle was quickly burying the exhibit in distractions and that they were forced to stay ahead of it.
Initial reports of the work’s withdrawal brought on immediate protest and have resulted in a veritable avalanche of bad press.
On Wednesday, December 1st, upon hearing of the Smithsonian’s cave-in, Victoria Reis, co-founder, Executive & Artistic Director of the nearby Transformer gallery, ordered an immediate, 48 hour screening of a 4 minute clip of the work (similar to what was included in Hide/Seek). This version of Fire in My Belly was shown in the storefront window facing outward to the public.
Protests spread out from the small non-profit gallery on December 2nd as a march proceeded from Transformer, at 14th and P streets NW to the National Portrait Gallery to picket in front of it.
By December 3rd Transformer obtained from the Wojnarowicz Estate (represented by PPOW gallery) & the Fales Library, an original 13 minute version of the “film in progress” plus 7 minutes of excerpts, and began to show those inside the gallery. But that screening, ending on the 4th, proved to be a spur to further protest.
Frustrated that the screening was to end that Saturday, two men began showing an iPad video of the the work at the NPG, inside the entrance to the Hide/Seek exhibit. They were detained and banned from the Smithsonian for life.
In a letter co-written by Reis and Board President, James Alefantis, repudiated the NPG’s failure to uphold its own claims that “it is committed to the struggle for justice so that people and groups can claim their full inheritance in the American promise of equality inclusion and social dignity.”
The letter goes on to quote Rep. James P. Moran, chairman of the subcommittee that provides funding for the country’s major art institutions who, in response to the Wojnarowitcz controversy said, “The whole point is that we should not be censoring we should be discussing.”
In a statement reacting to the Smithsonian’s decision, P.P.O.W Gallery and The Estate of David Wojnarowicz said, “In 1990 the artist won a historic Supreme Court case, David Wojnarowicz v. American Family Association. The courts sided with Wojnarowicz after he filed suit against Donald Wildmon and the American Family Association, who copied, distorted and disseminated the artist’s images in a pamphlet to speak out against the NEA’s funding of exhibits that included art works of Wojnarowicz and other artists. We are deeply troubled that the remarks, which led to the removal of David’s work from Hide/Seek, so closely resemble those of the past. Wojnarowicz’s fight for freedom of artistic expression, once supported by the highest court, is now challenged again. In his absence, we know that his community, his supporters, and the many who believe in his work will carry his convictions forward.”
Meanwhile, silent protest marches continue to plague the Smithsonian with picketers carrying the iconic photo of Wojnarowicz with his mouth sewn shut. Some protesters have even projected the censored video onto the side of the building, apparently unhindered by police.
Even Stephen Colbert has joined in the fray, saying of Eric Cantor’s threats, “This defunding threat isn’t some cheap exercise in mindless censorship. It’s an anti-paradigmatic revolutionary work of conceptual art banning. Cantor’s art is about the art that isn’t there, making the inaccessible literally inaccessible.”
This evening, in an unprecedented admonition to any of it’s previous benefactors, The Andy Warhol Foundation threatened to cease funding to ALL Smithsonian Institution exhibitions if they will not reinstate the Wojnarowicz piece.
Transformer plans to display a sign in its window until the work is reinstated. Commemorating the Smithsonian’s shame, the sign reads:
A Fire in My Belly
Video by David Wojnarowicz (1954 – 1992)
Created in 1987, Censored by the Smithsonian Institution 2010
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Related Stories:
National Portrait Gallery: Hide/ Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture
Post.Thing.Net: David Wojnarowicz’s Fire In My Belly
The Washington Post: The God Vote: ‘Sacrilege’ at the National Portrait Gallery
The Washington Post: Fire Man, By Philip Kennicott
The Huffington Post:Warhol Foundation Pushes Back, By Jim Hedges
Christie’s recent top management shuffle has inspired a good deal of speculation regarding the strategic intentions of owners, François Pinault and his investment firm, Groupe Artemis SA. Does Artemis, which acquired the auction house in 1999 for $1.2 billion have secret plans to sell in the near future?
Sprung upon with announcements of a new CEO, Steven Pleshette Murphy, formerly president and CEO of Rodale publishing, and the promotion of former CEO, Edward Doleman to chairman, Christie’s execs can’t help but wonder what to expect next.
Kept secret until its announcement via a Sept. 20th e-mail to worldwide staff, the news apparently caused quite a shake up, not only because it was so sudden and unanticipated, but also because Murphy was chosen over seemingly more likely candidates like Marc Porter, the chairman of Christie’s America, and François Curiel, president of Christie’s Asia.
Artemis, meantime, denies all rumors of an impending sale, claiming it holds long-term plans for Christie’s which is, they say, one of their “strategic assets,” producing sales of $2.3 billion in the first half of 2010.
However, asked by ArtInfo’s Judd Tully about whether Christie’s has any more surprises in store, Murphy, Christie’s very first American born CEO, said, “There will be more to say in a few months.”
The Art Machine 