Tyler Green: The Smithsonian's Lost Integrity
[Tyler Green reports and edits the website Modern Art Notes and is the U.S. columnist for Modern Painters magazine.]
On Monday, the Smithsonian Institution's board of regents holds its first meeting since Secretary G. Wayne Clough pulled a controversial video artwork out of an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. It was a blatant act of censorship and a betrayal of the institution's mission. Now the question is, can Clough be an effective leader given the damage he's done?
Clough's problems began in November when he ordered the removal of a short, edited passage of David Wojnarowicz's 1987 video, "A Fire in My Belly" from "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture." The show reveals how gay and lesbian artists first developed many of the styles and modes of presentation that are now synonymous with American art.
Wojnarowicz's excerpted video, which refers to loss, inequality, faith and desire, and was made just after the artist was diagnosed with HIV, included brief footage of ants crawling on a figure of Christ on a crucifix.
Clough removed the video when the right-wing Catholic League complained that the work was anti-Christian "hate speech" and after the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives piled on. The Smithsonian receives about two-thirds of its funding from the federal government....
Read entire article at LA Times
On Monday, the Smithsonian Institution's board of regents holds its first meeting since Secretary G. Wayne Clough pulled a controversial video artwork out of an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. It was a blatant act of censorship and a betrayal of the institution's mission. Now the question is, can Clough be an effective leader given the damage he's done?
Clough's problems began in November when he ordered the removal of a short, edited passage of David Wojnarowicz's 1987 video, "A Fire in My Belly" from "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture." The show reveals how gay and lesbian artists first developed many of the styles and modes of presentation that are now synonymous with American art.
Wojnarowicz's excerpted video, which refers to loss, inequality, faith and desire, and was made just after the artist was diagnosed with HIV, included brief footage of ants crawling on a figure of Christ on a crucifix.
Clough removed the video when the right-wing Catholic League complained that the work was anti-Christian "hate speech" and after the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives piled on. The Smithsonian receives about two-thirds of its funding from the federal government....