Smithsonian chief, embroiled in video censorship controversy, to speak in L.A. Jan. 20
Wayne Clough, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, currently occupies the art world’s hot seat because of his recent decision to censor an exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery after congressional Republican leaders complained that a video containing shots of ants crawling on a crucifix was anti-Christian. Now Clough is L.A.-bound, engaged to speak Jan. 20 at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles as part of the Town Hall Los Angeles public issues series.
Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas said Thursday that Clough’s engagement was booked last summer; the Town Hall Los Angeles announcement says his talk, entitled “New Perspectives at the Smithsonian,” is being presented in conjunction with LA Arts Month.
Clough has come under fire not only for the decision to remove David Wojnarowicz’s 1987 video, “A Fire in My Belly,” from a show about gay-themed portraiture but for thus far not speaking publicly about the controversy.
St. Thomas said Clough has not tried to duck the issue but had been traveling over the holidays. “He will be speaking about it more publicly,” she said, probably before his arrival in L.A.
The Town Hall Los Angeles program is open to the public; tickets, which include lunch, cost $65 and are available through its website, or by calling (213) 628-8141. Clough is expected to field questions from the audience for about 20 minutes after his talk –- the speakers series' usual format.
St. Thomas said he’ll reserve some time after the event to speak with reporters, who under Town Hall Los Angeles rules are welcome to cover the talks but are asked not to take part in the question-answer period that's part of the program.
The exhibition opened Oct. 30. On Nov. 29, a conservative website, CNSNews.com, ran a long, detailed report about it, headlined “Smithsonian Christmas-Season Exhibit Features Ant-Covered Jesus, Naked Brothers Kissing, Genitalia, and Ellen DeGeneres Grabbing Her Breasts.”
CNS and its reporter, Penny Starr, followed up the next day with an article focusing on GOP leaders’ response. In it, a spokesman for Boehner said, “Smithsonian officials should either acknowledge the mistake and correct it, or be prepared to face tough scrutiny beginning in January when the new majority in the House moves to end the job-killing spending spree in Washington.”
Cantor was quoted as saying that the video was “an obvious attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season,” adding that “the museum should pull the exhibit and be prepared for serious questions come budget time.”
The Smithsonian removed “A Fire in My Belly” the same day those comments were published. In a statement on its website dated Dec. 6, the National Portrait Gallery posted its explanation: The “video created as a complex metaphor for AIDS was perceived by some to be anti-Christian. It generated a strong response from the public. We removed it from the exhibition Nov. 30 because the attention it was receiving distracted from the overall exhibition.”
Times art critic Christopher Knight wrote that Wojnarowicz’ video –- originally 13 minutes and shown at the National Portrait Gallery in a four-minute excerpt -– was not anti-Christian but a protest “against those who profess Christian compassion but refuse to enact it … in part a terrifying shriek against the shocking indifference to the AIDS crisis then engulfing the United States.”
The Los Angeles Times’ editorial page predicted that the episode presages a return to the 1990s “culture wars” in which conservative objections about avant-garde works led to steep budget cuts for the National Endowment for the Arts and an end to its grants to individual artists. The NEA’s purchasing power has yet to fully recover. The editorial lamented that the Smithsonian had caved to pressure: “it’s dispiriting that the defenders of culture and artistic expression seem so willing to surrender.”
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, headed by former Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, said it would stop issuing grants for Smithsonian exhibitions if the video isn’t reinstated. The Assn. of Art Museum Directors rebuked the Smithsonian for bowing to “unwarranted and uninformed censorship from politicians and other public figures, many of whom, by their own admission, have seen neither the exhibition as a whole or this specific work.”
But North America’s other leading museum advocacy group, the American Assn. of Museums, told the Washington Post that it agreed with the Smithsonian that it was proper to pull the video rather than allow the controversy to subsume an “excellent show.”
-- Mike Boehm
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Photos: Smithsonian Institution secretary Wayne Clough; protestors hold portraits of artist David Wojnarowicz in protest of removal of his video from National Portrait Gallery show. Credits: Anne Cusack/Los Angeles Times (Clough); Jacquelyn Martin/AP (protestors).
To understand the artist David Wojnarowicz please read "One day this kid will get larger." Also titled "Untitled, 1990".
If a gay artist doesn't self censor himself in life and creates works true to his soul and then fails to leave proper instructions to the heirs of his estate he can expect the possibility of his works being censored or simply hidden away from view after his death. Even if a gay artist takes the precaution of leaving his artwork to a trusted individual or organization, all it takes is one curator, administrator, person to project their own discomfort with a work of art and "poof" that artist's message, ideas and creativity are gone from view. Effectively this is " silence after death" at the hands of a stranger.
Here's the link to "Untitled, 1990" on P.P.O.W. Gallery Website:
http://www.ppowgallery.com/selected_work.php?artist=14&image=2
Posted by: Nathaniel Siegel | January 06, 2011 at 07:00 PM
Self expression is not art, its therapy. Creative art is about finding what is essential in humanity, what binds us as one. Not what splinters and fractures for market share and self indulgence. Reality shows are entertainment, the lowest common denominator, art is of the highest. And must be accessable and of mind body and soul as one, to everyone everywhere, not PC PR of a small cult.
No one cares about these organizations, they have their own agendas. The Smithsonian is huge, and encompasses far more than just art, which is a minor field in our country unfortunately. Extinct now with self absorbed rantings of academic art, of the rebuilt Academy of prosaic illustration of psychobabble issues. Absurdist entertianment for the rich, defanged of power and meaning. just as the wealthy desire, maintaining the status quo and fracturing humanity.
The Secretary proably jsut ahd more important things to do. He should not have buckled to political pressure, but as the Smithsonain gets hundreds of millions every eyar from teh Feds, of course he will. It is theirs and not a private institution, and ahrdly true censorship. I tis a video adn can be seen anywhere and everywhere, adn ahs been. No one is calling for it not to be seen. Thats a red herring.
much ado about nothing. And art with out true human content, its always about US, never Me.
Save the spiritual Watts Towers, tear down the decadent Ivories.
Posted by: Donald Frazell | January 07, 2011 at 10:05 AM