Is John Boehner really a Muslim?
Or a true American?
Perhaps he's really a Chinese communist Muslim or something
I'm an artist...and I do get annoyed when other artists scream "censorship" when their art isn't accepted into a gallery or removed from a gallery for a good reason. For example, I was in a show that got tossed out of a museum because most of us didn't do anything remotely like what the museum had agreed to show. That's not censorship - that's failure to live up to an agreement. But when people like Boehner pressure the Smithsonian I think it's pretty clear it's true censorship.
John Boehner censors art...those Commies love them some censorship...
Check out Blake Gopnik's article in today's Washington Post here
from Gopnik:
Against all odds, the stodgy old National Portrait Gallery has recently become one of the most interesting, daring institutions in Washington. Its 2009 show on Marcel Duchamp's self-portrayal was important, strange and brave. "Hide/Seek," the show about gay love that it opened in October, was crucial - a first of its kind - and courageous, as well as being full of wonderful art. My review of it was a rave.
Now the NPG, and the Smithsonian Institution it is part of, look set to come off as cowards. Today, after a few hours of pressure from the Catholic League and various conservatives, it decided to remove a video by David Wojnarowicz, a gay artist who died from AIDS-related illness in 1992. As part of "Hide/Seek," the gallery was showing a four-minute excerpt from a 1987 piece titled "A Fire in My Belly," made in honor of Peter Hujar, an artist-colleague and lover of Wojnarowicz who had died of AIDS complications in 1987. And for 11 seconds of that meandering, stream-of-consciousness work (the full version is 30 minutes long) a crucifix appears onscreen with ants crawling on it. It seems such an inconsequential part of the total video that neither I nor anyone I've spoken to who saw the work remembered it at all.
But that is the portion of the video that the Catholic League has decried as "designed to insult and inflict injury and assault the sensibilities of Christians," and described as "hate speech" - despite the artist's own hopes that the passage would speak to the suffering of his dead friend. The irony is that Wojnarowicz's reading of his piece puts it smack in the middle of the great tradition of using images of Christ to speak about the suffering of all mankind. There is a long, respectable history of showing hideously grisly images of Jesus - 17th-century sculptures in the National Gallery's recent show of Spanish sacred art could not have been more gory or distressing - and Wojnarowicz's video is nothing more than a relatively tepid reworking of that imagery, in modern terms.
[snip]
In America no one group - and certainly no single religion - gets to declare what the rest of us should see and hear and think about
UPDATE Local Gallery showing Censored art!!! from MSNBC
You can't see David Wojnarowicz's "Fire in My Belly" video at the National Portrait Gallery. But you can at another D.C. arts establishment -- Transformer Gallery on P Street.
In response to the Smithsonian's Portrait Gallery pulling the video from its Hide/Seek exhibit due to pressure from outside groups, the Transformer Gallery has stepped in to show the public what it's missing -- and is planning even more.
The gallery (1404 P Street NW) began showing the video to the public via a large flat-screen monitor at about 1 p.m. Wednesday. People can watch it from inside the gallery or through a storefront window from the street until at least 7 p.m.
It's so sad that every time people cave in to Wingnut pressure...they're kind of de facto implying the wingnuts are right.
I wish Sullivan had just said "Hey - these guys fund my museum...they got me by the balls so I'm taking the art down. It's not fair, but it's my best move given the situation I'm in."
So the Smithsonian displays an art piece - a 30 minute video with 11 seconds that Christians don't like - and KaBOOM John Boehner and friends intimidate the museum into removing the piece.
Hmmmm...seems kinda un-American to me.
Reminds me of the uproar over those cartoons that upset...uh..Muslims
From the Post article by Jacqueline Trescott:
Officials at the National Portrait Gallery on Tuesday removed a work of video art depicting Christ with ants crawling over him after complaints from a Catholic organization and members of Congress.
The four-minute video, created by the late artist David Wojnarowicz, had been on exhibit since Oct. 30 as part of a show on sexual difference in American portraiture.
The piece was called "hate speech" by Catholic League president William Donohue and a misuse of taxpayer money by a spokesman for Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), the presumptive incoming House speaker.
Sad to see Martin Sullivan have to back down...but the Smithsonian gets 70% of its funding from the Feds...so I'm not sure he had much of a choice
Here is the video -- decide for yourself -- THINK for yourself, no need to depend on Boehner to tell you what you can see: