Despite its significance, the exhibition recently has been under fire by a small, vocal group of politicians and the Catholic League, who have denounced it, criticizing the film A Fire in My Belly (1987) by David Wojnarowicz. Wojnarowicz made A Fire in My Belly shortly after his companion and muse, the artist Peter Hujar, died from complications related to AIDS. Aggressive, macabre, and distressing, the film contains metaphoric footage meant to express loss and anger about the fact that the AIDS epidemic devastated the gay community while mainstream society largely ignored the problem.

The original A Fire in My Belly contains 13 minutes of footage, with an additional seven minute chapter. Both versions are without sound and composed of short shots of 8mm film captured by the artist in Mexico. For Hide/Seek, exhibition curator Jonathan Katz worked with editor Bart Everly to shorten each segment of the film so that it would total four minutes in length. Katz also chose a recording of an ACT UP rally found on an audio cassette in Wojnarowicz’s archives to serve as a soundtrack to the film. The video editor has posted this version of A Fire in My Belly on Facebook.

Opponents of the exhibition have targeted three brief segments of A Fire in My Belly, which depict ants crawling on a crucifix. Ants, which were seen by Wojnarowicz as having a social structure parallel to humans, were used to reference the artist’s perception of society’s indifference at the suffering of others.
Due to political pressures, mainly from House of Representatives members John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Eric Cantor (R-VA.), Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough removed the video from Hide/Seek on November 30, 2010.

Censorship of artists is an ongoing issue, major instances of which resurface every decade or so. While not limited to these instances, the key players in this current act of censorship have been linked to similar debates in the past.

This isn’t the first time the Catholic League, and specifically its president William Donohue, has promoted censorship of contemporary art. In 1999, the group protested the Brooklyn Museum of Art’s exhibition Sensation and urged for the withdrawal of public funding for the museum. Then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani threatened to withdraw funding, but the Brooklyn Museum of Art resisted, and continued the exhibition with all of the originally planned artworks on the basis of the First Amendment right of free speech. The litigation of the Brooklyn Museum of Art by the city of New York lasted six months, but was eventually dropped, and the museum continued to receive public funding.

In 1989, Wojnarowicz was subject to criticisms for an essay he authored for the catalogue of the AIDS exhibition Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing, in which he criticized politicians for their lack of action in response to the AIDS epidemic. The National Endowment for the Arts, under the leadership of John Frohnmayer, demanded that the organizing gallery return the NEA’s funding of the exhibition due to Wojnarowicz’s charged essay. After an intense public outcry, Frohmayer withdrew his demands, and the catalogue continued to be funded by the NEA. Hear Wojnarowicz discuss the controversy.

Additionally, Wojnarowicz’s exhibition Tongues of Flame was subject to criticism by the American Family Association in 1990. Organized by Illinois State University Art Galleries, this exhibition explored the subjects of AIDS and homosexuality. The Association cropped images of Wojnarowicz’s, rendering much of the content out of context, and distributed these altered images in a mailing list to every member of Congress and 3200 church leaders. Wojnarowicz reacted by filing and wining legal actions against the group, which had to correct the initial mailing with follow up letters. Similar to A Fire in My Belly, Wojnarowicz’s work was misrepresented by those opposed to it by the singling out of specific imagery within a larger work of art.

Obviously, these are just a few of many examples of attempted censorship related to politics, funding, and religious ideologies.

Wojnarowicz’s passed away from AIDS related causes in 1992. In his spirit of activism, the New York-based gallery P.P.O.W. is organizing a nationwide protest in response to the removal of his work. P.P.O.W. encourages everyone to print a copy of Wojnaorwicz Untitled (One Day This Kid…) (1990), a self-portrait by Wojnarowicz that describes the homophobic struggles he faced throughout his life, and post it in a public place. The poster of Untitled (One Day This Kid…) is currently on display by the IMA’s front desk as a gesture of the belief that museums are places for the exchange of ideas, the promotion of dialogue, and the representation of all aspects of our culture, free from censorship.

To find out more about the posting of Untitled (One Day This Kid…) in public spaces, visit P.P.O.W.

The Pharmacy prescribes the following links to combat Monday online anemia.

Blog: My Parents Were Awesome

New inspired crowd-sourcing blog, ‘My Parents Were Awesome‘, collects evidence that, “before the fanny packs and Andrea Bocelli concerts, your parents (and grandparents) were once free-wheeling, fashion-forward, and super awesome.”

(via buzzfeed)

ArtBabble Video: Orly Genger: In The Factory

IMA Work of Art:

Dog Stealing Fish by Ando Hiroshige

Tweet:

iheartSAM: Construction to fix hammering man begins this week. Read @seattletimes coverage on him at http://bit.ly/4lScXc http://bit.ly/2RGYbi

So on this Easter weekend, I want to share with you three “good eggs” I’ve come across all relating to the world of museums.

The first good egg is an online exhibition by the National Portrait Gallery. One Life: KATE, A Centennial Celebration is dedicated to actress Katharine Hepburn. The Web feature traces her life from her beginnings in 1907, through early Hollywood and stardom, to her later career with loads of brilliant photographs, illustrations and movie posters. The exhibition also features Hepburn’s four Oscar statues — the most won by anyone for best actress and video clips of her films, interviews and television roles. I plan to make my way back to the Old Patient Office Building, which houses the museum, before the exhibition closes on September 28. And I’m definitely having dinner at proof across the street. The restaurant features LCD screens of rotating images from the Portrait Gallery’s collection. Also, check out the book I am reading: Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn by William J. Mann, a candid look behind the myth she created.

My next good egg is paired with part three of Sunday night’s HBO miniseries John Adams, based on a book by historian David McCullough. Organized by The Massachusetts Historical Society, the exhibits John Adams: A Life in Letters and My Dearest Friend are an indulgence for history buffs. Both focus on the personal correspondence between Adams and his beloved wife Abigail through a sampling of their more than 1,100 surviving letters. You can even explore the connection between each miniseries episode and real correspondence online. If you’re like me, and also eager to read handwritten notes in the margins of more than 3,800 books in Adams’ personal collection, you can check out John Adams: Unbound, organized by the John Adams Library at the Boston Public Library.

The final good egg is double-coated with Dance Kaleidoscope’s performance The French Connection at the Indianapolis Repertory Theater. (Which from the front row was passionate and praise-worthy.) One of the pieces called Au Moulin Rouge: La Goulue (1996) examines the life of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, famous for the series of posters he made for the Moulin Rought nightclub in Paris in the 1890′s. An exhibition at the IMA called Paris Posters: The Art of the Streets includes 20 eye-catching posters by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and others. Both dance and exhibition tell the tale of the same painter and printmaker and the bohemian lifestyle of Paris in the late 1800′s. If you missed the ballet, you can still see Paris Posters through August 24 .

Now grab a Everlasting Gobstopper and get to egg-hunting.