art censorship slideshow

8/10/2019 Art Censorship Slideshow

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A (very) Brief Survey ofProvocative and Censored Art

By Marjorie Heins Free Expression Policy Project

www.fepproject.org

©2008 – Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivatives License

Contact [email protected] for further information about using this slide show



Pompeii Tile Mosaic, Pan & Hamadryad La Camera Segretta (the secret room), Naples Archeological Museum



Pompeii Wall Mural of Mercury/Priapus

La Camera Segretta (the secret room), Naples Archeological Museum

Hermes (Mercury) is portrayed as a bearded godwith enlarged phallus, winged sandals and

caduceus wand.



Michelangelo, David (1504)Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence

Michelangelo depicts David beforethe battle with Goliath. ForMichelangelo’s city-state of Florence,surrounded by enemies at the time,the statue was a political symbol of

fortezza and ira , strength and anger.



Titian, “Venus of Urbino” (1538) Uffizi, Florence

Mark Twain called the “Venus of Urbino” “purely the Goddess of the Beastly (Bestial… the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses.”



Francisco de Goya, “La Maja Desnuda”(1798-1800)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

In 1959, the U.S. Post Office banned the mailing of a reproduction of “LaMaja Desnuda” that was being used to promote a movie about Goya’s life.



Édouard Manet, “Olympia” (1863) Musé e d’Orsay, Paris

Manet painted “Olympia” the same year as “Déjeuner sur l’Herbe,” a picnic scene with a naked female andtwo fully clothed males. “Déjeuner” was rejected by the Paris Salon, the prestigious annual art exhibit, andManet waited two years before submitting “Olympia.” “Olympia” was accepted for exhibition, but it caused

a furor, and was bitterly attacked by critics.



Gustave Courbet, “L’Origine du Monde”(1866)

Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Sex objectification or protest against prudery?

Commissioned by a Turkish diplomat, the painting was later found in Budapestafter the financial failure of the collector, and was eventually acquired by thepsychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. It came to the Musée d’Orsay in 1995.



Jasper Johns, “Flag” (1954-55)Museum of Modern Art, New York

“Johns’s rendering of the American flag “startled an art world that was still largely preoccupiedwith abstraction. … Alfred Barr of the Museum of Modern Art wanted to purchase the work butworried that it might be seen as unpatriotic by his board, so he arranged for someone else to

buy it and later donate it to the museum.” The Warhol: Lessons and Resources,

http://edu.warhol.org/app_johns.html



Kate Millett, “The American DreamGoes to Pot” (1970)

Originally exhibited at “People’s Flag Show,” Judson

Memorial Church, New York, 1970

Organized in response to the arrest of an art dealer in 1966 for exhibiting anti-Vietnam Warsculptures made from American flags, and the arrest of Abbie Hoffman in 1968 for wearing ashirt made from an American flag at a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee,the “People’s Flag Show” included works by more than 200 artists, including Millett.



“Dread” Scott Tyler, What Is the ProperWay to Display a U.S. Flag?

Installation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,1988; later included in the traveling exhibition, “Old Glory:

The American Flag in Contemporary Art.”

Viewers do not have to step on the flagin order to see the book and images onthe wall, but it is the easiest way to doso. Within a week of the exhibition’sopening at the School of the ArtInstitute, veterans organizations filedsuit (unsuccessfully) to close down theshow. Bomb threats and physicalthreats to students, faculty, staffcontinued. State funding for the Schoolof The Art Institute was cut from$70,000 to $1.



David Nelson, Mirth and Girth (1988)

This student painting depictingrecently deceased Chicago MayorHarold Washington was displayed inMay 1988 as part of the School of the

Art Institute of Chicago’s studentcompetition. Three city aldermen,outraged, went to the Art Institute,took the painting off the wall, andattempted to remove it from campus.They were stopped by a schoolofficial, and ultimately the police tookcustody of the painting. In the lawsuitthat followed, the U.S. Court of

Appeals ruled that the aldermen’saction violated the First Amendment.



Judy Chicago, Primordial Goddess, from“The Dinner Party” (1974-79)

(mixed media installation, Brooklyn Museum of Art)

“The Dinner Party” is a massivetriangular table with 39 placesettings, each honoring an importantwoman from myth or history with

designs based on vulvar and butterflyforms; another 999 women’s namesare inscribed in gold on the floorbelow the table. The work wasconstructed by a team of women, andfor years had no permanent home.Some critics thought the workpedagogical and reductive, but it is“an important icon of 1970s feministart,” according to the BrooklynMuseum, which eventually acquired itand in 2007 put it on permanentdisplay.



Andres Serrano, “Piss Christ” (1987)(photograph)

It was the title of this luminousphotograph that caused an uproar in1989 after it was discovered that aNorth Carolina museum had included

it in an exhibition supported in part bythe National Endowment for the Arts.(Serrano also received $15,000.)Senator Jesse Helms fulminated onthe Senate floor: Serrano “is a jerk,but let him be a jerk on his own timeand with his own resources. Do not

dishonor our Lord. I resent it and Ithink the vast majority of the

American people do.” Attacks on theNEA and threats to its existencecontinued for the next decade.



Robert Mapplethorpe, “Joe” (1978) (photograph from the X Portfolio)

R b M l h “S lfP i ”



Robert Mapplethorpe, “Self -Portrait”(1978)

(photograph from the X Portfolio) The X Portfolioformed the basisfor an obscenityprosecutionagainst theCincinnatiContemporary ArtCenter, whichhosted “ThePerfect Moment,”

in 1990. TheCenter and itsdirector, DennisBarrie, wereacquitted at trial.



Karen Finley in Performance (1990)

Finley was the most prominent of fourperformance artists who sued the NationalEndowment for the Arts in 1990 aftersensational publicity and pressure fromCongress led the NEA to veto theirrecommended fellowships. Finley becameknown as the “chocolate -smeared woman”because of a performance in which shesmeared chocolate over her nude body tosymbolize society’s abuse of women.

Although the four artists – Finley, HollyHughes, Tim Miller, and John Fleck – received their grants after a federal trial

court ruled in their favor, their lawsuitcontinued as a challenge to a federal lawthat required the NEA to consider “generalstandards of decency and respect for thediverse beliefs and values of the Americanpublic” in awarding grants. Ultimately, theSupreme Court upheld the law.



Dayton Claudio, “Sex, Laws, andCoathangers” (1992)

Claudio applied for and received a permit toexhibit a painting in the lobby of a federalbuilding in Raleigh, North Carolina as partof the Public Buildings Cooperative Useprogram, which encourages art in publicspaces. Once they saw the work,administrators revoked Claudio’s permitand forced him to remove the painting,saying that it was “controversial,” “political,”and likely to offend North Carolina Senator

Jesse Helms. Claudio sued, but the U.S.district court ruled that despite thepurposes of the Cooperative Use program(to encourage art in public buildings), thegovernment could prohibit the display ofsuch a “gory and graphic” painting.



Jerry Boyle, “Holier Than Thou” (2003)(sculpture)

Each year, Washburn University in Topeka,Kansas sponsors an outdoor sculpturecontest; once selected, the winning entriesare displayed around campus for severalmonths. One of the five winning entries in2003 was Jerry Boyle’s “Holier Than Thou,”showing the upper body of a clergyman thatcritics claimed was grotesque. A professorand a student filed suit in federal courtdemanding the removal of the statue on theground that it conveyed an impermissiblestate-sponsored message of disapproval of

the Catholic religion. The Court of Appealsdisagreed, concluding that, viewed in contextwith the other sculptures on campus, “anyreasonable observer ... would understand theuniversity had not endorsed that message.”



Chris Ofili, “Holy Virgin Mary” (1996)

Ofili uses dried elephantdung, a sacramental elementin African rituals, in hisartworks. New York mayor

Rudolph Giuliani considered“Holy Virgin Mary”

blasphemous and froze cityfunds to the BrooklynMuseum in 1999 after it

refused his demands toremove the work. A federalcourt ruled that the mayor’sactions were unconstitutional.



Tom Forsythe, “Malted Barbie” (1999) (photograph from the “Food Chain Barbie” series)

Forsythe was sued by Mattel, makerof the Barbie doll, for copyright andtrademark infringement, after hecreated a series of satirical andsocially critical images. Ultimately, hewon the case, and Mattel wasordered to pay attorneys’ fees toForsythe’s pro bono lawyers. Thecourt ruled that Forsythe’s use of theBarbie doll constituted “fair use”

under both copyright and trademarklaw: “The benefits to the public inallowing such use – allowing artisticfreedom and … criticism of a culturalicon – are great.”



Tom Forsythe, “Every Barbie For Herself”(1997)

(photograph from the “Food Chain Barbie” series)

One of the images inthe “Food Chain

Barbie” series whichwas the subject of anunsuccessful copyrightand trademark suit byMattel. The court ruledthat Forsythe’s artisticcommentary on theBarbie doll was notcopyright infringement

but fair use.



Adbusters, “Joe Chemo” (1996)

Joe Chemo wasinvented by

psychology professor

Scott Plous after hisfather nearly diedfrom smoking. Theimage first appeared in

Adbusters magazine in1996.

ll d l d l



Wally Wood, “Disneyland MemorialOrgy” (1967)

Copyright infringement or fair use?

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Kieron Dwyer, “Consumer Whore”(1999)

Starbucks sued artist Kieron Dwyer for using this image oncomic books, t-shirts, and stickers.



Ashley Holt, “Notmickey” (2002)

Mickey says “Don’t sue,” and Disney didn’t.



Is it censorship?

Only two pictures of bluessinger Robert Johnson exist. Inone of them a cigarette danglesfrom his lips. When, in 1994,the post office used that phototo create a stamp honoring him,they carefully removed theoffensive cigarette. A few yearslater they did the same thingwith a Jackson Pollock photoused for a stamp.

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