It has taken me an entire week to write about David Wojnarowicz's video being yanked from the Hide/Seek exhibition because, frankly, all previous attempts turned into Op-Ed diatribes of the first water. Will the attempted marginalizing of Wojnarowicz--as both a human being and an artist--never end? I'll try not to go "there" and would like, instead, to factually address some of the more ignorant (and hateful) comments it's been my great misfortune to read online.
"He was a talentless wannabe."
Fact: Wrong. David Wojnarowicz's body of work is definitely not everyone's respective cup of tea, but he was talented and was not a wannabe. His art is highly respected and has been widely shown. He was also given a retrospective exhibition at the New Museum (of Contemporary Art; located in New York City) in 1999. "Wannabe" artists are not viable retrospective candidates, particularly if the retrospective is posthumous.
"This video was an attack on Christianity."
Fact: Wrong again. First of all, we are talking about an eleven second scene in a four minute video, which itself was excerpted from the original 13 minute piece. In said eleven seconds, ants randomly walk across a small wall crucifix that has been laid on a flat surface. There are no ants or crucifixes present in the other 229 seconds of A Fire in My Belly, A Work in Progress.
Now, of course, there are legions of people for whom even one second of ants-on-a-crucifix video would be too much. One of them was Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League ("For Religious and Civil Rights") who, in this statement, accused David Wojnarowicz of hate speech. I would humbly request that he and others would make some attempt to put things in context.
Wojnarowicz was raised Roman Catholic and went to parochial schools as a child. Ants, signifying we puny humans, are a running theme in his work. The crucifix is present to symbolize not only suffering and death, but suffering and death as a vilified man with only a smattering of loyal supporters--a fate that Jesus Christ knew all too well. In no way was this "hate speech;" it was a grim, eleven second acknowledgment that some human deaths are neither just nor swift.
"He should do a video about Mohamed."
Fact: And you should learn how to exercise critical thinking skills and read. To the former, you've made a false equivalency. To the latter, every article I've read either refers to the "late" artist (hint: this means he's dead) or specifically states that he died nearly 20 years ago (hint: this also means he's dead).
"He was gay."
Fact: True, and he never tried to hide either his orientation or his past history. Here, I can only add, "And ... ?"
For those not following, the whole point of A Fire in My Belly is that it was a response to (1) the AIDS-related death of Wojnarowicz's mentor, Peter Hujar and (2) Wojnarowicz's own grappling with the knowledge that the same disease would kill him, too. Keep the date in mind. I can't be the only person on earth who recalls the incredibly misinformed, unsympathetic manner with which AIDS patients were treated by the general public back then. Most people were of the non-scientific opinion that AIDS was not a virus but, rather, some kind of divine judgment passed on gay men. I would also like to tell you that the US government moved swiftly to find cures and spread tolerance, but that would be a lie. This was the cultural climate in which A Fire in My Belly was created, and I am sad beyond words to see that some beliefs continue to persist.
"My tax dollars paid for this crappy show."
Fact: Wrong. Hide/Seek was funded by two Foundations, two major donors, and a large number of the National Portrait Gallery's supporters--all of whom are private individuals. The Smithsonian Institution receives Federal funds to partially cover operating expenses at its 19 museums and the National Zoo, but it does not receive tax dollars to mount exhibitions x, y or z. (P.S. I, too, fund a whole lot of things, with my tax dollars, that I'd deem "crappy." The arts isn't among them but, hey, to each his or her own.)
That last bit, the part about Our Tax Dollars at Work, is what totally threw me over the edge. US Representatives John Boehner (R-OH) and Eric Cantor (R-VA) immediately demanded that the Hide part of the entire exhibition needed to go into effect based on the last paragraph of Bill Donahue's statement:
"It does not matter that private sources funded this exhibition: the majority of the money afforded the Smithsonian Institution comes from the taxpayers. Accordingly, I am writing today to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees asking them to reconsider future funding."And, just in case anyone who was connected to Hide/Seek at the National Portrait Gallery didn't think these guys were serious, a spokesman later clarified that Mr. Boehner wanted the exhibition "canceled," while Mr. Cantor declared that it was ""an outrageous use of taxpayer money." After that, it was all aboard the Damnation Express and watch out: the 112th United States Congress will see a new sheriff in town, and he don't take too kindly to none of that smart-alecky arts stuff. Funding for the Smithsonian complex? Overdue for a long, hard review by those soon-to-be-in-charge, we heard.
The result was that, while the whole show didn't get canceled, A Fire in My Belly disappeared at a speed that may have broken the sound barrier. No one even consulted the curator, the video was just gone, baby, gone. In other words, the threats made by our duly-elected art critics proved effective. Now, I learned a long time ago that if one allows him- or herself to be bullied, the bully will keep coming back to mete out further torment. So I have to wonder: who's next? Will they demand that all art ever created by GLBT artists be pulled from public view or ________(insert museum here) can expect to have its funding cut? That's going to leave some mighty huge gaps in coverage--not least of which involves the Italian Renaissance.
There is, of course, an upside to this controversy. David Wojnarowicz's art has been thrust into higher visibility and we're talking about his work as an AIDS activist. He was justifiably proud of the latter, and would probably have been the first person to snort over the irony built into the 2010 discussion. It has come out that both Representatives Boehner and Cantor have scores of zero percent on civil rights issues, per voting records tracked by the Human Rights Campaign. And though the NPG took it down, a number of other venues have taken up the A Fire in My Belly gauntlet. A seven minute excerpt of the original is looping in the lobby of the New Museum as this post is being written, and will remain on view there through January 23, 2011. The Association of Art Museum Directors was less than pleased with the decision, and issued a rare rebuke to the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery. One member of the NPG's advisory board resigned in protest of the decision, and the blogosphere has positively been on fire over the whole matter.
Most importantly, people--ordinary people like me--are speaking out against censorship and in support of our GLBT brothers and sisters. Dependent on website, comments lean more towards banning the government from making curatorial decisions and less towards gratitude that we're being "protected" from ... what? Evil? Degenerate Art, 2010-style? Someone please clue me in as to where the real danger lies in wait, would you? While we're at it, please feel free to leave your opinions about this issue in the comments below.
David Wojnarowicz (American, 1954-1992)
A Fire In My Belly (A Work In Progress), 1986-87
16mm and DVD Color and B&W
Silent
TRT: 00:13:06
Courtesy of The Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W Gallery, New York
Comments
Thank you for posting this. I also have been following the myriad posts and articles for the past weeks, with a mixture of disbelief and shock. I suppose, working in the art world, I live in a bit of a bubble where even if people don’t like a work they are willing to stop for the moment it takes to understand something. What is most telling is the responses in comments. While there are many that are supportive there are so many more people who have taken this as an opportunity to spew vitriol about so many things they hate. Art, contemporary art, homosexuality, religion (that one usually from the supporters of the work, actually)… it has rapidly popped that bubble of mine.
I think that you are right, it is an example of letting oneself be bullied. I’ve read that not a single complaint was lodged by visitors to the actual show. So why bow down to this one?
If we cannot stop bullying people as adults (I would put ‘reasonable’ here, but that’s too much to expect), how do we expect to stop children doing it to others, to gay, straight, white, black, whoever?
I thought about this with political ads back in November–those ads against one’s opponent are as much bullying as posting hate on someone’s Facebook wall, just in a legitimized format. There’s another example that shows kids that this is how you treat people, even though we might say otherwise.
Shelley/Beth,
I agree with every word, and would take your essay as a premise for a conclusion with which you you may well disagree. I see this as good reason for arguing against government funding of the arts. This episode is reminiscent of the Robert Mapplethorpe and Andre Serrano controversies of twenty
years ago. In the case of Serrano, the similarity is so close that comments pro and con could be lifted from newspapers and broadcasts of 1989 and applied here with no apparent disconnect. Serrano, I recall was defended by a Roman Catholic nun, Sister Wendy Beckett, an art critic who attained some popularity due to a BBC series on art history.
Well, plus ça change.
That’s an interesting idea about not having government funding for the arts – think of the freedom of expression when you don’t have pandering politicians decrying anything that might be outrageous. The problem is, where is the patronage? Or even if the wealthy are commissioning works of art, who will support the museums and other public institutions that share that work with us ordinary people?
Shelley — Thank you many times over for refuting the ignorant claims of the right-wingers who would silence artists and anyone else who sees life differently than themselves. I appreciate your point-by-point defense of this artist.
I don’t know the Catholic League, but I do know many Roman Catholics who are devout yet tolerant. They have their own criticisms of some church mandates and openly disagree with the church heirarchy’s position on homosexuality as a sin.