You don't gotta have art

The video that drew the complaints, created by the late artist David Wojnarowicz, includes a brief segment showing ants crawling over a reproduction of Christ on the cross. Photo Credit: David Wojnarowicz/national Portrait Gallery Photo

I have written a number of times before about the conflict between national hagiography and critical reflection in national cultural policy as it relates specifically to the museums located in Washington, DC.

For the most part, but not exclusively, these controversies involve the Smithsonian Museums--the "nation's museums" which get 70% of their funding from the U.S. Government.

These museums, along with the U.S. Capitol, the White House, and the Washington Monument, are the primary destinations for tourists visiting Washington, DC.

Including the recent event discussed in the Post ("Ant-covered Jesus video removed from Smithsonian after Catholic League complains," "National Portrait Gallery bows to censors, withdraws Wojnarowicz video on gay love," "Transformer Gallery shows Wojnarowicz video banned by National Portrait Gallery," "Reaction to National Portrait Gallery's ants-and-crucifix controversy" + Art controversies timeline") where the Catholic League successfully got one piece removed from the exhibit, Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery, there are four specific instances that come to mind.

The other three are:

- Robert Mapplethorpe photographs at the Corcoran ("Corcoran, to Foil Dispute, Drops Mapplethorpe Show" from the New York Times)

- a somewhat critical exhibit label on the Enola Gay airplane at the National Museum of Air and Space which was opposed by WWII veterans groups (see "The Enola Gay Controversy" website from Lehigh University)

- a culturally-specific narrative paradigm at the National Museum of the American Indian (see "A Museum of the Indian, Not for the Indian" from The American Indian Quarterly)

Plus, you could argue Marc Fisher's criticism that the National Museum of American History's "renovation" didn't do much in the way of change and challenge is also relevant to the discussion. See "German-American Heritage Museum promotes culture, doesn't tell whole story."

Fisher's piece criticizes what he calls the balkanization of history and culture, without taking responsibility for his role in diminishing the ability to engage in critical thought processes concerning the presentation of history.

These examples show how difficult it is to question, to be controversial, to challenge authority, especially in Washington, DC, especially when someone, somehow, can get to a legislator, and threaten access to federal funds.

There is a letter to the editor in yesterday's Post by William Hudnut, the former mayor of Indianapolis, about "American exceptionalism" that is apt with regard to this issue:

While in many respects America is exceptional, and there's no place most Americans would rather live, it might be well for those who are touting this message of American exceptionalism in unqualified language to be reminded of the Republican Party's founder and patron saint, Abraham Lincoln, who as president-elect, in a speech to the New Jersey Senate in Trenton on Feb. 21, 1861, spoke of America as God's "almost chosen people." The qualification "almost" is significant; it supplies a cautionary note about making an absolute statement that could fuel the fires of jingoism and messianism.

Hudnut's letter jibes with a point made in Blake Gopnik's piece today:

And that brings us to a big problem faced by almost anyone who cares deeply about art today: Many Americans think of art as being only about beauty and pleasant experiences of pretty things. Whereas those who spend a big chunk of their lives with it - artists, of course, but also critics, curators, scholars, collectors and plain devotees - tend to think that art can be much more than that. It can raise tough questions, and puzzle us, and challenge our ideas about what both art and life can be.

If this tougher view of art is even partly right, it is inevitable that some of the art that ends up in our museums, as curators hunt for what might turn out to be good in the end, will upset or provoke some, even many, of its viewers. Does that mean that no taxpayer money should go to any museum? I believe that, instead, it means that all of us need to take a deep breath when we feel put upon by art we dislike. For the good of all of us, all of us might sometimes need to bear with the occasional offense.

For what it's worth, in 2004 I attended the National Trust for Historic Preservation Conference in Louisville, Kentucky. The first couple nights I stayed in the Clifton neighborhood and I stumbled upon a temporary art/performance art exhibition in a rentable formerly industrial building of some sort.

One of the pieces was a video, in a light box, shown through a kind of pewter cut out in the shape of cross, showing men engaged in fellatio.

Right then, I said to myself, "wow, this shows how constrained it is with regard to the kinds of art that can be presented in DC."

Surely the major presenting institutions (National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Portrait Gallery, which are public, and the Corcoran and the Phillips Collection, which are private) lack the kind of latitude that a gallery or pop up exhibition (think something like Artomatic, which isn't all that challenging either) can have.

Of course, the controversy over the Mapplethorpe photos, which almost destroyed the Corcoran, has already demonstrated this fact.

Gopnik's piece from yesterday is very important. He makes two key points:

1. That particular religious orders aren't supposed to be able to dictate how the rest of us think or what we can see; that fundamentally, the Catholic Church's criticism of this piece and the Smithsonian's response is no different from an Imam's fatwa.

2. That the criticism, fundamentally, is about homosexuality, and any object of the church being associated with this, even as Jesus has been used for centuries in art as a symbol of suffering. He writes:

The attack is on gayness, and images of it, more than on sacrilege - even though, last I checked, many states are sanctioning gay love in marriage, and none continue to ban homosexuality.

Video showing the piece by David Wojnarowicz containing ants crawling on a cross -- part of the sexuality-themed exhibit "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture".