Mary Clare

We’ve all heard of Leigh Bowery

Or at least, we all should hear of Leigh Bowery at some point of our existence.

Nevertheless, this is a rare song of his band Minty that seems to be only available on vinyl.

Click on the link and enjoy the sound of Scato/Disco music

http://hypem.com/#!/item/t9dq/Minty+-+PlasticBag

Jenny Saville

Wojnarowicz, We Still Talk About Yer!

In the midst of waking up this morning I was browsing through my Facebook Newsfeed, in search of the freshest things to see, hear and take part in. I was still very drowsy and for some reasons seriously craving an orange juice; it was no surprise for me to have to settle for a glass of water. As I reached the sofa to finish off the awakening process I carried on with my Facebook quest. Then, I came across a post about The New York Times reviewing Tate’s last week’s David Wornajowicz film event. 

“What’s the fuss now?”, I wondered. Well it seems that the Fire In My Belly saga is far from being over. It all started in November of last year, soon after the opening of the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. It turned out that some members of the US Congress and the Catholic League, presided by the ever anoying Bill Donahue, did not like Wojnarowicz’s piece, especially the scene where ants are crowling over a crusifix. As a result of the dispute the Secretary of the Smithsonian, G. Wayne Clough, simply decided to pull the work out of the show.

 Throughout numerous articles available on the internet, one can observe what the outcome of the decision was as well as the proprtions it took, starting with the debate about freedom of speech and equality.  The artist AA Branson (i.e.super alpha bear, but he seems to be taken) went so far as to request his own piece Felix, June 5, 1994 to be aslo removed from the exhibition as a protest. I do not believe that focusing on such topics as freedom of speech is the most interesting in this issue. Hide/Seek is a chronological survey of queer artists representing their queer world, inevitably making it a queer exhibition. So why censor one specific piece by a dead artist while the show is merely composed of similar works by artists who probably have the same views as Wojnarovicz? Why not take any of the living artists in order to establish an actual dialogue?

Soon after the re-editing of the show, the nearby PPOW gallery who represents the artist began to screen his video. The SFMOMA followed the PPOW in disagreement and now it was Tate’s turn. It would be easy to blame an institution such as the Smithsonian for being too conservative because of its close link with members of the government, which in turn one could accuse of having ties way too tight with the Catholic Church. Yet, censorship in the arts is not a novelty, on any sides of the Atlantic, that is. For instance, the removal of Spiritual America by Richard Prince from Pop Life held at Tate Modern in 2010 is just a drop in a sea of censorship, puritanism, mass hysteria and public paranoia.  

The headline of the article about the Tate’s position on Wojnarowicz work praised Britain for having a separation between the arts and the state. Besides specific works being scrapped off exhibition working lists’ because of local opinions, such a statement seems to just as narowminded as censoship itself. One can in no way suggests that museums are independent from the state because if they were, the gap between museum and viewers would be just as wide.  

Understanding the true reasons behind such arbitrary censorship is nearly impossoble to grasp since it is profoundly illogical, and the National Portrait Gallery appears to be very open about it, judging by the Visitors Comment video available on its website. What is much easier to understand is who were the people who began to show the Wojnarowicz’s work and why they did so. In my opinion art will never be free from govenmental pressure because it simply costs too much. Neither will art ever be free from viewers’ judgement… But isn’t art exactly about that very judgement? The museum is not necessarily the ally of artists because it accepts to exhibit some of them; rather it is a space for critical thinking and such censorship as in the case of Fire In My Belly is actually necessary in order to animate that criticism and show where the government, the museum and the arts stand.

 And a note of optimism, there will always be someone kind enough to show those bloody ants crowling over that dusty cross.

National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC:

www.npg.si.edu

PPOW Gallery, Washington DC:

www.ppowgallery.com

In Britain, Separation of Art and State, New York Time, 25/01/11:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/arts/design/26abroad.html

Tate, London:

www.tate.org.uk

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