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A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

Smith museum supports artist’s controversial film

Over the past few months, a film by artist David Wojnarowicz at the National Portrait Gallery has caused controversy over its presence in an exhibit. The film, titled “A Fire in My Belly” was installed in the “Hide/Seek: Difference in American Portraiture” exhibit in October, and was meant to run with the exhibit until mid-February. 

Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons

However, the four-minute film was pulled from the exhibit on November 30. The film drew criticism from the Catholic League and current Speaker of the House John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for including what they saw as anti-Christian imagery. Boehner and Cantor threatened to cut the Smithsonian’s budget unless the museum removed the film from the exhibit.

The Catholic League, who brought the issue of the film to the attention of those in the House and Senate, found particular offense with an 11-second clip during the 4-minute film installed in the museum. The clip showed ants crawling over a crucifix, a religious symbol used in the Christian church as a visual reminder of Jesus’ sacrifice and death.

 “We felt that this image of a crucifix covered in ants was a direct and public attack on Christians,” said Jeff Field, director of communications at the Catholic League.

Acting on this disagreement with the exhibit, the Catholic League wrote to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, asking for reconsideration of funds for the museum based on the inclusion of this exhibit. Boehner and Cantor, neither of whom sat on the House committee, caught wind of the controversy. 

Commenting publicly on the Ohio Republican’s distaste for the exhibit, Boehner’s spokesperson acknowledged that he wanted the entire exhibit to be
“canceled.”  Cantor claimed it was “an outrageous use of taxpayer money.” On Nov. 30, the date the artwork was pulled from the museum, both politicians threatened the museum’s funding following review in the next budget cycle. 

However, various private donors privately funded the Hide/Seek exhibit, as with most exhibits in the National Portrait, with federal funding paying instead for operational costs. The museum’s website describes the exhibit as exploring “…such themes as the role of sexual difference in depicting modern America; how major themes in modern art – especially abstraction – were influenced by social marginalization; and how art reflected society’s evolving and changing attitudes toward sexuality, desire, and romantic attachment.”

Opposition to the removal of Wojnarowicz’s film from the exhibit sparked immediate controversy, especially in the art world, with the Association of Art Museum Directors labeling it an act of censorship. 

The Smith College Museum of Art installed another piece of Wojnarowicz’s, “Untitled (One Day this Kid),” to “serve as a reminder of our society’s obligation to confront the injustices of the past and to ensure that the discourse of the future is unfettered by inappropriate political pressure.”

             The artist, who passed away in 1992 due to an AIDS-related illness after being diagnosed in the late 1980s, was no stranger to controversy, explains Jessica Nicoll, director of Smith’s art museum. 

            “Wojnarowicz was at the center of a series of controversies and public debates in the 1980s and 90s now remembered as ‘the culture wars,’ about what is appropriate for museums to display, particularly when federal funding is a source of support,” she said.  “As much as any controversial content in the contested video, I suspect that this past history informed recent events.”   

Wojnarowicz was included in the exhibit as his art addresses the suffering of an AIDS victim, which disproportionately affected homosexual men at the time but was an issue that was often ignored in public policy debates. Wojnarowicz’s biographers, Dan Cameron and Dennis Szakacs, explain he was “…the product of an extremely difficult childhood brought on by an abusive family life and an emerging sense of his own homosexuality, [he] dropped out of high school and was living on the streets by the age of 16.” 

However, Wojnarowicz was an extremely prolific artist, and wrote five books in his lifetime.  He also took on issues such as “medical research and funding, morality and censorship in the arts, and the legal rights of artists”. 

The Museum of Modern Art in New York recently acquired another of his works, “Fire in My Belly,” where it is currently being displayed with other works made during the AIDS crisis.

Sara Jackson can be reached at [email protected].

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    Nathaniel SiegelJan 24, 2011 at 11:18 pm

    Thank you to Smith College Museum of Art for displaying Untitled (One Day This Kid) by artist David Wojnarowicz.

    To be clear, the Secretary of The Smithsonian censored the film “A Fire in My Belly” on November 30, 2010 by removing the film from an exhibit at The National Portrait Gallery.

    How quickly the artwork was censored and whether the act of censorship was the result of an informed or uninformed decision on the part of the Secretary does not concern me.

    If the Secretary can’t protect one work of art, how can he be expected to protect 136.9 million objects, 1.5 million library volumes, and 80, 300 cubic feet of archival photographs and other documents, from the opinion’s of a few selected members of Congress ?

    Will the Secretary be able to protect the research findings of Smithsonian scientists whose work may run contrary to religious beliefs ?

    Or will the findings of scientists also be subject to removal (read as “censorship”) from the collections ?

    Political censorship occurs when governments hold back information from their citizens. This is often done to exert control over the populace and prevent free expression that might foment rebellion.

    Religious censorship is the means by which any material considered objectionable by a certain faith is removed. This often involves a dominant religion forcing limitations on less prevalent ones. Alternatively, one religion may shun the works of another when they believe the content is not appropriate for their faith.

    The Smithsonian does have objects in it’s collections that are controversial. Here’s one simple way the Museum handles describing a sensitive object:

    Hector Bazy Papers 1910
    Accession No. : 2007.7055 [2007.7055.14.jpg]
    Repository: Smithsonian Institution, Anacostia Museum Archives
    Disclaimer: Some language in this manuscript may be offensive to some viewers. It is presented as it exists in the original document for the benefit of research. This material in no way reflects the views of the Anacostia Community Museum Archives or the Smithsonian Institution. For rights and reproduction information, call 202-633-4820 or [email protected]

    The Board of Regents has enlisted David Gergen to advise “The Smithsonian: David Gergen advising Smithsonian regents”
    January 20, 2011 | 3:17 pm
    Here’s the link:
    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/01/david-gergen-advising-smithsonian-regents.html

    I would like to share my response to The David Gergen article and a recent public relations article on The Secretary “First Person Singular: Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough” Interview by KK Ottesen Sunday, January 23, 2011 with The Massachusetts Daily Collegian.
    Here’s the link to the article:
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/14/AR2011011405346.html

    Here’s my response:

    The Secretary of the Smithsonian is free to share his beliefs, experiences and upbringing on the website of The Smithsonian, at public forums, and even in today’s Washington Post: “First Person Singular: Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough”
    Sunday, January 23, 201, here’s the link:
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2011/01/14/AR2011011405346.html , interview by KK Ottesen.

    The Secretary grew up in a very rural area: Douglas, Georgia: Population 10,639.
    (United States 2000 Census)
    The artist David Wojnarowicz grew up in a very rural area: Red Bank, New Jersey:
    Population 11,844. (United States 2000 Census)

    The Secretary became dean of the Virginia Tech College of Engineering in 1990.
    David created a beautiful and moving work of art in 1990: “One Day This Kid”
    here’s the link: http://www.ppowgallery.com/onedaythiskid/

    The Secretary was named 12th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
    on March 15, 2008.
    David enjoyed going to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City,
    he would gaze at the nature diorama’s which inspired him, here’s the link:
    http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/dioramas/

    The Secretary describes traveling to Africa in 2009, Day 1: Seeing Kenya From The Sky.
    “Despite many travel delays, Smithsonian Secretary Clough arrives in Kenya ready to study the African wildlife at the Mpala Ranch” By G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian.com, June 16, 2009
    Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/Day-1-Seeing-Kenya-from-the-Sky.html#ixzz1BqlhPYHq

    An estimated 22.5 million people were living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa at the end of 2009, including 2.3 million children.
    During 2009, an estimated 1.3 million Africans died from AIDS. Almost 90% of the 16.6 million children orphaned by AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa.

    Country: Kenya
    People living with HIV/AIDS: 1,500,000
    Adult (15-49) rate %: 6.3 %
    Women with HIV/AIDS: 760,000
    Children with HIV/AIDS: 180,000
    AIDS deaths 80,000
    Orphans due to AIDS: 1,200,000

    Note:
    Adults are defined as men and women aged over 15, unless specified otherwise.
    Children are defined as people under the age of 15, whilst orphans are children aged under 18 who have lost one or both parents to AIDS.
    Read more: http://www.avert.org/africa-hiv-aids-statistics.htm

    David Wojnarowicz (September 14, 1954 – July 22, 1992) was a painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and activist who was prominent in the New York City art world of the 1980s.His MEMORIAL PROCESSION took place on Wednesday, July 29, 1992 at 8 p.m 12th Street & 2nd Avenue. NYC

    David Wojnarowicz
    1954 – 1992
    DIED OF AIDS

    “To turn our private grief for the loss of friends, family, lovers and strangers into something public would serve as another powerful dismantling tool. It would dispel the notion that this virus has a sexual orientation or a moral code. It would nullify the belief that the government and medical community has done very much to ease the spread or advancement of this disease.

    One of the first steps in making the private grief public is the ritual of memorials. I have loved the way memorials take the absence of a human being and make them somehow physical with the use of sound. I have attended a number of memorials in the last five years and at the last one I attended I found myself suddenly experiencing something akin to rage. I realized halfway through the event that I had witnessed a good number of the same people participating in other previous memorials. What made me angry was realizing that the memorial had little reverberation outside the room it was held in. A tv commercial for handiwipes had a higher impact on the society at large. I got up and left because I didn’t think I could control my urge to scream.

    There is a tendency for people affected by this epidemic to police each other or prescribe what the most important gestures would be for dealing with this experience of loss. I resent that. At the same time, I worry that friends will slowly become professional pallbearers, waiting for each death, of their lovers, friends and neighbors, and polishing their funeral speeches; perfecting their rituals of death rather than a relatively simple ritual of life such as screaming in the streets. I worry because of the urgency of the situation, because of seeing death coming in from the edges of abstraction where those with the luxury of time have cast it. I imagine what it would be like if friends had a demonstration each time a lover or a friend or a stranger died of AIDS. I imagine what it would be like if, each time a lover, friend or stranger died of this disease, their friends, lovers or neighbors would take the dead body and drive with it in a car a hundred miles an hour to washington d.c. and blast through the gates of the white house and come to a screeching halt before the entrance and dump their lifeless form on the front steps.” — DAVID WOJNAROWICZ

    Here’s the link: http://www.actupny.org/diva/polfunsyn.html

    The Secretary censored the film “A Fire In My Belly” by David Wojnarowicz by removing David’s work of art from an exhibit at The National Portrait Gallery on November 30, 2010.

    “The Smithsonian has reached out to a number of individuals to explore the long term strategy for the institution.”
    Here’s the link: Smithsonian Institution Strategic Plan Fiscal Years 2010-2015
    http://www.docstoc.com/docs/13139976/Smithsonian-Institution-Strategic-Plan-Fiscal-Years-2010-2015

    The Smithsonian strategic plan is “Imagining The Future.”

    Imagine a future where the Secretary is recognized and rewarded for keeping art out of the view of the general public.

    David Gergen says “The Smithsonian is a national treasure and as a citizen, I am glad its leadership is in good hands.”

    Nathaniel Siegel says “The Smithsonian is a national treasure and as a citizen, I don’t believe at present that the artwork is in good hands.”

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