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. 

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].