December 12, 2010

Click to Play

I was delighted to get to work and see this playing in the Art and Design Building. David Wojnarowicz's "A Fire in My Belly" which was removed from an exhibit at the National Museum of American Art after a few protests because it showed an image of a crucifix with a couple of ants on it. It is a dangerous thing to censor art as now the artist's work becomes seen by more and more people who will wonder what the fuss is all about. Then protests will happen on both sides of a made up arguement about morailty. Conservatives will find a way to raise money by calling on institutions that get government funding to stay away from controversy while making non-controversal things an anathama to the uneducated masses who will parrot everything they are told about how their freedom is being taken from them when someone other than them is allowed to be free. They will raise millions by making people believe the world is ending because the mighty artists has destroyed their future and taken away their America. Funding for art was slashed because of such protests in the early 1990's, let art live.