{"id":591,"date":"2010-12-02T17:55:58","date_gmt":"2010-12-02T21:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/bjuarez\/?p=591"},"modified":"2010-12-20T12:53:23","modified_gmt":"2010-12-20T16:53:23","slug":"smithsonian-gay-portraiture-exhibit-used-in-culture-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/bjuarez\/2010\/12\/02\/smithsonian-gay-portraiture-exhibit-used-in-culture-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Smithsonian Portraiture Exhibit Used in &#8220;Culture War&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment594\" style=\"width: 291px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment594\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-594\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/bjuarez\/files\/2010\/12\/Stamp-1948US-Walt_Whitman.jpg\" alt=\"Stamp-1948US-Walt_Whitman\" width=\"281\" height=\"300\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment594\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Walt Whitman deemed safe for a U.S. postage stamp in 1948. Public Domain image.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Update Dec. 20, 2010. The<a href=\"http:\/\/www.icaboston.org\/\"> ICA<\/a> (Institute of Contemporary Art) here in Boston is now showing <em>Hide and Seek. <\/em>See <em>The Boston Globe<\/em>&#8216;s story: <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/ae\/theater_arts\/articles\/2010\/12\/16\/offensive_ica_lets_the_public_decide\/\">Offensive? ICA Lets Public Decide <\/a><br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/theatre\/\">School of Theatre<\/a> director Jim Petosa passed this article on to me.\u00a0 It seems there is an attempt to politicize photographic portraits of Americans of varying sexual and gender expressions\u00a0 in the Smithsonian show, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npg.si.edu\/exhibit\/exhhide.html\"><em>Hide and Seek<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2010\/12\/01\/131730255\/smithsonian-under-fire-for-gay-portraiture-exhibit\">the article, <\/a>a video by artist David Wojnarowicz on his male lover&#8217;s death from AIDS, included a scene with ants crawling over a crucifix.\u00a0 The video, <em>A Fire in My Belly,<\/em> was pulled from the show after complaints from Catholic League president Bill Donahue who called it &#8220;offensive.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>An official in incoming House Speaker John Boehner&#8217;s office told <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/\"><em>The Hill<\/em> <\/a>newspaper that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.si.edu\/\">&#8220;Smithsonian<\/a> officials should  either acknowledge the  mistake or be prepared to face tough scrutiny beginning  in January.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It seems entirely possible that the overall theme of the show is an underlying reason for the criticism it has received.<\/p>\n<p>Like truth, art challenges and disturbs precisely because it submits to no political agenda or comfortable preconception.\u00a0 At best, art has an adversarial relationship with comfort.<\/p>\n<p>The art world must be a place for everyone with something of worth to  say.\u00a0 Sexual orientation and gender expression are not inherently  political but are human characteristics.\u00a0 They are &#8220;issues&#8221; only for  those whose political purposes come before the needs of the very people  they purport to serve.<\/p>\n<p>Read the full article here including a slide show of some of the works:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2010\/12\/01\/131730255\/smithsonian-under-fire-for-gay-portraiture-exhibit\">Smithsonian Under Fire for Gay Portaiture Exhibit<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Update Dec. 20, 2010. The ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art) here in Boston is now showing Hide and Seek. See The Boston Globe&#8217;s story: Offensive? ICA Lets Public Decide School of Theatre director Jim Petosa passed this article on to me.\u00a0 It seems there is an attempt to politicize photographic portraits of Americans of varying [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1681,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4301,4299,4300,1827,4298],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/bjuarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/bjuarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/bjuarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/bjuarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1681"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/bjuarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/bjuarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":901,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/bjuarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions\/901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/bjuarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/bjuarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/bjuarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}