A meditation on the fragility of the human flesh.
That’s how National Portrait Gallery director Martin Sullivan—in today’s NPR segment, Smithsonian Under Fire For Gay Portraiture Exhibit—described David Wojnarowicz‘s incendiary (literally and figuratively) video, “A Fire in My Belly,” which had become the center of a political firestorm.
But this harsh, grating piece is no peaceful meditation. To me, it looks like a forceful, in-your-face statement about the sanctimonious intolerance suffered by those who have suffered from AIDS. Soft-pedaling a montage that makes your skin crawl doesn’t do the video justice and doesn’t explain why it has aroused such a bitter backlash.
You can hear Sullivan’s comments, the voices of newly minted art critics who have lambasted the video, and my own soundbite (at about 2:40) in NPR correspondent Elizabeth Blair‘s above-linked report on the controversy.
While I think the National Portrait Gallery was prudent to do what it did in this instance—withdraw one work, rather than take a defiant stance that could jeopardize not only the entire exhibition but also the future of national arts support—this sets a very dangerous precedent that could embolden other self-styled arbiters of taste to usurp the curatorial role when a provocative work offends them.
A stand on behalf of museum professionals must be taken immediately, preferably by the Association of Art Museum Directors (which has not, at this writing, responded to my request for comment). And I would add my voice to Washington Post art critic Blake Gopnik’s call for another Washington art museum to embrace the “offending” video, making the point that although federal institutions like the Smithsonian may be hampered by the unique political nature of their oversight, artistic and academic freedom at cultural institutions must prevail in a free society.
My own Q&A with the Smithsonian is here.