Left to right: Martin Sullivan, director, National Portrait Gallery; Lonnie Bunch, director, National Museum of African American History and Culture; Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian’s under secretary for history, art and culture
A number of surprising did-they-really-say-that moments enlivened the afternoon session of yesterday’s “Hide/Seek”-related forum organized by the Smithsonian.
Kaywin Feldman, president of the Association of Art Museum Directors (which had previously issued a strong but reasoned statement on the Wojnarovicz controversy), heatedly lambasted the Smithsonian for allowing itself to be “used for someone else’s creepy agenda….What happened wasn’t about this exhibition. It was about complete homophobia, and we’ve got to stop putting up with that!”
Similarly, on one of the morning panels, art critic Blake Gopnik (who had gotten beaten up in a Dec. 1 debate on CNN by the blustery bully who is president of the Media Research Center) blamed the entire crisis on “gay-bashing by a very unpleasant man called Brent Bozell” (who was Blake’s CNN nemesis). L. Brent Bozell III‘s MRC is the parent organization for CNS News, whose article by Penny Starr touched off the entire Smithsonian controversy.
Here’s that mismatched slugfest between Blake and Brent:
But back to the surprises from yesterday afternoon’s panels: Jed Perl of the New Republic, regarded by some as a “conservative” art critic, forcefully expressed his belief the National Portrait Gallery “had a right to show” David Wojnarovicz‘s hot-button video.
He went further:
The conservatives had no business making threats. And the Smithsonian may well have been wrong in giving in to those threats.
The most unexpected (and very welcome) comment at the Smithsonian’s two-day “Hide/Seek” marathon came at the very end, when Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian’s under secretary for history, art and culture, decried the “us/them” mentality that “leads to the demonization of people [with] who[m] we don’t agree.” Then he dropped this bombshell:
In this crisis, I got to know somebody who’s very different [from Kurin]—a Congressman who is very, very conservative, from a different part of the country, [with] a very different mindset. That person went through the [“Hide/Seek”] exhibition and absolutely hated it: “Who was the knucklehead who did this? Who is the director of this thing? Why did you do this?”…
This is the very person who defended the institution in the most stalwart of ways [emphasis added]. This was a person who totally did not agree that this exhibition should be up—hated the imagery, hated the artistry, hated the purpose. And yet somehow, for good reason, [he] saw that the Smithsonian, overall, has a hundred different exhibitions, 6,000 people [working] here, has done great stuff over 165 years. And [he] can resonate with that….
That was person to whom the institution owes a lot of defense. And that was somebody who people might unwarrantedly demonize….I think the people of this country and the world understand that they own the Smithsonian, that it’s theirs too.
Who was this unidentified peacemaker? I tried to find out from several Smithsonian officials. Linda St. Thomas, the Smithsonian’s spokesperson, replied:
I spoke to Kurin. If he wanted to name the Congressperson, he would have. He said he intentionally chose not to.
I guess the Smithsonian’s secret buddy—someone powerful enough to rein in his bit-chomping colleagues—needed to withhold his name to protect his base.
This Culture Wars ceasefire is exactly what I had in mind when I made a recommendation at the recent Rutgers/Seton Hall “Hide/Seek” symposium (about 47:12 into that video), at which the NPG’s director, Martin Sullivan, also spoke.
I said this:
I think what we really have to do is move on from this regrettable episode and have the blueprint for how we go forward—that this is a one-off and is not going to happen this way again. In the interim, there’s an educating moment, where the Smithsonian—which probably should have done this from the get-go—has to communicate with the legislative leaders who are having this misunderstanding and explain to them how an art museum needs to operate….
It’s too late to take them through the show, but that should have happened, and an attempt [should be made] to persuade—to educate—the people who are the [exhibition’s] critics.
Unbeknownst to me (and unmentioned by Marty at our panel discussion), this had already happened. And that, I suppose, is part of the reason why after Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough‘s highly controversial removal of the Wojnarovicz video from “Hide/Seek,” we never heard a peep from Congressional art critics again. The show stayed open to its planned closing date, without further political interference.
And now, it seems, “Hide/Seek” may also have an afterlife: Contrary to what I suggested in a previous post, both the Tacoma Art Museum and the Brooklyn Museum have informed me that they are still hoping to host a traveling version of the NPG’s landmark show.
Sally Williams, Brooklyn’s spokesperson, told me:
The
Brooklyn Museum is still moving ahead with plans to present Hide/Seek
here.
Lisa McKeown, Tacoma’s communications coordinator, said:
The Tacoma Art Museum is currently
exploring options and seeing if it’s financially and logistically
feasible to present the exhibition.
Tacoma’s other planned gay-themed exhibition—“Art, AIDS, America” (which “Hide/Seek” co-curator Jonathan Katz had mentioned at yesterday’s panel) is in addition to (not instead of) the possible showing of “Hide/Seek.” McKeown said that “AAA” will be co-curated by Katz and Rock Hushka, Tacoma’s director of
curatorial administration and its curator of contemporary and Northwest art. Hushka initiated the idea to assemble “the first comprehensive overview and
critical re-examination of art created in response to the AIDS epidemic
in the United States.” Tacoma hopes that show, to open in 2014, will travel.
Speaking of “Hide/Seek’s” afterlife, the webcast for the entire two-day conference will soon be archived on the Smithsonian’s website, probably at this link. And thanks to additional grant money, the National Portrait Gallery’s website for the original exhibition (which closed Feb. 13) has been significantly beefed up and enhanced.