San Rafael artist riled after nude painting removed from Marin Civic Center gallery

By Nels Johnson
Marin Independent Journal

Posted: 04/12/2011 07:19:16 AM PDT

Updated: 04/12/2011 11:30:05 AM PDT

 

 

Click photo to enlarge

Artist Silvia Cossich Goodman at the Marin Civic Center, April 11, 2011, in San… (Robert Tong)

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San Rafael artist Silvia Cossich Goodman is up in arms because her painting of a nude was ejected from a Civic Center art exhibition because it offended a county employee.

“Apparently one person working at the Civic Center is so upset about my nude painting that she went straight to human resources and made a big stir to have my painting removed,” Goodman said, decrying “censorship at the Civic Center.”

Mona Miyasato, chief assistant county administrator, noting that art is in the eye of the beholder, said an employee who was offended complained after the exhibit went up last week “about being accosted by the painting every day in the work environment” because her office was near the first-floor gallery.

Because “employees must not feel we’ve created a hostile work environment,” the artist was asked to pick up the painting, Miyasato said.

 

More from the NCAC here and here.

In The Life Presents: Censoring Wojnarowicz

3/3/2011 —

In The Life Media looks at the controversy surrounding the removal of David Wojnarowicz’s video installation, “A Fire in My Belly,” from the National Portrait Gallery’s Hide/Seek show at the Smithsonian. The video, which represents the artist’s anger as he faced death from AIDS ignited outrage among conservative lawmakers and religious leaders.

This is another follow-up to my blogpost on whether galleries should display offensive art. Earlier follow-up via here.

“There Is Something Unique … about the Government Funding of the Arts for First Amendment Purposes”: An Institutional Approach to Granting Government Entities Free Speech Rights (pdf)

Leslie Cooper Mahaffey

Abstract:The common understanding of the First Amendment is that its purpose is primarily libertarian, serving to protect private citizens’ expression from government censorship. In the modern era, however, the government’s pervasive presence—especially in the role of funder of private activity—has blurred the lines between governmental and private speech. Further, the relatively new, increasingly influential government speech doctrine—which dictates that the government will not be subjected to First Amendment scrutiny when it is engaging in communication—has been the Supreme Court’s guidepost of late when the Court has been confronted with a case involving expression with both private and public elements.

This is an important article addressing the legal issues in my post on Cearta on whether galleries and museums should display offensive art and my two follow-up posterous posts here and here. The wonderful blog, Despatches from the Frontline of Popular Culture, has an excellent post on the

news of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington pulling an exhibit from the Hide/Seek exhibition. Over 18s can watch the video in question, A Fire in my Belly, here.

The top official of the Smithsonian, G. Wayne Clough, who has been sharply criticized for his decision late last year to remove a video from an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, defended that decision in a telephone interview on Tuesday morning. He said it was in the interest of protecting the exhibition as a whole, as well as protecting the Smithsonian’s larger educational mission and its ability to make a strong case to Congress for federal support.

He called the decision “painful” and acknowledged that he wished he had taken more time and consulted with more art museum directors within the Smithsonian. But “in the interest of that exhibition and this institution and its legacy and maintaining it in the strongest possible position, I think I made the right decision — in that context,” he said. “I’ll let the art world debate it in another context.”

This is a follow-up to my blogpost Should galleries and museums display offensive art?

Whitewashing the Art World: What’s Behind the Climate of Censorship

January 11th, 2011 in Constitutional / Feature / Free Speech / Nonprofit

 

The New York Observer’s Alexandra Peers tackles the issues of censorship and silencing that seems to be pervasive in her article, Whitewashing the Art World: What’s Behind the Climate of Censorship.

The art world has a reputation as free-thinking and tolerant, if not overly so. But in recent weeks, there have been several instances, far more than usual, of alleged censorship involving some of the bigger names in the field. What’s going on?

Charles Gaines has also written about this very same issue, and so have I.

What is going on?