Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!
Do you remember that moment in The Wizard of Of Oz when Dorothy and her companions enter the forest and begin to manage their anxiety by chanting what they were afraid of? More and more that is what the brouhaha about Hide/Seek (the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery) is starting to sound like. Let's all chant our fears...and see what happens. Sadly, I am afraid, very little will come of the chanting.
I have been watching for the last ten days as editorials and statements fly across the pages of the New York Times, blogs, and the Smithsonian's website. And I find myself wondering: How many people would have noticed this exhibition if the Catholic League had not responded with such a silly cry of "hate speech" and a plea for the removal of one disturbing video by an artist most of us know nothing about? What was the leadership of Smithsonian thinking when they agreed to pull the object from the exhibition - and remove the pdf version of the brochure from the exhibition's website? Why not fight the good fight and draw attention to the integrity of the Institution and its commitment to bringing the ideas of artists, even controversial ideas, to the broadest possible audience? And, in my opinion, kudos to the AAMD, the Warhol Foundation, and Charles Haynes at the First Amendment Center for saying, as my dad used to say, Just a damn minute. This is not about hate speech - this is about censorship.
But wait...Without all this fuss, exactly how many art historians, contemporary artists, art critics, and visitors might (and I do mean might) be talking about this work now? How many might have considered what the work of art was about and who the artist was and why anyone should care? This controversy has more people talking about a work they may never have seen, more people searching for the video on YouTube, more people asking about it than even the most optimistic curator could have hoped for.
I work in an art museum. I help manage messages every day. This year, I met with members of the outreach committee from the local Hillel when we decided to display a bust of Hitler. I worked with our director of communications to reach out to others in the community who might disapprove. We did the hard work of talking with real people and building relationships that encourage understanding of the limits and potentials of work of art and the role of museums in public discourse. At the end of the day, the bust was installed with no fanfare at all. No protests, no editorials, no controversy. Contextualized with wall labels and displayed appropriately, the Hitler bust offers one look at the ways in which works of art can create and promote people and personalities, dreams and fantasies, critiques and congratulations...some good and some not good.
Didn't anyone at the Smithsonian see this coming? You can see their reaction, their ever so carefully crafted Q&A on this at http://www.npg.si.edu/docs/SIQ&A.pdf and I can imagine the conversation between the legal department, the director, and curators, as well as a handful of professional communicators as they massaged every phrase, parsed and nuanced every word. But when I click on the link, I, for one, see the sign Dorothy faced in the forest:
I'd turn back if I were you!
After all, the posted pdf seems rife with fear - fear of losing federal funding, fear of offending, fear of so many things. But apparently no fear of the chilling effect of censorship.
I wonder what my Dad would have said...sitting in his high-back chair in the country house in Connecticut. I am sure he would have had an opinion about the Catholic Church, about questions of same-sex love and portraits of difference. Even opinions about censorship. But from where I sit, and I do sit in that very chair for family dinners and high holy days now, it seems like a lot of noise about a small work that, sadly, without this controversy, would have been seen by relatively few and too easily forgotten. Without this controversy, how many would know that the artist was talking about isolation, loneliness, marginalization, about human suffering within the context of the relentless cycles of life - like the movement of ants across a crucifix, completely unaware of the sacrifice it symbolizes?
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my. Everyone is chanting. But what is the real fear? That maybe, left on our own, left out in the garden of our individual suffering, we are too much like that crucifix? Quickly forgotten and covered in nothing by the passage of time?
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my. What are we so afraid of?
I think we should be more afraid of censorship than controversy. I think we should all keep talking about it, whatever "it" is, keep asking questions, keep wondering aloud, keep asking ourselves what are we really afraid of? Lions? Tigers? Bears? Really? Is that all?
Okay, enough. Thanks for listening.
Love you
Amanda
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