Censorship Redeux: The Smithsonian and MOCA LA

SCOUNDREL TIME, AGAIN—CENSORSHIP RETURNS

Art of the Streets at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2011

Like the swallows return to Capistrano, censorship of art returns every time forces of morality feel emboldened or threatened.  Two decades ago, it was Robert Mapplethorpe and Andreas Serrano who were the targets of right wing indignation.  In 1989, a threatened conservative faction was on its last legs and would be challenged by the Clinton phenomenon.  Attacking helpless artists who want to make art not headlines was an easy diversion, a feint that drew attention away from the very real economic problems the nation faced.  Today, two new victims have emerged under strikingly similar circumstances—a right wing threatened by the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and an economic crisis of their own making.

The new Conservative attacks struck down the photographer, David Wojnarowicz, who died twenty years ago, and the political German street artist, Blu.  This time, one of the culprits was presumed to be open-minded, Jeffrey Deitch of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. In an unexpected act of apparent censorship, Deitch ordered Blu’s supposedly offensive mural to be whitewashed.  The other violator, the venerable Smithsonian Institution, was under the usual monetary pressure from the usual suspects, the Catholic, led by Bill Donohue and the upcoming Republican Leader of the House, John Boehner.  The Smithsonian Institution, dependent upon the federal government for funds, obediently removed Wojnarowicz’s video, A Fire in My Belly (1987) of ants crawling over a crucifix from an important exhibition on homosexual identity.  That fact that one museum was under political pressure and the other was not indicates that the issue of censorship needs to be looked at from another angle.  When and why does censorship of the arts occur?

Censors are never right.  History proves them wrong every time.

When the Corcoran refused to show the Mapplethorpe retrospective, The Perfect Moment, the art world united in its condemnation, and the museum has never recovered from the stain on its honor and reputation.  Twenty-one years later, the Smithsonian, a federally funded institution like the Corcoran, was forced to sacrifice the integrity of art for financial survival.  And like the Corcoran, the solution of the Smithsonian is short term and is at the expense of moral and ethical principles.   If the art was good enough to have been selected, then it is worthy of being defended.  The decision by the Smithsonian was particularly strange, given the sea change in public opinion over gay men and women since the deaths of Mapplethorpe (1989) and Wojnarowicz (1992).

The other factor that adds to the ill-timed act of self-censorship is that the Catholic Church, a major actor in this new drama, has lost all credibility.  In today’s newspapers, December 18, there are two new stories—one about the Catholic Church sheltering a rapist and the in the other—a pedophiliac.  And that was today’s news, not the news of three or four years ago.  Where does the Church get off in objecting to the art of a man who has been dead for twenty years?  Dead, because conservative factions, including the Catholic Church, blamed the victims of AIDS rather than doing what Jesus Would Do–help the sick and the helpless.

One can perhaps understand the Smithsonian, which was facing a Republican dominated Congress in the fall.  But the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” suggests that the decision to censor its own exhibition is, if nothing else, ironic and, worse, pointless.  But the whitewashing of the mural in Los Angeles is a strange act on the part of a purportedly open-minded director of a major museum.  According to the story, the German street artist, known as “Blu,” had worked with Jeffrey Deitch before and actually stayed with the director of the museum before he painted the mural. Given the checkered history of murals at the Geffen–remember Barbara Kruger’s Untitled (Questions) in 1989-90 and the ensuing controversy, it is hard to believe that Deitch did not ask Blu what his intentions were.

Christopher Knight, who defended Deitch, stated that, the neighborhood where MOCA’s annex, The Geffen, is located, is sensitive to art projects.  Knight pointed to problems with a mural painted by Barbara Kruger in 1989, that year of art censorship, as an example of art offending the Japanese-American community of Little Tokyo.  The Geffen is wedged between the Japanese-American National Museum and the “Go for Broke” War Memorial for the Japanese-American soldiers who died in World War II. [1]

Kruger’s first mural offended because it was a simple quotation of the Pledge of Allegiance.  For the community, the Pledge was movingly depicted by Dorothea Lange’s photograph of Japanese-American schoolchildren with their hands over their hearts.  These children would spend years with their parents in internment camps.  During war those years, Little Tokyo was emptied out and when the community returned, it was haunted by one of the worst violations of the Constitution in American history.  Kruger painted a new mural with theme of who had the right to speak, a powerful political statement in its own right, especially in that location.  That the community approved of the new mural indicates that Little Tokyo is perfectly capable of absorbing political discourse.

However, this time, the Japanese-American had no time to intervene with the painting of Blu’s mural. In “MOCA’s Very Public Misstep,” Knight made a good point that the community needs to be consulted about public art before it is placed in an environment, that is, like any site, fraught with politics and history.  For whatever reason, this very important step was overlooked and the director, acting quickly, arguably too quickly, had the mural painted over the day after it was finished.  [2]

Censorship, in the Twenty-first Century, is a particular futile gesture.  Blu’s mural was extensively photographed, first, in its completed state and then, in its wiped out condition of destruction. All images were immediately posted on the Internet where they will live forever. Like Wojnarowicz’s video, A Fire in My Belly, which is on YouTube, the images are easily obtained over the Internet. [3] The images of Blu’s mural are everywhere.  The offending mural showed rows of coffins, covered, not in the American flag, but in dollar bills, presumably making a comment about there recent military incursion into Iraq, a highly unpopular and undeclared “war.”  Clearly, the artist was making a statement about America waging unpopular and illegal wars of choice for the sole purpose of making money for Halliburton and seizing Iraqi oil.

Who knows what the Japanese-American veterans and their descendants would have thought of the mural?  Maybe they would approve of the anti-war statement: lives should never be squandered (hence the $1 bills) for an unjust cause.  Lives are too precious and too priceless to be laid down for anything less than a fight for survival.  Perhaps using soldiers as pawns in political wars would not go down well with a group—the legendary 442^nd—that was the most decorated—21 medals of Honor, the most wounded—9,486 Purple Hearts—and the most killed in the history of the American military.

If the feelings of the Japanese-American veterans were the Museum’s concern, then the view of the institution was not particularly nuanced.  There was a significant and vocal group of young men, interned in concentration camps, who took a principled stand against serving a country that took away the rights of its citizens.  One of those conscientious objectors was Frank Emi, wh0 died yesterday.  According to the obituary in The New York Times, he was joined in his stand against the United States government by three hundred protesters in ten camps.

All these men were tried and convicted of evading the draft. [4] Emi was sentenced to four years in prison and served eighteen months until President Truman acquired a conscience and granted the young men a pardon.  Called a traitor by those in the Japanese-American community who served, Emi explained,  “We could either tuck our tails between our legs like a beaten dog or stand up like free men and fight for justice.”  The Japanese-American community is, like every other group in America, is diverse.  But surely they would agree with freedom of speech?

The argument that Deitch’s action was a misjudgment because he did not consult with the community first is not very convincing, because the community was not brought into the discussion either before or after the mural was painted.  Rather than opening the doors for a frank and honest discussion of wars and why and where they are fought, Deitch slammed the door with a unilateral decision.

Writing in The Huffington Post, my friend, Mat Gleason, has stated that the Smithsonian censorship is not like that of MOCA, [5] citing the proximity of the “Go for Broke” site.

But I beg to differ.

So did Peter Clothier in “Censorship: Coast to Coast,” in Huffington Post, December 17.  In fact most observers of this fiasco agree: Censorship is censorship. No amount of whitewashing will undo what Deitch has done.  [6] However, I will agree with Gleason that the two acts of censorships are different. The Smithsonian caved in to right wing politics to the habit conservatives have of latching on to a perceived “assault” on “family values” and attacking it.  Usually, these people move on but leave behind in their wake very real and very lasting damage.

Undoubtedly it is the goal of the religious right to harm “elitist” institutions and that is all the more reason to stand up to the hysteria of such fanatics who would take away freedom of speech.   It should be recalled that the heroes of 1989 are not Christina Orr-Carhall of the Corcoran but another friend, the late Ted Potter of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Arts, and Dennis Barrie of the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. Both men stood up to their critics and survived with their honor intact.

And then there is the issue of Street Art itself.  Did the censorship of Blu’s mural occur because the director was afraid that art would get dragged into politics?  If so, he clearly does not understand street art.   Street art is often political.   Deitch invited unfortunate comparisons with Christine Sterling, who infamously whitewashed the Tropical America mural by David Siquerios in 1933, a year after it was painted.

The irony is doubled with the Getty at this moment engaged in a years long restoration of the work, obscured for decades.  Street Art is, by its very nature, an outsider art.  The artists, many of whom practice in anonymity, represent the last of the avant-garde.  Supposedly, the role of the contemporary artist is to challenge the public but most of the prominent contemporary artists have long since been co-opted by the Establishment.

Postmodern thinking asserts that the avant-garde is dead and that there can be nothing new in art, therefore, so what?  But does the avant-garde, which merely means “forward movement” have to be about the new and the novel? Does the unfortunate fact of belatedness mean that an artist cannot confront a public or shock the art audience from its complacency?  Like many observers of the current art world, I am appalled at the moribund state of the art world, which is doing the Same Old, Same Old, or to quote Jean-Michel Basquiat, “SAMO” or the “same old shit.”

Street artists seem to be the last of the Old Guard: the only artists willing to prod people into doing actual thinking.   An excellent example of the artist as gadfly was on view the other day when an unnamed street artist put up a poster of Jeffrey Deitch as the Atollah.  [7] The judgment of the street artist may be as harsh as the comparison but the poster begs the question is censorship ever justified?

Two very real problems have been raised by the actions of MOCA.  Public art is always a negotiation between the world of art and the world of the public.  If there is a gap between the art and the public, it is because the art world deliberately created that gulf called the “avant-garde.”  Can any form of public art remain avant-garde or have the pretension of being thought provoking?  The case history of Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc (1981) would suggest that public art must always be an art of compromise.  On both sides.  In the case of MOCA’s actions, there seems to have been no negotiation, no discussion, and no compromise, just censorship.  If the artist is to have any role in society as an individual with a unique mission, then is it not to stand tall for freedom of expression?  Are not artists our first line of defense against those who would silence eloquent voices?

If the career of Bansky is any indication, street artists can slide into the mainstream and put themselves in danger of compromising their principles.  Of all people, Shepherd Fairey has condoned the effacement (called the “buffing”) of the mural of Blu’s mural.  After a brief flirtation with accommodation, Blu decided he was not happy with being censored.  One wonders what will happen to the upcoming exhibition, Art in the Streets, this April—-how many artists will withdraw because of MOCA’s act of censorship?  After a problematic overture to the exhibition, hopefully, Deitch can redeem himself this spring with another of those landmark shows that allowed MOCA to make its mark.  MOCA’s 1989 exhibition, The Forest of Signs, provoked this powerful mural by Barbara Kruger. Its message still says it all:

Who is Free to Choose?  Who is Beyond the Law?  Who is Healed?  Who is Housed?  Who Speaks? Who is Silenced? Who Salutes the Longest?  Who Prays Loudest?  Who Dies First?  Who Laughs Last?

Who indeed?

If you have found this material useful, please give credit to

Dr. Jeanne S. M. Willette and Art History Unstuffed.   Thank you.

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[1] Christopher Knight, “MOCA’s Very Public Misstep,” The Los Angeles Times, December 12, page 1, Section D

[2] Jori Finkel, “MOCA is Behind the Whitewash,” The Los Angeles Times, December 14, page 1, Section D

[3] The video is available on YouTube but there is cumbersome sign in system.  The San Francisco Examiner has provided the video without strings—just click.

[4] Dennis Hevesi, “Frank Emi, Defiant World War II Internee, Dies at 94,” The New York Times, December 19, 2010, page 36.

[5] Mat Gleason, “MOCA Blu Street Art Whitewash is No Smithsonian-esque Censorship,” December 14, Huffington Post

[6] Edward Goldman: “American Museums: All Talk, No Walk,” in Huffington Post and Art Talk, KCRW

Jamie Roo and Steven Harrington, “Censorship: MOCA has a Blu Tiger by the Tail,” reprinted as “Censorship! MOCA has a Blu Tiger by the Tail,” in Huffington Post, December 15

[7] Deborah Vankin, “Taking a Swipe at MOCA, The Los Angeles Times, December 18, 2010, Section D, page 1.