Monkdogz Artblog

Dani Marti has withdrawn all his work from the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), following the relegation of his work in the Sh(OUT) exhibition from the main gallery in the center of Glasgow to Tramway a very small inaccessible location on the outskirts of the city.

Although the official statement from GOMA is that the videos were not part of the original commission, insiders have suggested that after the vitriolic attack by the tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail and subsequent complaints from the public, something had to be done. It does seem a little ironic that a voice of free speech should be a conduit for censure.

It leads to the discussion about the media and its impact on the general public. Is the “dumbing down of the general public” as suggested by Jonathan Mills of the Edinburgh Festival driven by the media or are they only providing what the public are demanding. The excuse that the media gives is that the public want news about celebrities and reality TV rather than information about what’s happening in Afghanistan and Iraq or world wide poverty and hunger.

Does the general public condone censorship? Does the public deny freedom of expression and civil liberties? There was a time in the United States, that contemporary art was considered “to be a rich source of conspiracies….including a conspiracy by Moscow to spread communism to the United States” as quoted by Senator George A. Dondero in 1952. Oh yes, and didn’t we just hear recently from Glenn Beck who according to the New York Magazine “did a batty eight-minute paranoid rant tying together Obama, communism, NBC, the Soviet Union, Mussolini, Standard Oil, syphilis, fascism, the U.N., architecture, and public art in New York. Railing about ‘propaganda’ in ‘plain sight’……”

It does make me wonder if mankind has moved forward intellectually at all in the few thousand years since civilizations started. Is there anything that can be done to improve this situation or can I only throw up my hands and blame it all on human nature?

Glasgow in Scotland was a city that supported a large port and heavy industries for many centuries. It was predominantly populated by the working classes and proud of it. However with the decline in shipping and many of the industries, unemployment and the ensuing poverty resulted in heavy crime and very poor conditions for the population. Growing up, I had learned that a head butt was called a “Glasgow Kiss”.

Yet this city which had wallowed for decades after the WWII, started to regenerate and redefine itself in the 1980s. By 1990 Glasgow was named European City of Culture award and followed this up by serving as the UK’s City of Architecture & Design in 1999. Today the city has one of the best live-music scenes in Europe and a reputation of a first class arts venue.

One of the prime art locations in Glasgow is the city owned Gallery of Modern Art. Since opening in 1996 it has hosted several million visitors. As well as temporary exhibitions, the gallery provides an education and access studio which facilitates workshops and classes with artists as well as an excellent art library. Every other year it hosts a biennial which addresses contemporary social issues such as sectarianism, violence against women, and refugees and asylum seekers.

This year’s biennial, the Sh(OUT) exhibition has been a project in raising the awareness of issues faced by lesbians, gay men, bisexual, transgender and intersex people which opened in April. On their web site they state:

‘Discrimination and inequality are issues that many people experience as a result of their sexuality, gender or both. ‘This exhibition does much to explore the diversity of our communities through art and sculpture from across the globe. ‘GoMA has an outstanding reputation as a host of social justice programmes that tackle difficult themes – seeking to address issues which sometimes divide through an inclusive series of art and events. ‘In recent years, lesbian, gay and transgender people have seen progress in their bid for further equality, and I have no doubt that sh[OUT] will serve to further that debate.’

However interestingly the debate that is starting to gain voice is not about the social injustice but about censorship. According to the Guardian it transpires that it started with a decision by Culture and Sports Glasgow (CSG) a city department responsible for GoMA, to ban school children from the exhibition. Then the started ‘removing “offensive” elements from a public display that had angered religious groups. After the Daily Mail coined the display as “gay pornography”, the tension reached fever pitch when they chose to pull three pieces of work by the internationally renowned artist Dani Marti’ which included a video interview of a man who is HIV positive. Now Marti’s work and several other pieces have been relegated to a less accessible venue far from the GOMA “underground, underneath a shop, in a space where only seven people can see it at one time, and (where) there’s water on the floor.”

This sort of censorship undermines the whole integrity of an artistic institution and stifles creativity. It appalls me that they would feel the need or take on the responsibility of telling me the public what I should or should not see. It smacks of Big Brother and totalitarian rule.

Having said that much of what has driven these actions by GoMA seems to be media driven. It calls into question the power of the media and their responsibility to the public.

It seems very sad that an exhibition that is set up primarily to improve awareness of social injustices in order to prevent them would end up curtailing people’s right’s to speak, think and act freely through censorship. It goes directly against their desire to promote equality and inclusiveness. What does it say for the future of Glasgow as the cultural center of arts?

I interviewed several British nationals asking them how they perceived the actions of GoMA. I was somewhat reassured when one interviewee told me very firmly that “That’s all bollocks!” What do you think?

Additional articles:

Eye for film

Came across this on Art Info.  It’s an article about censorship that involves a campus in Ohio of all places. Seems an artist James Parlin showed a piece involving a middle school girl performing oral sex on a male teacher. The campus pulled the piece from the show. So the gallery closed the rest of the exhibition in protest due to the piece being pulled. Now the national Coalition for censorship is protesting the piece of work being pulled.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I once did a show where someone took offence at one of my works and wanted it pulled on religious grounds because they thought it depicted Satan.  It was one of the other artists exhibiting who complained.  Truth be told I think they over reacted, contrary to promoting Satan I try and stay as far away from the son of a bitch as possible.  So I do understand how it feels to have other people upset by what they perceive to be a works meaning to be.

There’s nothing quite like censorship to bring the art community together.

My thinking is this. Parlin just had his fifteen minutes of fame. I feel bad for the other artists involved in the show because I am sure they worked hard to exhibit their work.

The gallery, well they did what they felt was right or covered their ass.

The National Coalition of Censorship found a cause.

I am not sure if bullshit like this helps or hurts the art world.  I have no problem with controversy.  However, I do not support the idea of promoting pedophiles or the abuse of children for personal gain or any other reason.

And I am sure this artist had something much more profound to communicate than just another kick in the ass, shocking revelation on society or higher education.

Maybe the artist, school board, and coalition can all get together and give each other blow jobs as a performance piece of art……..as long as everyone is a consenting adult and in doing so come together in understanding and a commitment to the betterment of the arts.