Stop the Censorship Protest – Sunday, December 19th, 1:00 PM
Send a message to the Smithsonian Institution and all of its museums: Stop the Censorship.
Late in November the Smithsonian’s head, G. Wayne Clough, did something unconscionable and shocking – he ordered the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC to ‘remove’ a video by David Wojnarowicz from a museum show called Hide/Seek. Demand that the video be reinstalled now.
A month into the show’s run Clough capitulated to the complaints of right-wing politicians and an anti-gay religious group, and yanked the four-minute piece titled “A Fire in My Belly.”
A New York Times editorial assailed the Smithsonian’s “appalling act of political cowardice.”
Is this any way to run a museum?
The Hide/Seek show is an important, groundbreaking exhibit about sexual identity and we urge you to see what’s still on display.
When he died in 1992, Wojnarowicz, an artist and writer with AIDS, left a body of work about the disease that remains unrivaled for its power and beauty.
Demand the video be reinstalled now so the public can see the exhibition as the curators intended.
Stand up for free expression, for art that challenges and even pushes our buttons.
(Via: http://artpositive.org/)