Frank Rich Slams "Homophobia" Behind Smithsonian's Censored Art

New York Times columnist Frank Rich slammed what he called "homophobia" behind the decision at the Smithsonian to remove an 11-second video clip that shows ants crawling on a crucifix.

The 11-second clip appears in a four-minute clip taken from David Wojnarowicz's 1987 work A Fire in My Belly, a half-hour long video described by The Washington Post's art critic Blake Gopnik as a "meandering, stream-of-consciousness work." Gopnik wrote that he did not even recall the segment showing ants on a crucifix, reported JoeMyGod on Dec. 1. Wojnarowicz created the piece to memorialize lover and fellow artist Peter Hujar, who had died the same year the piece was made. Wojnarowicz died in 1992.

The anti-gay religious right zeroed in on those 11 seconds, media sources said, with Catholic League blogger William Donohue accusing the artist of "hate speech" against Christians. In the wake of a Dec. 3 statement by the Association of Art Museum Directors that Donohue found to insufficiently apologetic toward Christians, the Catholic League blogger called for public funds to be taken away from museums, arguing that rich white people are the primary beneficiaries of public art and that, therefore, giving government funds to museums is an act of "discrimination."

"If this is what they call art-never mind the pornographic images of gay men-and if this is how they treat Christians, then let them find private sources for their work," fumed Donohue, going on to accuse the AAMD of "rank hypocrisy." "In 2006, it released a report on sacred objects, maintaining that 'art museums should strive to accord equal treatment and respect to all religions in the interpretation of religious works of art,' " the release said. "Does AAMD not regard a crucifix as a 'sacred object'? Christians would love to know. Or is their interest in 'sacred objects' limited to those found in 'indigenous societies,' as their policy seems to indicate?"

"The irony is that Wojnarowicz's reading of his piece puts it smack in the middle of the great tradition of using images of Christ to speak about the suffering of all mankind," noted the Dec. 1 TowleRoad.com article. "There is a long, respectable history of showing hideously grisly images of Jesus--17th-century sculptures in the National Gallery's recent show of Spanish sacred art could not have been more gory or distressing--and Wojnarowicz's video is nothing more than a relatively tepid reworking of that imagery, in modern terms."

Rich took aim at the Smithsonian for what he deemed it's complicity in Washington, D.C.'s culture of "homophobia." Write Rich, "It still seems an unwritten rule in establishment Washington that homophobia is at most a misdemeanor. By this code, the Smithsonian's surrender is no big deal; let the art world do its little protests."

Rich linked the homophobic attitude he perceived to anti-gay actions in the larger social and legal context. "This attitude explains why the ever more absurd excuses concocted by John McCain for almost single-handedly thwarting the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' are rarely called out for what they are-'bigotry disguised as prudence,' in the apt phrase of Slate's military affairs columnist, Fred Kaplan.

"Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has been granted serious and sometimes unchallenged credence as a moral arbiter not just by Rupert Murdoch's outlets but by CNN, MSNBC and The Post's 'On Faith' Web site even as he cites junk science to declare that 'homosexuality poses a risk to children' and that being gay leads to being a child molester," added Rich.

Rich went on to note that social messages pathologizing gays contribute to the suicides of gay youth, and referenced Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" video campaign, which offers messages of hope and support to beleaguered GLBT youth.

Savage, in turn, posted an excerpt from Rich's column, and a link to the piece at The Stranger.com on Dec. 12. "I'd be linking to Frank Rich's column today even if he hadn't mentioned the It Gets Better Project," wrote Savage, "and I'm not gonna not link to it just because he did."

Rich's column went on to excoriate Washington, D.C. further by saying, "Has it gotten better since AIDS decimated a generation of gay men? In San Francisco, certainly. But when America's signature cultural institution can be so easily bullied by bigots, it's another indicator that the angels Keith Haring saw on his death bed have not landed in Washington just yet."

The New York Times issued an institutional statement on the fracas in a Dec. 6 op-ed in which the paper called the Smithsonian's removal of the video clip "an appalling act of political cowardice," and went on to note that the show in which the piece appeared, "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture," was "a privately financed show [that] explores identity, gender and homosexuality in American portraiture." The op-ed also accused incoming House Speaker John Boehner of "bullying" because his office threatened the Smithsonian with "tough scrutiny" from the re-ascendant GOP.

"Secretary G. Wayne Clough of the Smithsonian immediately yielded, removing the video from the exhibit," the Times op-ed read. "His excuse was that the video 'was detracting from the entirety of the exhibition.' That is absurd," the article went on. "The exhibition is supposed to deal with culturally challenging images. Indeed, some of the most important roles of art and of museums are to challenge, disturb and enlighten."

The Los Angeles Times also denounced the Smithsonian's failure to defend artistic expression and free speech, saying that it was "unclear whether Wojnarowicz's video work was intended as an attack on Christianity--the ants on the crucifix could be seen as a modern take on the theme of divine suffering that has been a subject of Christian art for centuries.

"That's the problem with letting censors determine what kind of art is socially acceptable," added the L.A. Times. "The meaning of a work is in the eyes of the beholder." The L.A. Times linked to a YouTube posting of the video in order to allow viewers to decide for themselves whether the work was an attack, a commentary, or an exploration of the same religious themes that have been reflected in religious iconography for hundreds of years.

In a Dec. 10 article decrying the Smithsonian's censorship of the clip, Washington Post writer Philip Kennicott put the piece in the context of the times in which it had been created, noting, "It may feel excessive now, but like other classic examples of excessive art--Allen Ginsberg's 1955 poem 'Howl,' Krzyzstof Penderecki's 1960 symphonic work 'Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima' or Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1975 film 'Salo'--it is an invaluable emotional snapshot.

"Not simply a cry of anguish or protest, Wojnarowicz's work captures the contradiction, speed and phantasmagoria of a time when it was reasonable to assume that all the political and social progress gay people had achieved in the 1960s and '70s was being revoked--against the surreal, Reagan-era backdrop of Morning in America, and a feel-good surge of American nostalgia and triumphalism," Kennicott added.

That context may not fully have faded from our own times. The 1980s were a time of Republican attacks on the arts and gay artists such as Mapplethorpe and Haring, along with calls to defund the National Endowment for the Arts. Rich linked the current conflict between art and politics to that time, saying, "The Smithsonian's behavior and the ensuing silence in official Washington are jarring echoes of those days when American political leaders stood by idly as the epidemic raged on."