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Controversy, Censorship & Visualization

Explore the controversy and censorship surrounding the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference & Desire in American Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery. Delve into the discussions on iconoclasm, public outrage, vandalism, and the deliberate destruction of images rooted in religious, political, and cultural beliefs. Discover the varying meanings and values attached to images, the democratization of image censorship, and the identity issues and exclusion associated with visual images.

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Controversy, Censorship & Visualization

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  1. Controversy, Censorship & Visualization • Video clip of curatorial discussion of exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference & Desire in American Portraiture (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution) & link to webpages (main exhibition site) • Link to panel discussion

  2. Iconoclasm & Iconoclash Readings: Latour “Iconoclash” Mitchell, “Offending Images”

  3. Public Outrage

  4. Vandalism & Iconoclasm • Vandals as ignorant, silly, senseless, stupid Goya No sabe lo que hace

  5. Iconoclasm vs. Vandalism? • deliberate destruction of images rooted in religious, political, cultural beliefs or groups etc. vs. Ignorant behaviour. Which is it? • Example: Destruction of 3rd c. A.D. Buddhas by Taleban in Afghanistan completed March 12, 2002--

  6. Iconoclasm? • Destruction of images linked to “rational” acts, meaning or connections of images to something-- but how? Ofili Virgin Mary

  7. Why are some images kept & others destroyed? • Personal (family) Networks & Values • Community-based criteria • Other factors (sometimes concurrent) • Scholarly • Political • Economic • Moral & ethical • Class-based (elite, popular) agendas etc…. • Variations in meaning over time

  8. Inclusion --Exclusion & the democratization of image censorship http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhGx4Rh0Qo8 Mid-Summer Night Swing Dancing at the Lincoln Center, NYC “Headbangers”--Heavy metal fans

  9. Identity issues & the meaning of images • Inclusion/cohesion • Visual images as expression of identity, difference (distinction) • Exclusion • Discriminatory Dimensions • Censorship and/or Democratization

  10. Mitchell--Why do some images offend? • False Assumptions: • Images transparently linked to what it represents (doing something to image, does something to what it represents) • Images “feels” what is done to it

  11. Examples from Mitchell • Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc

  12. Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veteran’s War Memorial

  13. Lin

  14. Mapplethorpe

  15. Michelangelo David

  16. Swastika

  17. Confederate Flage

  18. Jasper Johns Flag

  19. Marcus Harvey Myra

  20. Damian Hirst

  21. Poussin Adoration of the Golden Calf

  22. Serrano Piss Christ

  23. Offili • Outrage over Virgin Mary? • Outrage about symbolic desecration

  24. Latour: Why do images inspire hatred? • ways of understanding iconoclasts • Inner goals • Roles ascribed to images • Effects of destruction on others • How reactions of those assocciated with images are interpreted by iconoclasts • Effects on the destroyer’s own feelings

  25. Fuseli: Artist weeping in despair …. • diverse meanings of the disappearance & rejection of artworks • Vandalism vs. Iconoclasm • Vandalists: ignorant, senseless • Iconoclasts: deliberate opposition, “rationale” grounded in system of values

  26. Censorship as an outcome of democratization • artists’ & minority publics’ rights to • “self-expression” or • freedom of speech (1st Amendment in US) • But systematic suppression • VS. public’s rights & government’s duties to enforce standards • issues-- what standards, whose standards?

  27. Typology of Iconoclasts • A-- against images • B-against “freeze-frame” • C-against opponents’ images • D-Unwitting destroyers • E-Ironic destroyers

  28. Recall: Panofsky

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