Omar Kholeif , ‘No social justice for Glasgow’s art?’,
The Guardian, 15 September
In the two decades since Glasgow was crowned European capital of culture, the city has firmly established itself as a thriving hub for arts in the north. From the epic £27m refurbishment of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, to the success of Glasgow-associated artists such as Douglas Gordon, Christine Borland, Simon Starling and Jim Lambie (all of whom have appeared on Turner prize shortlists) – the Glasgow art scene has become, as Hans Ulrich Obrist described it, something of a “miracle”.
So, it comes as a surprise to see the debacle unfold at the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) recently, over the city’s social justice biennial. I am specifically referring to the troubling scrutiny exercised by Culture and Sport Glasgow (CSG) of GoMA’s Sh(OUT) exhibition, a taboo-shattering lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex collection. Despite the irony in censoring a show that promotes equality and human rights, CSG and GoMA have been practising just that from the outset. First, by taking the tentative step to ban schoolchildren from the exhibition, and then 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 CSG chose to pull three pieces of work by the internationally renowned artist Dani Marti.
Marti’s work, which included an intimate video conversation with an HIV-positive male, was pulled because CSG believed it would be detrimental to the programme, and could potentially “overshadow” more important issues. Now Marti’s pieces, along with some other elements of the programme, will be held at Tramway, a less accessible venue on the south side of the city. Unsurprisingly, the artist wasn’t best pleased with the concession, arguing that CSG were “compromising the civil rights of the people in [the] work by refusing to let them speak to a wide audience, as was originally intended”.
Regardless of the subject matter, or its public perception, there is something rather worrying about CSG’s slippery slope towards censorship, and its infringement on curatorial independence. Undeniably, the authority of CSG and the GoMA producers comes into question as soon as they start denying access to elements of a programme. By hiding aspects of the collection to avoid negative press, the organisers are acting despotically. It’s arrogant and patronising to suggest the public needs to be protected, or that people can’t make decisions about whether they appreciate or understand a work of art.
The Sh(OUT) scenario also raises an interesting question about the prickly relationship between art and the media. In contemporary art history, public controversy has traditionally been an expansive outlet, causing art’s audience to grow. Everyone from Picasso to Du Champ, from Warhol to the Young British Artists, managed to surmount mass disagreement about their purpose and credibility. Arguably, this debate has been for the greater good of the art community, allowing art a reinvigorated place in contemporary culture.
This downbeat furore is made even more depressing with a series of notable revelations. In 1998, the vice-chancellor of the University of Central England (now Birmingham City) was interviewed by the police with a view to prosecution, because he defended the university’s right to maintain a book with Robert Mapplethorpe’s Jim and Tom, Sausalito (1977), an image depicting a man urinating into the mouth of another. The director of public prosecutions subsequently ruled out the case. As such, it is no coincidence that this very photo was chosen by curators for inclusion in the Sh(OUT) exhibition. Yet the precedent that went into defending Mapplethorpe’s artistry over a decade ago seems to have evaded CSG, who now appear incapable of understanding the irony of their actions.
Indeed, the entire process of arts censorship is cyclical in its foolhardy bigotry, with recent news of a photography lecturer at East Surrey college facing serious disciplinary action (and possible redundancy) for introducing students to the photography of Del LaGrace Volcano – whose work, interestingly enough, is also included in Sh(OUT). This, coupled with the onslaught of negative press against the exhibition, poses frightening implications for citizens who wish to speak, think and act freely, and for the minority artists involved, who hunger for representation.
As Dani Marti argues, “art should be a protected forum. If we don’t protect it as an independent platform, where transgression and the questioning of ethics, morals, politics and sexuality is allowed, then society won’t be given the permission to grow”. Critics who disagree with public funds being used for such an exhibition are missing a vital point. Art (unlike a mass, publicly funded medium such as television) is more often than not maintained in a physical capsule (the venue), and subsequently is one of the few forums that enable minorities to display the divergent aspects of their existence without censorship. Accordingly, the head of CSG Bridget McConnell and her various councillors should be held accountable, both to the art world, whose integrity they are undermining, and equally to the oppressed minority, whose voices they are irrevocably stifling.
This response was added on March 26 2010
Culture and Sport Glasgow (CSG) says:
CSG is not a part of Glasgow City Council. It is a registered charity which delivers services and operates facilities in Glasgow on behalf of Glasgow City Council. CSG says it did not “ban schoolchildren from the exhibition” as the article claims. Glasgow City Council decided the schools it operates should not facilitate trips to the exhibition, the schools programme remained in place for any school wishing to use it. CSG denies “hiding aspects of the collection” and “removing offensive elements from a public display that had angered religious groups” and suggests that Omar Kholeif may be referring to an exhibit, made by a Christian minister, which involved people “writing themselves into the Bible”. The minister asked for it to be enclosed in a case as people had defaced the Bible. In response to the statement that “CSG chose to pull three works by the international renowned artist Dani Marti”, CSG says that Dani was not commissioned to make films as part of the sh[OUT] exhibition itself, and that there was no agreement to include the films in the exhibition. CSG viewed them anyway but decided that they would not be suitable for the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA). In particular, CSG took the view that one film concerning a rent boy in Florida, if seen in an art gallery where people dip in and out of films, could be misinterpreted as a celebration of drug taking and of commodified sex. Instead, CSG offered to show the film in Tramway. While the article describes Tramway as “less accessible” than GoMA, CSG says it is well served by public transport and is one of the leading contemporary art spaces in Europe. Dani Marti withdrew an installation which he had been contracted to provide (and paid for) as a result of the decision not to show his films in the sh[OUT] exhibition. CSG replaced his exhibit with a display about these controversies, including newspaper cuttings and a statement from Dani Marti. CSG also denies infringing GoMA’s curatorial independence, as it says that GoMA is not an independent institution: the Board and Management Team of CSG manages GoMA, and sets exhibition policy and strategy.