|
|
|
 |
||
 |
||
       |
||
|
    |
|
Panels debate offensive art
February 13, 2000 BY MARGARET HAWKINS
Offensive art and the role of public museums were discussed in Chicago on Saturday at a national conference of scholars, museum directors, art dealers and legal experts.
The all-day conference, "Taking Funds, Giving Offense, Making Money," was organized by the University of Chicago to address concerns raised by the "Sensation" exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art last September.
That exhibit received national attention before it opened, when New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani complained about a painting by Chris Ofili featuring an African madonna decorated with elephant dung and pornographic cutouts. Giuliani said the painting was offensive to Roman Catholics and threatened to withdraw city money from the museum unless the exhibit was shut down.
Later, Giuliani objected that the exhibition represented a conflict of interest because the museum also received funding from Charles Saatchi, a British art collector whose private collection formed the "Sensation" exhibit. The implication was that Saatchi stood to profit indirectly from the exhibit because his collection would increase in value.
Saturday at the School of the Art Institute, three panels of experts discussed legal, cultural, financial and ethical issues raised by the controversy. They debated the First Amendment rights of museums and artists, the conflict between artistic mission and the desire to attract a wider public, and the increasing necessity for museums to rely on a combination of private and public funding.
"The greater scandal of the `Sensation' show was that art museums were involved with money," said W.J.T. Mitchell, professor of art history at the University of Chicago. "Art museums cater to the rich and must do so to survive. Like the Brooklyn Museum, Ofili is guilty mainly of candor."
Some participants said the moral aspect of the controversy was a red herring raised to advance Giuliani's political agenda. Many also agreed that bickering over taste is inevitable.
"The history of offensive images is a long one," said John Brewer, professor of art and history at the University of Chicago. "It's the nature of the offense that changes."
The panelists agreed that what determines one's opinion of offensive art is one's understanding of the meaning of art. They did not, however, agree on what that meaning was.
"There's a basic misapprehension that art is about goodness and beauty," said Teri Edelstein, professor of art history at the University of Chicago. "It isn't. Art is about visual communication."
Mitchell disagreed.
"Images become flash points of social contradiction," he said, because they don't have specific meanings but reflect our own ideas. "Artworks and images are highly ambiguous objects into which we throw our voices and from which we hear them come back. People who were offended by `Sensation' were offended by the s - - - in their own minds."
Margaret Hawkins is a free-lance writer.
|
|
[News]
[Sports]
[Business]
[Showcase]
[Classifieds]
[Columnists]
[Feedback]
[Home] |
