A (very) Brief Survey of
Provocative and Censored Art
By Marjorie Heins
Free Expression Policy Project
www.fepproject.org
©2008 – Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivatives License
Contact margeheins@verizon.net for further information about using this slide show
Pompeii, Goat and Satyr
La Camera Segretta (the secret room), Naples Archeological Museum
One of the first artifacts discovered during the
excavations at Pompeii, it was placed in a
“secret room” in the Naples Archeological
Museum
Pompeii Tile Mosaic, Pan & Hamadryad
La Camera Segretta (the secret room), Naples Archeological Museum
Pompeii Wall Mural of Mercury/Priapus
La Camera Segretta (the secret room), Naples Archeological Museum
Hermes (Mercury) is portrayed as a bearded god
with enlarged phallus, winged sandals and
caduceus wand.
Michelangelo, David (1504)
Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence
Michelangelo depicts David before
the battle with Goliath. For
Michelangelo’s city-state of Florence,
surrounded by enemies at the time,
the statue was a political symbol of
fortezza and ira, strength and anger.
Titian, “Venus of Urbino” (1538)
Uffizi, Florence
Mark Twain called the “Venus of Urbino” “purely the Goddess of the Beastly (Bestial)
… the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses.”
Francisco de Goya, “La Maja Desnuda”
(1798-1800)
Museo del Prado, Madrid
In 1959, the U.S. Post Office banned the mailing of a reproduction of “La
Maja Desnuda” that was being used to promote a movie about Goya’s life.
Édouard Manet, “Olympia” (1863)
Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Manet painted “Olympia” the same year as “Déjeuner sur l’Herbe,” a picnic scene with a naked female and
two fully clothed males. “Déjeuner” was rejected by the Paris Salon, the prestigious annual art exhibit, and
Manet waited two years before submitting “Olympia.” “Olympia” was accepted for exhibition, but it caused
a furor, and was bitterly attacked by critics.
Gustave Courbet, “L’Origine du Monde”
(1866)
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Sex objectification or protest against prudery?
Commissioned by a Turkish diplomat, the painting was later found in Budapest
after the financial failure of the collector, and was eventually acquired by the
psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. It came to the Musée d’Orsay in 1995.
Jasper Johns, “Flag” (1954-55)
Museum of Modern Art, New York
“Johns’s rendering of the American flag “startled an art world that was still largely preoccupied
with abstraction. … Alfred Barr of the Museum of Modern Art wanted to purchase the work but
worried that it might be seen as unpatriotic by his board, so he arranged for someone else to
buy it and later donate it to the museum.” The Warhol: Lessons and Resources,
http://edu.warhol.org/app_johns.html
Kate Millett, “The American Dream
Goes to Pot” (1970)
Originally exhibited at “People’s Flag Show,” Judson
Memorial Church, New York, 1970
Organized in response to the arrest of an art dealer in 1966 for exhibiting anti-Vietnam War
sculptures made from American flags, and the arrest of Abbie Hoffman in 1968 for wearing a
shirt made from an American flag at a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee,
the “People’s Flag Show” included works by more than 200 artists, including Millett.
“Dread” Scott Tyler, What Is the Proper
Way to Display a U.S. Flag?
Installation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
1988; later included in the traveling exhibition, “Old Glory:
The American Flag in Contemporary Art.”
Viewers do not have to step on the flag
in order to see the book and images on
the wall, but it is the easiest way to do
so. Within a week of the exhibition’s
opening at the School of the Art
Institute, veterans organizations filed
suit (unsuccessfully) to close down the
show. Bomb threats and physical
threats to students, faculty, staff
continued. State funding for the School
of The Art Institute was cut from
$70,000 to $1.
David Nelson, Mirth and Girth (1988)
This student painting depicting
recently deceased Chicago Mayor
Harold Washington was displayed in
May 1988 as part of the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago’s student
competition. Three city aldermen,
outraged, went to the Art Institute,
took the painting off the wall, and
attempted to remove it from campus.
They were stopped by a school
official, and ultimately the police took
custody of the painting. In the lawsuit
that followed, the U.S. Court of
Appeals ruled that the aldermen’s
action violated the First Amendment.
Judy Chicago, Primordial Goddess, from
“The Dinner Party” (1974-79)
(mixed media installation, Brooklyn Museum of Art)
“The Dinner Party” is a massive
triangular table with 39 place
settings, each honoring an important
woman from myth or history with
designs based on vulvar and butterfly
forms; another 999 women’s names
are inscribed in gold on the floor
below the table. The work was
constructed by a team of women, and
for years had no permanent home.
Some critics thought the work
pedagogical and reductive, but it is
“an important icon of 1970s feminist
art,” according to the Brooklyn
Museum, which eventually acquired it
and in 2007 put it on permanent
display.
Andres Serrano, “Piss Christ” (1987)
(photograph)
It was the title of this luminous
photograph that caused an uproar in
1989 after it was discovered that a
North Carolina museum had included
it in an exhibition supported in part by
the National Endowment for the Arts.
(Serrano also received $15,000.)
Senator Jesse Helms fulminated on
the Senate floor: Serrano “is a jerk,
but let him be a jerk on his own time
and with his own resources. Do not
dishonor our Lord. I resent it and I
think the vast majority of the
American people do.” Attacks on the
NEA and threats to its existence
continued for the next decade.
Robert Mapplethorpe, “Joe” (1978)
(photograph from the X Portfolio)
Robert Mapplethorpe, “Self-Portrait”
(1978)
(photograph from the X Portfolio)
The X Portfolio
formed the basis
for an obscenity
prosecution
against the
Cincinnati
Contemporary Art
Center, which
hosted “The
Perfect Moment,”
in 1990. The
Center and its
director, Dennis
Barrie, were
acquitted at trial.
Robert Mapplethorpe, “Self-Portrait”
(1985) (photograph)
Although not in the X Portfolio, this self-portrait is part of a series
that documents Mapplethorpe’s evolving self-image as his
unconventional life and career unfolded. He died of AIDS in 1989.
Karen Finley in Performance (1990)
Finley was the most prominent of four
performance artists who sued the National
Endowment for the Arts in 1990 after
sensational publicity and pressure from
Congress led the NEA to veto their
recommended fellowships. Finley became
known as the “chocolate-smeared woman”
because of a performance in which she
smeared chocolate over her nude body to
symbolize society’s abuse of women.
Although the four artists – Finley, Holly
Hughes, Tim Miller, and John Fleck –
received their grants after a federal trial
court ruled in their favor, their lawsuit
continued as a challenge to a federal law
that required the NEA to consider “general
standards of decency and respect for the
diverse beliefs and values of the American
public” in awarding grants. Ultimately, the
Supreme Court upheld the law.
Dayton Claudio, “Sex, Laws, and
Coathangers” (1992)
Claudio applied for and received a permit to
exhibit a painting in the lobby of a federal
building in Raleigh, North Carolina as part
of the Public Buildings Cooperative Use
program, which encourages art in public
spaces. Once they saw the work,
administrators revoked Claudio’s permit
and forced him to remove the painting,
saying that it was “controversial,” “political,”
and likely to offend North Carolina Senator
Jesse Helms. Claudio sued, but the U.S.
district court ruled that despite the
purposes of the Cooperative Use program
(to encourage art in public buildings), the
government could prohibit the display of
such a “gory and graphic” painting.
Jerry Boyle, “Holier Than Thou” (2003)
(sculpture)
Each year, Washburn University in Topeka,
Kansas sponsors an outdoor sculpture
contest; once selected, the winning entries
are displayed around campus for several
months. One of the five winning entries in
2003 was Jerry Boyle’s “Holier Than Thou,”
showing the upper body of a clergyman that
critics claimed was grotesque. A professor
and a student filed suit in federal court
demanding the removal of the statue on the
ground that it conveyed an impermissible
state-sponsored message of disapproval of
the Catholic religion. The Court of Appeals
disagreed, concluding that, viewed in context
with the other sculptures on campus, “any
reasonable observer ... would understand the
university had not endorsed that message.”
Chris Ofili, “Holy Virgin Mary” (1996)
Ofili uses dried elephant
dung, a sacramental element
in African rituals, in his
artworks. New York mayor
Rudolph Giuliani considered
“Holy Virgin Mary”
blasphemous and froze city
funds to the Brooklyn
Museum in 1999 after it
refused his demands to
remove the work. A federal
court ruled that the mayor’s
actions were unconstitutional.
Tom Forsythe, “Malted Barbie” (1999)
(photograph from the “Food Chain Barbie” series)
Forsythe was sued by Mattel, maker
of the Barbie doll, for copyright and
trademark infringement, after he
created a series of satirical and
socially critical images. Ultimately, he
won the case, and Mattel was
ordered to pay attorneys’ fees to
Forsythe’s pro bono lawyers. The
court ruled that Forsythe’s use of the
Barbie doll constituted “fair use”
under both copyright and trademark
law: “The benefits to the public in
allowing such use – allowing artistic
freedom and … criticism of a cultural
icon – are great.”
Tom Forsythe, “Every Barbie For Herself”
(1997)
(photograph from the “Food Chain Barbie” series)
One of the images in
the “Food Chain
Barbie” series which
was the subject of an
unsuccessful copyright
and trademark suit by
Mattel. The court ruled
that Forsythe’s artistic
commentary on the
Barbie doll was not
copyright infringement
but fair use.
Adbusters, “Joe Chemo” (1996)
Joe Chemo was
invented by
psychology professor
Scott Plous after his
father nearly died
from smoking. The
image first appeared in
Adbusters magazine in
1996.
Wally Wood, “Disneyland Memorial
Orgy” (1967)
Copyright infringement or fair use?
Kieron Dwyer, “Consumer Whore”
(1999)
Starbucks sued artist Kieron Dwyer for using this image on
comic books, t-shirts, and stickers.
Ashley Holt, “Notmickey” (2002)
Mickey says “Don’t sue,” and Disney didn’t.
Is it censorship?
Only two pictures of blues
singer Robert Johnson exist. In
one of them a cigarette dangles
from his lips. When, in 1994,
the post office used that photo
to create a stamp honoring him,
they carefully removed the
offensive cigarette. A few years
later they did the same thing
with a Jackson Pollock photo
used for a stamp.