Censorship: Why Are We Scared of Sexuality?

To censor artists, forcing them to conform to a certain standard of government-mandated decency, is a direct assault on the freedom of expression.1 To censor artwork is to limit freedom of speech and representation. Censorship is often used as a tool of power by the already privileged; to further silence those with opinions and experiences different from the majority. In doing so, some voices are elevated while others are left silenced. Systematic censorship threatens the representation of marginalized groups as well as individual artists' voices.2 It is the role of artists to defend the freedoms of expression even in instances that make viewers or the public uncomfortable. The artistic community functions best when it does not shy away from controversy but instead uses visual culture to foster greater engagement with and curiosity from the larger community.3 Although the specific objects or texts that are censored vary from culture to culture, the desire to repress works of art that challenge social norms or deal with controversial subject matter is ever present. A common theme amongst censored works of art, or those works which groups or individuals argue should be censored, is a challenge of socially accepted norms of sexuality. Censorship limits dialogue and discourages social and cultural progress.

Perhaps no other type of artwork generates more controversy than those depicting or referencing nudity and sexuality. Compared to our European counterparts, Americans are often threatened especially by sexuality and by anything that challenges the traditional sexual roles of men, women, and children. Throughout the history of art, nudity and indecency have been continued sources of controversy.4 Take for example, when in 1886 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Thomas Eakins allowed female students to draw a male model in the nude. The mere presence of nudity in the company of women, who were seen as too pure and chaste to be exposed to such subjects, was enough to have Eakins removed from his prestigious post of instructor.5 However as the definitions of terms such as decency, lewd, obscene and offensive have changed; so, too, have public perceptions. Who or what is censored, and to what degree, is reflective of the contemporary political and cultural climate in which artists and their art reside.6

Portrait of Myra Hindley

The Holy Virgin Mary

One of the most famous examples of this dilemma caused massive controversy in London, enough to incite vandalism, yet did not generate the same level of hysteria when the work was displayed in New York City. Among the most famous and controversial exhibitions of the late 20th century was Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection, which premiered at the Royal Academy of Art in London in 1997 before traveling to the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1999.7 While on view in London, Marcus Harvey's portrait of the child serial killer Myra Hindley caused a public outcry and generated massive publicity, albeit much of it negative, for the exhibition and the artist. Harvey recreated Hindley's mugshot in a pixelated style using a cast of a child's hand rather than a traditional paintbrush.8 When the show moved to the United States, the painting generated little to no reaction among the citizens of New York City, as they lacked the cultural or historical background to be offended by Myra and her accompanying sinister narrative. Instead, Rudy Giuliani, then mayor of New York City, attacked Chris Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary. A practicing Roman Catholic, the British-born artist depicted a bare-breasted black Madonna adorned with elephant dung and featuring butterflies made from cutouts of female genitalia found in pornographic magazines. Giuliani was so "offended"9 by Ofili's work that he threatened to revoke the Museum's $7.3 million city subsidy if the painting was not removed.10 Giuliani, who like Ofili is a Catholic, objected to what he saw as a sexually-charged representation of the Virgin Mary. In response, Ofili countered that all representations of the Virgin, even those in London's National Gallery, are sexual.11

The Holy Virgin Mary

The controversy caused by Sensation demonstrates censorship's international reach. Despite the difference in who or what is censored, the attempt to suppress challenging or potentially offensive ideas and subject matter is cross-cultural. Different cultures have different views and beliefs regarding sexuality, but to challenge whatever they may be is to invite censorship. The controversy surrounding Ofili's rendering of the Virgin Mary exemplifies this challenge. The painting offered a view of a religious and historical figure that presented her simultaneously as a both mother and sexual being. In this instance, the idea of a woman as both mother and a sexual being was unfathomable to conservatives such as Mayor Giuliani. Ofili's challenged the traditional views of motherhood, specifically the perceived ideals of Virgin Mother and in doing so offended mainstream thinkers, who sought to censor the work.

In the case of American photographer Sally Mann, controversy arose around a collection of black and white photographs she took of her three children because the public was not able to separate motherhood from sexuality. In 1992, Mann published the photographs in a book entitled Immediate Family. The volume featured photographs of Mann's three children, Emmett, Jessie and Virginia, including images of them in the nude. The collection of photographs sparked controversy due to the children's nudity and what was seen, by some, as the sexualized nature of these particular images. Mann was criticized by the media, members of the public, and even art critics, who labeled her work "child pornography." Mann's critics, whose rhetoric fed the controversy, felt that she exploited her children's burgeoning sexuality to the point of danger. Others went as far to say that Mann's photographs were incestuous and called for her arrest. In response, Mann argued that she was interested in her children's sensuality, not their sexuality.12

Mann places much of the blame for the controversy's eruption, the resulting excessive press coverage, and the ensuing censorship of her photographs on Richard B. Woodward’s article "The Disturbing Photography of Sally Mann,"" which was published in the New York Times Magazine in 1992.13 Woodward, a highly respected New York Times and Wall Street Journal art critic, posed the initial question, "If it is [Sally Mann's] solemn responsibility, as she says, 'to protect my children from all harm,' has she knowingly put them at risk by releasing these pictures into a world where pedophilia exists?"14 Woodward also questioned whether or not Mann's children, being children, could freely and fully give their consent. Unsurprisingly, this editorial, with its far-reaching readership and cultural influence, shaped America's idea of Sally Mann and her Immediate Family.15

In her memoir, Hold Still, Mann makes it expressly clear that her children had full autonomy as models. Emmett, Jessie and Virginia had the final say on all images that were published and the ability to veto any depiction of themselves they did not want shown to the public.16 Although they were children, they were also models, working to create fictions that for Mann, were separate from the reality of their lives; in just the way that her photography was an act separate from mothering. Mann did not seek to sexualize her children, but instead to represent them as the free and innocent beings who ran naked on their secluded farm in the hills of Virginia.17

It was not until a reproduction of "Virginia at Four," with the thick black stripes covering her eyes, non-existent breasts, and genitals, was printed in the Wall Street Journal that any of the children felt they had been violated. In her memoir, Mann recounts Virginia being so ashamed of her body after the Journal incident that she refused to take her clothes off even to take a bath.18 To censor a four year old in this way was to force sexuality on an innocent and otherwise sensual body. The controversy and ensuing censorship that surrounded Mann's work says more about the mindset and perceptions of the adult viewers than about the nature of the photographs.19 The Wall Street Journal censored Virginia because to be nude without being overtly sexual is a challenge to the American psyche that has hyper sexualized all subjects.

While Sally Mann's photographs were 'successfully' censored on multiple occasions, Marcus Harvey's Myra was not. Exhibited at the Royal Academy in the autumn of 1977, the painting remained on view for the duration of Sensation's tenure. Myra was only removed from view after vandals had thrown red ink and eggs at it, necessitating that the painting be taken down for cleaning and conservation.20

Sensation was shrouded in controversy from its inception; and in London, no work of art caused more outrage than Myra. The controversy was exacerbated by a number of factors including Saatchi and the Royal Academy releasing information on the most shocking and controversial pieces in the show ahead of time in order to drum up greater publicity. In addition, Sensationand the display of Myra happened to coincide with the real Myra Hindley publicly appealing her life sentence in prison. The serial killer's real mug shot appeared in the same papers that printed reviews supporting Sensation and accompanied said reviews with reproductions of Harvey's Myra. The result was the public having an uncomfortable confrontation with the question of art's relationship to reality.21

Relatives of Hindley's victims called on the Royal Academy to take down the painting, finding it incredibly offensive and insensitive. The majority of broadsheet papers supported the showing of Myra, arguing that despite its controversial and potentially offensive content, to censor Myra would be an injustice to visual culture.22 However, the well known British 'feminist' writer Julie Burchill did publish an essay in the Guardian, one of the largest newspapers in the UK, titled the "Death of Innocence," in which she argued Myra should be removed because it encouraged and glorified pedophilia while normalizing child abuse.23 Burchill wrote, "These are the days in which the most obscenely oppressive images are not challenged, but actually celebrated as some sort of liberation."24 This view represents the challenges that Myra faced, largely as a result of Harvey's own comments on the subject of innocence and Hindley's inherent sexual appeal.25 Speaking to the iconic mug shot, Harvey said, "I was very aware that the pull of the image was a sexual thing and that this is part of the taboo that increases its appeal."26 Harvey was obviously interested in discussing Hindley's sexuality, however his critics also believed the painting made light of the Moor Murders and in sexualizing Hindley, glorified her pedophilic propensities. The work of art was so controversial that it resulted in four members of the Academy resigning in protest of the offensive and insensitive painting.27

The Holy Virgin Mary

When the exhibition travelled to New York City, however, Harvey's painting generated little to no controversy, as public attention and consternation focused, instead, on Chris Ofili's Holy Virgin Mary, which depicted the Virgin Mary as a black Madonna. The Holy Virgin Mary confronted seemingly contradictory ideals of motherhood and sexuality, a subject matter that American conservatives found the need to censor. Myra was disturbing to a British audience because they had the cultural context and capital to be offended.The stark difference in public reaction to works displayed in the same exhibition highlight the challenges faced by artists and museum staff in addressing censorship.

Footnotes

1 Barbara Hoffman and Robert Storr, “Censorship II,” Art Journal 50, no. 4 (1991): 14-15.

2 Robert Atkins, "A Censorship Time Line,"" Art Journal 50, no. 3 (1991): 33-37.

3 Hoffman & Storr, 14-15.

4 Michael Kammen, A History of Art Controversies in American Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), 47-87.

5 Ibid, 47-49.

6 "Ibid

7 Michael Ellison, "New York seeks to ban Britart Sensation,"" The Guardian, 23 September 1999.

8 Julian Stallabrass, High Art Lite: British Art in the 1990s (London: Verso, 1999), 202-205.

9 Quoted in Ellison, 1999.

10Michael Ellison, "Hillary backs Britart show," The Guardian, 27 September 1999.

11 Ellison.

12 Sally Mann, Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs, (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2015), 134-164.

13 Sally Mann, "Sally Mann's Exposure: What an artist captures, what a mother knows and what the public sees can be dangerously different things," The New York Times Magazine, 16 April 2015.

14 Richard B. Woodward, "The Disturbing Photography of Sally Mann," The New York Times Magazine, 27 September 1992.

15 Ibid.

16 Mann, 139-141.

17 Ibid, 151-154.

18 Ibid, 145-147.sale-of-sacred-object-stopped-by-museum-and-native-leaders/.

19 The ASX Team, "Sally Mann's 'Immediate Family' - The Unflinching and Unafraid Childhood," American Suburb X, 23 November 2009.

20 Stallabrass, 202-211.

21 Ibid, 201-206.

22 Ibid, 206.

23 Julie Burchill, "Death of innocence: What has happened to our sense of moral outrage? Julie Burchill is sick of images celebrating pedophilia being marketed as art," The Guardian, 12 November 1997.

24 Ibid

25 Stallabrass, 204-205.

26 Cited in Burchill.

27 Stallabrass, 201-206.