Times Have Changed: On Censorship
Why the over-blown hype concerning Wojnarowicz’s video but hardly a peep over Deitch’s destruction of Blu’s mural or the ousting of Homberg from a commercial Chelsea gallery? Perhaps it has to do with monetary and cultural capital. Who in Los Angeles would dare oppose Sir Deitch’s dictum? Or perhaps it has to do with the fact that it’s much easier to voice your opinion at a tired and true old enemy: conservatives and Republicans alike. Would it have made a difference if Deitch and Gagosian were die-hard Republican donors? I think so. If speech is speech, then it’s speech. And as far as I’m concerned the US Supreme Court has made it quite clear that protected speech–including art–deserves full First Amendment protection, regardless of the content and speaker. Of course, if what we’re arguing about are the few non-protected speech categories (obscenity, child pornography, fighting words, false advertisement, etc.), then I do believe that the battle terrain is quite clear. What is not evident–ironically–is the question of who’s going to fight the battle to liberate non-protected speech and garnish it with full First Amendment protection?
Furthermore, what has made art institutions so preoccupied with and fearful of dissent and inflammatory speech? Is it, as the Gagosian Gallery attendant proclaimed, about property and commerce: “This is private property…We’re here to sell art.” Certainly the National Portrait Gallery and Paris’ Musée d Art Moderne are not in the business of selling art. But they are in the business of securing the securing of public funds. At some point the public (ie- legislators) must act in its own best interest and not in that of a single individual or constituency. Hell, they are tax dollars after all.This brings to mind Justice Scalia’s scathing dictum from the NEA v. Finley case: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” In other words, there may be a fundamental constitutional right to speech, but not a fundamental constitutional right to fund speech.
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