The first group targeted for censorship is that which is politically offensive. Edouard Manet's The Execution of the Emperor Maximilian (Appendix 1.1) is an example of a nineteenth-century politically offensive painting. The piece depicts a scene in which guerillas capture Maximilian, a Hapsburg Archduke, and his generals. This ominous scene foreshadows his execution. Manet's painting was considered an attack on Napoleon III's decision to remove French troops from Mexico leaving Maximilian vulnerable to the rebel insurgence. Therefore, the Salon's jury counterattacked with “direct political censorship” (House 185). Manet was informed that if he submitted his work to the Salon, it would be rejected. This preemptive refusal differed from past rejections because his rejected artwork still appeared in the Salon des Refuses. Manet found other channels to display this piece when he submitted it to the Städtische Kunsthalle in Mannheim (186).
David Nelson's Mirth and Girth (Appendix 1.2) and Dread Scott's What is the Proper Way to Display a US Flag? (Appendix 1.3) are modern examples of politically offensive artwork. David Nelson's Mirth and Girth depicts deceased Chicago mayor, Harold Washington, in a “woman's brassiere, panties, garter belt and hosiery” (Dubin 29). After a stir at an exhibition for the School of The Art Institute of Chicago, an alderman “arrested” the painting and removed it from the building (28). The painting was eventually returned but with a gash across it (28). The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an organization founded in the twentieth-century, was victorious in a case seeking damages for violating Nelson's freedom of speech (NCAC). Dread Scott's What is the Proper Way to Display a US Flag? is an installation piece in which the viewer must trample on the US flag in order to see a patriotic-themed photograph of the US flag. The viewer can write comments in the book below the photograph. The installation appeared at a School of The Art Institute of Chicago exhibition and caused an outbreak of protests because of the installation's defamation of the US flag. Although the artist's First Amendment rights were upheld in court, the School of The Art Institute of Chicago's “government funding was cut from $70,000 to $1 and many benefactors pulled donations” (NCAC). The control over funding has only recently become a tool of control for modern censorship.
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KaleidoscopeArt Behind Closed Doors
KaleidoscopeArt Behind Closed Doors
