In a message dated 01-02-21 13:27:40 EST, Indigo Nights wrote:

<< And my point is that I very much take umbrage at
 Giuliani superimposing his religious values atop an
 entire city where it comes to art.  If the (not)
 esteemed mayor finds such an exhibition offensive, he
 can choose to not visit the museum.

 But, to preclude the world from being able to see it
 and make up its own mind is, to me more offensive than
 making Christ a female.

 We'll get pissy, I'm sure, if we superimpose religion
 into this dialogue further.  You'll say something
 acerbic, and I'll have to counter with all this and
 faith-based initiatives, too.  It could get messy.

 My complaint is with the censorship and denying people
 the opportunity to make up their own mind as to what
 is right and wrong.  If the public finds the
 exhibition offensive, they, too, will boycott, and it
 will fold in ignominy.

 To grandstand as Rudy often does, as experience showed
 the last time he pulled this maneuver, only serves to
 publicize the art work and draw new visitors that
 might otherwise have overlooked it.

 Now what was YOUR point? Save for a public
 comeuppance, I suspect there really wasn't one--and
 yes, you have managed to miff me ever so slightly.>>

Acerbic?  Moi?  I'm wounded.  But I'll have to haul out the old thesaurus
myself to see if sarcasm (as in "perimenopausal mind vacations") is
synonymous with acerbity!

My points were (a) to question the use of "theosophy" and (b) to ask the
point of stating, without comment, a fact of which most of us are aware (we
knew about Giuliani's previous condemnation of an exhibition).  You responded
with your characteristic eloquence, lucidity, and vigor, so I am both
gratified and satisfied.  I do think, however, that to construe a simple
request for clarification as an attempt at public comeuppance is unfair.

As someone else correctly remarked, the real issue that Giuliani raises is
public funding for controversial art, rather than the question of censorship
per se.  (Since most significant art ends up offending someone in some way, I
personally think that any level of government which wants to make a
commitment to supporting the arts must learn to accept the fact that some of
the art which it funds, directly or indirectly, inevitably will prove
controversial or offensive to someone.)  But if the issue, or one of the
issues, is tax-funded support, I think the argument that anyone, including
Giuliani, who is offended can simply elect to stay away is facile and beside
the point.  In any event, it is simply not true that everyone who is offended
by an exhibition will boycott it.  I'm reminded of the woman quoted by the
Washington Post years ago during the Mapplethorpe controversy who, on her
fourth visit to the exhibition, said that it was more offensive every time
she saw it.

Some of the most egregious examples of censorship (or attempted censorship)
in recent years have been justified on grounds of racial sensitivity, as in
the attempt to remove the "n" word from the dictionary and the successful
removal of photographs from a Library of Congress exhibition.  The value of
Giuliani's wrong-headed tirades is that they remind us that religious
minorities also have sensitivities which deserve some consideration.  The
challenge for public institutions like museums is to find ways to present
controversial and provocative aesthetic and historical issues, confront them
with educational, sensitive explication, and facilitate intelligent
dialogue--not merely provoke politicians and offended groups into
denunciations.  Dialogue stemming from managed controversy can be beneficial,
but polarization is seldom useful, it seems to me.

Let's try not to make it "messy", OK?

David Haberstich

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