At 01:54 PM 3/27/96 -0600, you wrote:
>
>Anita writes:
>>
>>The question is now if the exhibit should be allowed to continue for the next
>>two months (it is scheduled through June). The Phoenix Art Museum is supported
>>by public donations, but also by the City of Phoenix. The question is, if the
>>city pulls the plug, will it be an act of censorship?
>
>It would be censorship.
>
>Realistically, I think there is sometimes little difference between the
>objectives of curatorial discretion and the objectives of censorship, but
>the boundary between the two is very clear: it is the opening day of an
>exhibition.  When organizing an exhibition curators make many decisions
>about including or not including certain works and those decisions are
>sometimes made to avoid controversy.  Such decisions made on the near side
>of the opening day boundary are curatorial.  On the far side of that
>boundary, any attempt to re-curate an exhibit under the pressure of
>controversy is censorship.
>

Is this to say that, as curators, we are THE SOLE MORAL FORCE behind what
the public sees and how museums will influence and educate the masses? How
absolutely terrifying  :)

Where do the constructs of culturally-accepted (okay, American,
middle-class, tax paying, had relatives that died on the beaches of Iwo Jima
so we could HAVE these freedoms values) good taste come in? I think the
opening of this exhibit coming on the heels of a controversy involving a
spoiled-brat basketball player who couldn't find it in his moral code to
stand for the anthem of the country that allowed him to be paid $31,000/game
to play what is basically a kid's game might have something to do with the
backlash against this exhibit. While I believe in my heart this basketball
player (and these artists) are wrong, this IS America, and I have to believe
that people died to give them the right to be disrespectful. Although, I'm
sad to see them doing it....

I'm interested, however, in the generation of these artists, the tail-end
baby- boomers (of which I'm one), and the Generation X'ers. I think we take
a lot for granted. I think that since my (and later) generation never sent
anyone off to die for anything other than oil rights (Persian Gulf War),
we've forgotten at what cost our freedoms come. Sorry to get kind of preachy
about this - I have a Korean War Vet dad and a number of uncles who fought
WWII. This IS America, and I will speak to defend anyone's liberty (even if
I don't necessarily agree with it), but I believe we should show a little
respect for the symbols that some felt were worth making the ultimate
sacrifice for.>