Given the Smithsonian's censoring David Wojnarowicz's ants on a crucifix from Hide/Seek, it's appropriate to feature this week the image curators worried would spark the greatest outcry, Brotherhood, Crossroads, Etcetera. As religious groups trample the public square, we're wading deeper into cultural quicksand where cartoons, art, speech, ideas are erased from everyone's view if anyone is offended. You don't need to have seen Hitler and the Germans this week to know that's the path to disaster. But we live in a time of enormous cowardice in which no one at the public pulpit is willing to tell religious institutions to keep it in their houses of worship. And by and large LGBT people have reached a level of comfort we don't want to jeopardize by complaining. Or we're too busy.
Martin Sullivan, director of the National Portrait Gallery, invites public comment at npgnews [at] si.edu or send an old-fashioned letter to NPG, PO Box 37012, MRC 973, Washington DC 20013. The museum's general phone number is (202) 633-8300.
Hide/Seek is on view at the NPG through February 13. See it and buy the catalog.
Brotherhood, Crossroads, Etcetera, 1994, a triptych by Lyle Ashton Harris (created with his brother Thomas Allen Harris)
"...the Harris brothers weave a complex visual allegory that invokes ancient African cosmologies, Judeo-Christian myths, and taboo public and private desires. In this provocative center image, the brothers exchange a passionate kiss as Thomas presses a gun into Lyle's chest -- conjuring the original biblical story of Cain's treachery toward his brother, Abel...'As black queer cultural producers, we are celebrating the liberatory potential of this black nationalist icon [UNIA's tricolor flag] by expanding the notion of who may claim to it,' Lyle explains. The image transgresses many dualisms we use to structure society: male vs. female, black vs. white, 'brotherly love' vs. homosexual desire. And it raises provocative questions surrounding themes of domestic abuse between lovers, perceived violence among black men, and the dangers that come from engaging in an 'illicit' love -- whether it be from disease, homophobia, or a lethal combination of the two."
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Posted by: page | November 12, 2013 at 02:49 AM