When did you last say fuck? I said it loudly yesterday; read on you’ll appreciate the irony. A few posts back, I said that I was controversial - well now I’ve actually been banned. At first it seemed sad, then I thought it was funny. After a while though, I became angry. I’ve been censored.
An open call for submissions went out, asking artists to depict their home town. I found some graffiti on a Glasgow Glasgow Glasgow
I submitted the carefully sewn mini-sampler to the competition (there’s a £500 prize/commission.) I was thanked via twitter so things were looking good. A few weeks later, I was interviewed for the accompanying book and website, and my profile featuring the piece was put up online. The exhibition opened, but I couldn’t attend.
Good job really. I contacted the organisers (all artists themselves by the way) and asked for a picture of my work in the show. They emailed back a few days later, and said that – mindful of their audience – they couldn’t include my work in the exhibition, despite having said there were no restrictions. I think they were feeling doubly awkward as (only when the programme was announced) did I reveal that this was going to feature in an article I was writing, and would have been the happy ending to the quest I mentioned here for getting my work shown. Oops.
There were many ways around this for the organisers. First of all, make sure that any limits on what is permissible is shown clearly, as well as flagging upfront in the terms and conditions. Or they could stage the exhibition with the words: ‘Adult Content’ (we’ve all seen that). The show is being held in a town hall where the word fuck has been heard regularly, possibly for centuries.
I honestly thought that battle had been fought an won. I rue the day that people began to swear all the time simply because those carefully valued transgressive words lose their power if overused and now we need new ones, as fuck seems tame. But saying fuck out loud is one of life’s greatest joys, and most of us do it.
This blog is about my being an innocent artist, and I innocently thought that art involved freedom of expression. But artists censoring, or allowing others to censor their fellow artists for something so trivial – is so wrong, misguided and reactionary as to be surreal. Those silly people took the gloss of what could have been some excellent news.
Having said that, trying to be positive, I have been banned from a gallery and have now arrived. I learned to describe myself as an artist. Perhaps now I have earned the desirable soubriquet ‘controversial’ whenever (if ever) my work and name is mentioned. Fuck yeah!
Where was this banned from, Penny? I feel a dirty protest coming on....
ReplyDeletePostcards From Europe at Wem Town Hall. Here's an excerpt from the explanation:
ReplyDelete'There are a few things to address here. Firstly, our brief stated that 'selected' postcards submitted to the project would be exhibited (see below for full brief). You are correct in recognising that we did not limit or restrict the content in the postcards. However, as the organisers, we are at liberty to select according to our judgement, taste and other emerging factors (i.e issues raised by the host venues concerns).
The decision not to include your piece in this, the debut exhibition, was not taken lightly. It involved lengthy discussion with the venue, and it was recognised that whilst not appropriate for inclusion at this first venue, this might well not be the case for future exhibitions in other spaces. The host venue accepts responsibility for not making it clearer to us, the organisers, that exhibited work would need to be appropriate to a family friendly venue, given the nature of the unrestricted access by children to the gallery space.'
Ah, for fucks sake, that's ridiculous ;) I agree, a sign could have been put up. In this day and age of freedom of expression, we should fight for the right to swear when necessary and as you were depicting something very specific this should be recognised. Polictical correctness gone mad!......again.
ReplyDeleteIt is fucking ridiculous. The organisers never even told me what had happened - despite the 'lengthy discussion' they'd had with the people who control the town hall where it is staged (and who, incidentally have accepted responsibility.) It's craven prudery.
ReplyDeleteTASTE? WHOSE? :D
ReplyDelete