Censorship in Camouflage at The New School

[anna balint]

Censorship in Camouflage. 
Two panels at The New School June 4 and June 11, 2002

The Media Channel <www.mediachannel.org>,  the arts advocacy project of the
National Coalition Against Censorship <www.ncac.org>, and The File Room
(1994) <www.thefileroom.org>--a conceptual art project by Antonio Muntadas
comprising an interactive archive documenting 500 years of cultural and
social censorship --have organized a pair of panels called Censorship in
Camouflage, to be presented by The New School. The panels are intended to
initiate an in-depth inquiry into some underexplored socio-economic and
political trends as they affect freedom of expression today. The results
will be published in briefing papers.
In the everyday sense, censorship is defined as the overt,
often-governmental suppression of speech, e.g. when public officials
pressure an institution to remove an artwork from an exhibition because
they disagree with the views it expresses. Yet, speech may be suppressed
through far more varied, indirect and disguised means. Under the pretext
that children would see it or adults might be offended, art containing
nudity is excluded from publicly-funded exhibition spaces. Or to avoid
discriminating against the liberationist views of a gay playwright a county
entirely eliminates its arts-funding program. Or to protest the
cancellation of a 2002 exhibition of photos of Afghanistan, the director
and senior curator of a Florida photography museum resigned, while museum
officials contend they had simply demanded that the show be re-scheduled.
Such political or ideological suppression is at least somewhat overt. In
aggressively capitalist societies, it becomes increasingly clear that
artists¹ voices can be effectively silenced through economic means. These
forces frequently converge. Each example above has an economic component
that determines whether art is produced at all. Ultimately, economic
pressures join political and ideological demands ­ overt or covert ­ to
produce the subtlest censor of all: the internalized voice of the  self-censor.
Unfortunately, the discussion about these intertwined matters is
stalemated.. It often begins and ends at the familiar argument that public
funding for the arts should (somehow) stop at controversial work. Yet the
playing field has changed. In a new twist, the religious right now proffers
multiculturalist views about discrimination and hate speech appropriated
from the left to supplement its previous morality- and values arguments.
And the little-known Supreme Court decision of 1998 in the NEA vs. Finley
case (the so-called NEA 4 case), allows public funders to take into account
the ill-defined criterion of "decency" when making funding
decisions.  These two panels--focusing on case studies and encouraging
audience participation--will concentrate on discussing and unraveling two
difficult and little-explored issues affecting artistic expression:
economic censorship and self-censorship.

Panel 1:  Free Markets and Free Expression? June 4, 7 pm, New School
The arts in the U.S. are under-funded vis-à-vis those of other
industrialized nations. In the realm of public funding, the debate has
reached an impasse between its defenders who point to the educational and
economic advantages of publicly funded art projects, and its detractors who
advocate the total elimination of public funding pointing to historical
examples of ideologically-manipulated, state-supported art and instead
advocate private subsidies for the arts. But does a release from the
constitutional funding prescriptions of government guarantee freedom for
artists and institutions? Or the opposite? Does it broaden the variety of
art available to diverse audiences? Does the burgeoning of corporate
support for arts institutions result in the inappropriate apotheosis of
corporate values in tax-supported arenas?  And although the workings of
art-market censorship are far subtler than the overt imprint of the
censor¹s hand, how can we identify and resist them through both theory and
practice?

Panel 2: Self-Censorship: The Censor Within  June 11, 7 pm, New School
Censorship, wrote the noted South African novelist J.M. Coetze, "looks
forward to the day when writers will censor themselves and the censor
himself can retire." The most effective way of imposing censorship is to
make citizens internalize the restrictive standards of those in power. We
all make choices, speaking out about one issue and remaining silent about
another. And, as with racism, we tend to acknowledge the universality of
self-censorship, but rarely in ourselves. How can we tell when we¹ve
crossed the line between civic and personal responsibility, and
self-censorship? 
Are there tangible symptoms? How does self-censorship differ among societies,
with their varied taboos? Self-censorship is potentially ubiquitous;
compelled by the marketplace, public funding and the strings attached to
it, and political and ethical concerns. It differently affects artists
working in particular media, as well as curators, jurors, dealers and the
like who are responsible for selecting artwork and giving it public  prominence.

Confirmed Panelists
June 4

RUBY LERNER is CEO/President of Creative Capital, a New York-based
foundation. Prior to that,  Lerner served as: Executive Director of the
Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers (AIVF);  publisher of The
Independent Film and Video Monthly; Executive Director of IMAGE Film/Video
Center (Atlanta); Executive Director of Alternate Roots, a coalition of
performing artists in the Southeast; and Audience Development Director at
the Manhattan Theatre Club.
MARTHA ROSLER , an artist who works with images and texts in Brooklyn, New
York. Most of her work concerns social issues, which are manifested at
sites as various as the kitchen, the television set, the streets and the
transport systems.
A member of the RTmark COLLECTIVE, a group employing innovative "mutual
funding" tactics to support anti-capitalist projects.
Moderated by ROBERT ATKINS, a New York-based writer and activist. An arts
activist and former Village Voice columnist, he has written about
censorship and the culture wars for more than 15 years.

June 11
ALAN SCHECHNER, an Anglo-Israeli artist living in Savannah. His work
addresses a range of social issues including the Holocaust, obscenity and
memorialization and his contribution to Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent
Art generated  widespread controversy.
CHARLOTTA KOTIK, a Czech-born curator living in Brooklyn. A curator at the
Brooklyn Museum since 1983, she specializes in contemporary art. As the US
commissioner for the 45th Venice Bienalle, she organized an exhibition of
the work of Louise Bourgeois which toured internationally.
JANICE LIEBERMAN, a psychoanalyst in private practice on the Upper East
Side. She is a Faculty member and Training and Supervising Analyst at
IPTAR, the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research . She is the
author of Body Talk: Looking and Being Looked at in Psychotherapy and
co-author of The Many Faces of Deceit: Omissions, Lies and Disguise in
Psychotherapy, as well as numerous articles about deception, gender and
contemporary art.
LEEZA AHMADI, an Afghan-born curator living in the US.  Ahmady has helped
pioneer the concept of the "Parallel Gallery," the creation of a portable
entity that operates along side of and in reaction to conventional arts
institutions.
Moderated by SVETLANA MINTCHEVA, Ph. D., Arts Advocacy Project Coordinator
at the National Coalition Against Censorship