Museum Restores Controversial Painting to Exhibit

Besieged with calls complaining of censorship, the director of an Orange County museum on Thursday decided to restore a controversial painting to an exhibit of Vietnamese contemporary art set to open this weekend.

Bowers Museum Executive Director Peter Keller reversed a decision made earlier this week to withhold the work, titled “Young Woman Forging Steel.” Museum officials had planned to leave out the painting, which depicts a young girl in the uniform of a North Vietnamese soldier, because some in Orange County’s Vietnamese American community found it offensive.

“We have reconsidered due to the tremendous outpouring of calls from members of the community” who wanted to see the exhibit in its entirety, Keller said.

Museum officials said earlier this week they were trying to be sensitive to community concerns in the wake of anti-Communist protests this year over the display of a Communist flag in a Little Saigon video store. They also were concerned about finding enough space for all 75 works in the show.

The Bowers received 60 to 75 phone calls and e-mails on Thursday after the museum’s announcement that it would remove the piece, most arguing that art institutions should not censor exhibitions, officials said.