Striking Back at Censorship’s Threat

Censored at Cypress College. Edited at John Wayne Airport. Seized by the LAPD.The list of offending artworks persists, and 33 of them are on view through Sept. 7 in the issue-laden exhibition “Banned & Barred” at BC Space Gallery in Laguna Beach.

This eyeful of a show includes photographic work in diverse genres--photojournalism, nudes, still lifes--that fell prey to varying forms or threats of censorship. Like Susan Narduli’s infamous nude figures at Los Angeles International Airport or Chris Ofili’s dung-encrusted Virgin Mary at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York, many of the images in “Banned & Barred” have collided with notions of public decency or raised legal, religious or political hackles.

“‘Banned & Barred’ goes right to the heart of what our Constitution is founded on--the ability to freely express oneself and freely pursue ones interests,” said Clayton Spada, guest curator of the exhibit.

“It’s about who is the arbiter of what gets shown and what doesn’t,” Spada said.

In 1997 Spada was asked to replace a print of a male nude in a show at Cypress College, where he teaches photography.

He did so after Jerry Burchfield, a photographer and director of Cypress College’s photography galleries, received complaints about frontal nudity in the image. There had been protests over child nudity in a preceding show.

“I understood the situation Jerry was in,” said Spada, a Fullerton resident who is also director of exhibitions at Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, a nonprofit, artist-run gallery in Santa Ana.

“But the one thing that disturbed me was that my work was cast as a thing that it’s not. The image clearly shows that the genital area was almost obscured by shadows--that sexuality wasn’t the focus of the work. Rather it was about notions of traditional stereotyping of what is masculine.

“Controversy often recontextualizes art in this fashion, assigning a meaning or purpose to work that the artist never intended,” Spada said.

Often this happens when nudity is seen as sexual. Witness Patrick Nagatani’s “Epoch,” a 1995 mural made for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority headquarters in Los Angeles.

Nagatani’s piece incorporated classic images of a naked running man by 19th century motion photographer Eadweard Muybridge. MTA staff push-pinned a tarpaulin over the Muybridge portion of the piece, damaging it, after an employee of Catellus Development Corp., a partner with the MTA, voiced objections to the work.

After the “cover-up” gained publicity, the work was repaired and unveiled for full view.

“Muybridge was studying motion, and Patrick made this work as an ode to travel,” Spada said. “When someone decided people might be offended because the piece shows a naked man, the work became about nudity when it wasn’t.”

Also included in “Banned & Barred” is “Pinks,” a large composite photo by John Hesketh that shows hairy-legged male Mardi Gras revelers decked in white wigs and pink dresses.

This dose of cross-dressing proved too dicey for the concourse galleries at John Wayne Airport earlier this year. Just before installation the piece was eliminated from the “Darkroom & Digital” show that Spada curated for the airport. Gallery staff deemed it too strong a statement.

Also expunged was Burchfield’s print “Landscrape/Landrape” for potentially offensive language and because of its politics, Spada said. The piece evidences opposition to the San Joaquin Hills toll road project.

The director of the airport’s gallery program also placed a thin, yellow strip of paper over text that reads “[excrement] doesn’t float” in a second Burchfield print in the same show.

“You know, I actually flagged ‘Landscrape/Landrape’ for the program director early on, because I thought the word might be strong for a public venue,” Spada said of his role as arbiter. “The issue of censorship is not as cut-and-dried as high-profile cases make people think. There is an ill-defined gray area.

“But what I do think is that public venues should have a responsibility to champion work and not back down if it they put it up on display.”

The threat of censorship can also induce artists to self-censor, Spada said. Photographer Arthur Tress chose to delete “Monument to a Tattered Hero,” which includes a flag-and-condom-covered phallic form, from a retrospective of his work at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., in June. He worried that negative response might hurt the gallery’s fund-raising projects.

Spada estimates that a third of the 23 artists in “Banned & Barred” have suffered bad blows to their lives and careers as a result of censorship.

Mel Roberts, an openly gay photographer famous for his images of clad and unclad young men, abandoned professional work in the early ‘80s after the Los Angeles Police Department raided his home in 1977 and 1979, confiscating photographs, negatives, equipment and mailing lists.

On view in “Banned & Barred,” Roberts’ 1969 image “Rich Johnson & Sam Evans, North Hollywood” is a small slice of his celebrated work, a study of sleek male bodies, couched in lush color.

Also on display, Anthony Friedkin’s “By the Pool,” a black-and-white documentary photograph of a topless older woman by a swimming pool, was removed from a show at Barnsdall Municipal Art Gallery in Hollywood in the ‘70s under threat of legal action. Friedkin has masked the woman’s eyes to protect Spada, the gallery and himself from further threats.

“Increasingly it’s not about the art anymore but about somebody somewhere who might be offended by this--so we better not put it out there,” Spada said.

“That kind of limits us to showing ducks and daisies, and someone will probably be offended by ducks and daisies, too.”

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“Banned & Barred.” (BC Space Gallery, 235 Forest Ave., Laguna Beach. (949) 497-1880). Tuesdays-Fridays, 1-5:30 p.m. or by appointment. Through Sept. 7. Free. Related event: At 8 p.m. August 30 Clayton Spada will moderate a panel discussion on censorship at Laguna Art Museum, 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach. Panelists include Tyler Stallings, curator of exhibitions, Laguna Art Museum; Jill Conner, director, Brand Galleries, city of Glendale; Mark Johnstone, administrator, Public Arts Program, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs; UC Irvine Prof. Daniel J. Martinez, director, Deep River Gallery, Los Angeles; Mel Roberts, photographer. Admission is free but reservations are required. Call (949) 494-8971, Ext. 88. Also: At 7 p.m. Tuesday Laguna Art Museum will screen “Dirty Pictures,” a film starring James Woods about the controversial 1989 Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit at the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center.