Recently we
witnessed riots and worse across the Islamic world in response to a film clip
on the Internet that disparaged the Prophet Mohammed. To Western eyes, with our deeply held beliefs
in and protections of freedom of expression, the reaction seemed out of proportion
to the insult. Images are powerful
things, eliciting deep emotions from viewers.
American museums for some time now have dealt with controversies arising
from powerful images creating visceral responses.
I was director of
the Museum of New Mexico in February 2001, when one of the museums in our
system in Santa Fe, the Museum of International Folk Art, opened the exhibition
Cyber Arte: Tradition Meets Technology. The exhibition presented computer
inspired art that combined “folk” elements with state of the art technology to
create a new aesthetic for the 21 century. In the words of exhibition curator, Tey
Marianna Nunn, herself a native Hispanic New Mexican with a Ph.D. in Latin
American art history from the University of New Mexico: “The central purpose of
Cyber Arte is to exhibit the work of the featured artists and to
showcase the manner in which they translate and recast their deeply-rooted
cultural beliefs, images and history by utilizing computers to create a new
type of visual art.”
Over two years in planning, the exhibition featured the work
of four Latina artists, including Alma López, from California. Among the dozen or so images by Alma López in
Cyber Arte was the computer generated collage Our Lady, an image
that arose from the artist’s deep personal feelings. Born in Mexico and living in Los Angeles, the
artist is both Hispanic and Catholic.
She grew up with the Virgin of Guadalupe, and both traditional images of
the Virgin and symbols derived from the image appear in her art. Inspiration for Our Lady arose from an
essay in which the author pondered what the saints wore underneath their outer
garments. The idea intrigued López, who
imagined the Virgin draped in garlands of roses, symbolic of one of the
original miracles of the Virgin of Guadalupe, when she revealed herself to the
Indian peasant Juan Diego in 1531, and bestowed upon him a cloak of roses, out
of season, to convince the Bishop of Mexico that her appearance was indeed a
miracle. López’ image, as portrayed by
performance artist Raquel Salinas, is a Virgin with attitude. Not the demure, unassertive, head bowed
Virgin of the traditional image, López’ Virgin is a head-up, chin-out,
hands-on-hips assertion of the power of women and womanhood. Otherwise unclothed, garlands of roses cover
her breasts and hips, and a cloak of Aztec symbols surrounds her. The angel that traditionally upholds the
image from below is here replaced with a bare breasted female image as symbol
of the nurturing qualities of women and mothers.
Origins of the Our
Lady Controversy
No one was prepared for what happened next. Two Santa Fe activists, Deacon Anthony
Trujillo of Our Lady of Guadalupe parish and Jose Villegas Sr., a self-styled
“barrio warrior,” visited Museum of International Folk Art director Dr. Joyce
Ice during the week of March 12 to request that the museum remove Our Lady
from exhibition on the grounds that it is blasphemous and disrespectful of
traditional images of the Virgin of Guadalupe and to the Catholic Church. On March 17, the Albuquerque Journal reported
the story, describing the “Virgin of Guadalupe in a floral bikini, held aloft
by a bare-breasted saint.” This
inaccurate quip contributed greatly to firing the flames of the controversy. Thereafter, print and broadcast media
referred to Our Lady as “the
bikini-clad Virgin.”
On March 23, Villegas, Trujillo and 11 other protestors met,
at their request, with New Mexico Officer of Cultural Affairs, Edson Way,
Deputy Cultural Affairs Officer Linda Hutchison, Director of the Museum of
International Folk Art Joyce Ice and me as Director of the Museum of New Mexico. While the television cameras rolled outside,
the group presented a manifesto that demanded: removal of Our Lady from Cyber Arte; resignations of directors Wilson
and Ice; return of Catholic sacred images in Museum of New Mexico collections
to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, return to the public of any revenues generated
by the exhibition; and an apology. Thus
was initiated a highly charged and very public controversy that pitted the
fundamental rights of freedom of expression against the demands of religious
groups to dictate what may be displayed in a public museum.
Early Crisis Management and Decision Making: The First 24 Hours
The events that immediately followed this meeting that
Friday were crucial to the museum’s decision to support the right of Alma López
to have her artwork remain on display, the right of the museum to show it, and
the right of the public to see it.
Immediately after the meeting with the protestors, I convened a meeting
of the senior staff of the Museum of New Mexico, including the directors of the
four constituent museums and the department heads of all other divisions—about
15 leaders in all. To a person, the
senior staff attending the meeting recommended leaving Our Lady on
display. This support was critical in
bolstering the decision not to remove the artwork.
Also important was a call that morning to Republican
Governor Gary Johnson’s chief of staff, Lou Gallegos. Gallegos noted the high sensitivity to such issues
in Santa Fe, observed that the museum would have its critics and defenders, and
advised that museums, like universities, must enjoy learning without
inhibition. He recommended getting the
7-member Museum of New Mexico Board of Regents involved to support the
museum. This support from the governor’s
office was extremely important in the earliest hours of decision making under
increasingly very heavy pressure to remove Our Lady.
The
Crisis Escalates
As a constant barrage of news coverage elevated the
level of the controversy and spread it throughout New Mexico and beyond, events
over the next two weeks moved very quickly and involved some of the major
institutions in the state.
On March 26, the Archbishop of Santa Fe put out a
press release stating a position that was to have serious consequences
inhibiting the museum’s ability to negotiate a solution to the crisis. Calling the image “repulsive” and the
exhibition of it “insensitive” and “imprudent,” Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan
stated that “To depict the Virgin Mary in a floral bikini held aloft by a bare
breasted angel is to be insulting, even sacrilegious, to the many thousands of
New Mexicans who have deep religious devotion to Guadalupe.”
He continued, sounding themes that would
recur over the course of the controversy, that “[s]uch a picture has no place
in a tax supported public museum.” He
doubted “that the Jewish community would be patient with such a mistreatment of
symbols sacred to their faith,” and wished that “those who want to paint
controversial art would find their own symbols to trash and leave the Catholic
ones alone.”
On the next day, March 27, nine members of the New
Mexico Legislature, Democrats all, including the Speaker of the House and some
of the most powerful figures in the legislature, wrote to Museum of New Mexico Board
of Regents President Wood “Mike” Arnold, citing “the “outrageous desecration of
the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe” and noting the “flagrant disrespect and
degradation of one of the most respected, beloved and admired saints.”
On March 30, the museum received ringing support
from the American Association of Museums, the Association of Art Museum
Directors, and the American Civil Liberties Union, the first of many national
organizations to weigh in on the controversy. The ACLU wrote to support,
“without condition, the original decision of museum staff to present Ms. Lopez’
artwork,” further stating “our strong conviction that, as a public institution,
the museum not only has the right, but the civic obligation to promote free
expression, regardless of whether artwork is provocative or controversial.” A
week later, the ACLU was more blunt, threatening a First Amendment lawsuit
against the Museum of New Mexico if the regents voted to remove the artwork.
On the same day, the Association of Art Museum
Directors supported “the principles of free expression and tolerance that are
the underpinnings of our democracy…. We
encourage those who oppose this issue to exercise their Constitutional right to
peaceably and freely express their own opinions and to choose not to
view works of art that may offend them.
However, actions against the Museum of International Folk Art and the
Museums of New Mexico by censorship or withdrawal of public funding are a
breach of the Constitutional rights guaranteed to all American public
institutions and individuals and are consistent with our democratic
values.” These were some of the first
statements from national organizations commenting on both sides of the issue,
from many university departments to the Catholic League.
Meanwhile, the war in the press increased. On March 28, I defended the museum’s decision
in both the Albuquerque Journal and
the Santa Fe New Mexican: “We do not think one group of New Mexicans
should be able to dictate to another group what they should be thinking, what
they should be reading and what they should be seeing. And it is not fulfilling the mission of the
museum as an educational institution to censor works of art.”
The Governor of New Mexico could no longer remain
above the fray. In a news conference on
April 7, Governor Gary Johnson defended the museum’s right to display Our
Lady without censorship. Arguing
that Our Lady did not violate community standards of obscenity, and that
therefore the artwork should remain on exhibit, Governor Johnson noted that
those who objected to the piece did not have to go see it. He further questioned what business the state
would have running art museums if officials were willing to give in to those
who call for censorship of works on display.
The governor’s support of the museum position—and his statement fairly
directly told the regents, whom he had appointed, specifically where he
stood—provided a welcome counterweight in state government to the letter from
the legislature.
The museum received hundreds of letters expressing
and exploring all aspects of the controversy, sometimes quite passionately,
eloquently and thoughtfully. People in
communities across New Mexico debated the issues. The New
York Times and BBC covered the
story. The museum received over 60,000
postcards from a national Catholic publication calling for the removal of the
image from the exhibition. There were
also darker sides. Museum of
International Folk Art Director Joyce Ice received a letter so vile that I
considered it a threat and brought in the F.B.I. A caller from Ohio left a message asking what
swamp I had crawled out from and promising to beat me. Someone threatened to burn down the artist
Alma López’ home.
Public
Protests & Dialogues
The Museum of New Mexico planned a meeting on April
4 at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture for the public to discuss all points
of view of the controversy. On the day
of the meeting the regents convened and the meeting began with about 250
persons in the building. Unfortunately,
more than that also arrived outside wanting to attend, but the fire marshal
stopped the overflow crowd from entering.
The situation, controlled by a hefty presence of New Mexico State Police,
was volatile enough that board president Mike Arnold cancelled the meeting soon
after it began, with the promise that the regents would hold another meeting as
soon as possible in a venue large enough to accommodate all members of the
public.
The result of this fiasco was
increased bad feeling among those members of the public who wanted a quick
decision to take down Our Lady, and mistrust of museum officials, whom
they saw as purposefully orchestrating the situation for their advantage.
The museum and the city scheduled the next meeting
for April 16 in the Sweeny Center, Santa Fe’s convention center and the largest
forum for assemblies in the city. Plans
called for an open mike in the largest meeting space, which could hold about a
thousand persons. Simultaneously,
facilitators ran up to eight round table discussions, and the forum provided
facilities so that visitors could record their opinions upon paper taped to the
walls.
Security was tight for the approximately 700 persons
who attended. I asked the audience “to
remember that we are all New Mexicans, and to treat each other, and the variety
of opinions that we are about to express, with the mutual respect for the ideas
of others that is the bedrock of our American, and New Mexican, democracy.” Of the speakers at the open mike, which ran
non-stop from about 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., probably about 70% were in favor
of removing Our Lady. Many
expressed sincere hurt at having the work on public display, and there was display
of devotion in many of the speakers.
Many of those supporting the museum made arguments regarding freedom of
speech and the freedom not to view the image if one found it offensive.
Although formally convened as a regents meeting, the
board made no decision regarding Our Lady that day, because by then the
Attorney General of New Mexico had set out a process to make decisions
concerning Our Lady.
The
Decision Making Process
From the beginning it was unclear who had authority
to make final decisions regarding Our Lady. If it were an operational issue, perhaps I
had authority as director of the Museum of New Mexico; if it were a policy
issue, perhaps the regents had authority.
On April 6, the attorney general’s office provided clarification. Citing New Mexico statutes and Museum of New
Mexico collections policy, the attorney general recognized the policy making
power of the board of regents, including authority over exhibitions, but not
before staff of the Museum of New Mexico completed an internal process of review
and decision making.
The attorney general determined that under the
policy, Our Lady was a “culturally sensitive object,” and therefore fell
under the purview of the museum’s committee on sensitive materials. The committee, as the attorney general interpreted
the policy, must work with “concerned parties” and make a recommendation to me
as director of the museum. I had to issue
a written response within 30 days to any appeal of my decision. One could further appeal my decision to the
board of regents, whose decision would be final.
The
Committee on Sensitive Materials Recommendations
After intensive month long fact-finding and
deliberations, the committee issued its findings and recommendations on May
21. Stating nine findings, the committee
recommended “that all the artwork in the Cyber Arte exhibition remain on
public view for the duration of the exhibition.” By this time, the Museum of International
Folk Art had already taken a number of steps to ameliorate the controversy, and
was prepared to take more. Those steps
already taken included: the panel
discussion on opening day featuring the four artists; a bilingual warning label
at the entrance to the exhibition; a comment book for all visitors to sign;
statements from the museum director Ice, curator Nunn, and artist López; and
invited a member of the Catholic clergy to write a statement concerning the
Virgin of Guadalupe (declined).
In addition, the Museum of International Folk Art,
“in a spirit of reconciliation,” offered to close the exhibition on October 28,
its original closing date but four months earlier than the date finally
scheduled. At the regents meeting on
September 20, the attorney general made clear to the board that, because a
fundamental constitutional right under the First Amendment was involved, a knowing
abridgement of the artist’s right to free speech would expose the museum and
the regents personally to considerable liability. Accordingly, the regents took no action, and Our
Lady came down with the rest of the Cyber Arte exhibition on October
28, 2001.
Villegas
and Trujillo were not willing to await this course of events to transpire. Frustrated by the administrative process,
after a flurry of Freedom of Information
Act requests, they took the museum to district court, arguing the committee
on sensitive materials violated New Mexico’s Open Meetings Act. The judge ruled that even if the museum
violated the Open Meetings Act, the relief sought—removal of Our Lady from display—was not
appropriate, and therefore denied relief.
Issues
Arising from the Our Lady Controversy
The Our Lady controversy arose initially over
a single issue: whether an image that a
portion, perhaps a majority, in the local Catholic community found
objectionable should be removed from a state museum. The issue aroused such passion on all sides
because it represented a clash of deeply held beliefs—freedom of speech as
guaranteed by our constitutional democracy, with its implications of tolerance
and respect for the views of others, versus the idea that an image found
offensive, blasphemous or sacrilegious by some should be removed from a public
museum out of respect for those beliefs.
Very soon, however, the controversy expanded to
include some of the major social issues in northern New Mexico: elites/outsiders versus locals/insiders;
economic disparities between groups; the roles of women in society in general
and within traditional patriarchal Hispanic northern New Mexico society in
particular; loss of control of cultural heritage; Anglos versus Latinos and
Catholics versus others; the roles of artists in society; the roles of museums
in society; the role of art in cultural change; and the responsibilities of
museums funded by public money. Some of
these are deep cleavages in northern New Mexico society and far beyond the
capacity of the Museum of New Mexico to resolve.
The Power of Images
Over the last few decades, a number of museum exhibitions
exploded into controversies of national significance, often with implications
far beyond the institutions and interest groups immediately involved. The furor surrounding an exhibition of the
photographs of the artist Robert Mapplethorpe led to its controversial
cancellation at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. (1989), an impassioned
debate about public funding of the arts and a host of other issues, and
ultimately a criminal indictment and trial of a museum director.
At the Smithsonian Institution, there was a
huge national controversy regarding whether and how the story of the Enola Gay, the B-25 that carried and
dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, would be told (1994-95). A colossal argument developed over the
historiography of the war in the Pacific and the role of a national museum in
presenting the complexities of that story.
The exhibition was cancelled and the director of the National Air and
Space Museum lost his job. At the
Brooklyn Museum in 1999, the Sensation exhibition contained an image of
the Virgin in which the African artist Chris Ofili used elephant dung in the
mixed media painting. This led to a
confrontation between the museum and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani over the
First Amendment rights of the museum to display the painting versus the city’s
right to penalize the museum for doing so.
The First Amendment triumphed.
Controversies in museums are not going away. We now
know some of the things that are most likely to cause controversy, some of the
themes involved, and how such controversies are likely to unfold. Perceived
denigration of religious symbols can lead to crisis, such as the Brooklyn
Museum example, Andres Serrano’s work Piss Christ, or in the case
involving Our Lady. In 2010, a
huge controversy arose when the National Portrait Gallery, under massive
pressure from conservatives in congress and elsewhere, removed a video,
depicting ants crawling over a crucifix, from the exhibition Hide/Seek, which explored sexual
difference in the making of modern American portraiture.
The recent furor in the Islamic world over the Internet video
unflatteringly depicting the Prophet Mohammed falls into this category.
Powerful
patriotic symbols also may evoke impassioned responses, such as the Enola Gay case, or the use of American
flags—on the floor in the case of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
(1989) or on the floor and in the toilet at the Phoenix Art Museum (1996). Artistic treatment of political issues can
cause a furor, such as the exhibition of Nazi-inspired art at the Jewish Museum
(2002), or the painting of Mayor Washington in drag, again in Chicago (1988). Sexual images that offend are another, such
as Mapplethorpe’s homoerotic photographs.
Future Controversy
In the contested terrain of ideas and images,
museums are sometimes likely to be controversial if they are doing their jobs
as forums for the presentation and discussion of issues. Controversies will erupt over powerful images. Leaders of institutions in controversy cannot
fear for their jobs, this inhibits freedom of action. A cool head as the controversy breaks is
essential. Leaders need good legal and
public relations advice. They should
educate policy-making boards about the potential for controversy before it
happens, and develop a plan of action.
Assemble allies and keep them engaged, they will be some of your most
effective spokespersons and supporters.
Work with community groups, as the Museum of New Mexico did before and
after Our Lady, this will reduce the
chance of surprises and give you support if necessary. Combat self-censorship. One of our greatest fears, unrealized I hope,
as a result of the Our Lady
experience, was that our curators and directors would doubt their own judgments.
Artists push boundaries: that is what they do. They show us new ways to think about the
world. Occasionally this is unsettling. America was founded upon the principle of
free expression of ideas, no accident that the concept is enshrined in the First Amendment. Sometimes we pay the price in discomfort and
more for our precious right to express ourselves freely.
Thomas H. Wilson is Chair of the Arizona
Humanities Council, and Director of the Arizona Museum of Natural History
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