You'd think that the "enlightened" people in the arts world would all for the expression of divergent views, especially in art. That's not been my experience at all.
Before I began painting, I make a living as a leather worker selling at various art shows around the country. I made different types of leather items, including leather masks, selling my art at art shows in various places in the country. My first experience in art censorship occurred in 1990 during the Jesse Helms NEA controversy. For those who don't remember or are to young to be aware of that, it was a time when Helms tried to defund the National Endowment for the Arts after discovering that taxpayer money was going to fund art like "Piss Christ", a photograph of a crucifix in human urine. You can find all you ever want to know about this on the net. I don't intend to get into it here other than in relationship to what happened to me.
I was selling at a large and well known show in Asheville N.C. About ten feet from me was a table filled with people selling anti Helms paraphernalia, under a sign that said "DEFEAT HELMS". The jist of this was the message of the people selling the various pins, buttons, and bumper stickers that Helms was interfering in the business of the arts with his CENSORSHIP. Several times I heard a voice saying "He started this fight", meaning Helms. For hours and hours I heard rants and raves about right wing CENSORSHIP of the arts. I also noticed several people from that area coming over to look at my masks. Sure, great. No problem--until the end of the day............the promoter of the show actually came over and told me that "some of my masks where "TO STRANGE", "TO EXTREME" and that he wanted me to remove them for the next day (the last day of the show). Now, you must put this in context. This was a guy who was DEFENDING a crucifix in urine, a man with a bull whip up his ass (yep it was Maplethorpes' "self portrait"), and various other bizarre art works. Yet, MY stuff was "to strange". Yep, I did take it down. At the time I was to naive and to unfamiliar (and not to mention to broke to argue and risk getting kicked out of the show) with the idea of left wing censorship. At the time, I figured it would be the only time I'd encounter such blatant hypocrisy in the arts world. Boy, was I WRONG.
A few months later, I was back in Asheville. I met for the second time a chain saw artist in downtown Asheville who was in town to pick up art from a gallery putting on a show entitled something like (I don't remember the exact name) "What Jesse Helms Means to Me". Helms was still very much in the news in the art world, and in the world of politics. The chain saw artist introduced me to the gallery owner who was sponsoring the exhibition, and she allowed me to look at the art before the opening. Most of the stuff was pretty mundane, such as collages, or student type anti establishment stuff,and a few well executed canvases, amongst which was a very nice super realistic portrait of Helms. It was the ONLY painting of Helms there that did not portray him in a negative light. I began talking to the curator and she told me the person who painted it was a "well known portrait painter in California". Fine. THEN she told me that "the artists had received death threats because of his positive portrayal of Helms in art". SO......in other words, ARTISTS had THREATEN TO KILL another artist for creating ART they didn't like. And, no, I'm not making any of this up, it really happened.
Now, so FAR, as least, no one has threaten to kill me because of my art (but I don't doubt it may happen), but I have been threatened with lawsuits. WHY? Because I create art OTHER ARTISTS don't like. Yes, this is true. Will I continue to create art that offends politically correct jackasses? You betchca!!!!