A controversy about censorship at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery sparked a discussion in Syracuse about constitutional rights Monday night.

Jonathan Katz, an art historian and co-curator of the exhibit, ‘Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,’ lectured in Watson Theater. The exhibit previously included the controversial video ‘A Fire in My Belly’ before officials at the National Portrait Gallery removed the video Dec. 1. The video explores art history from a gay and lesbian perspective.

After pressure mounted from conservative members of Congress and the Catholic League to remove the video, it was taken away from the exhibit.

Instead of focusing on the exhibition itself, Katz talked about the implications of the censorship and the danger it could spell out for American constitutional rights.

‘This is not about queer art, and to some extent, this is not even about art at all,’ Katz said. ‘This is about raw politics in America. Cynical, divisive, enemy within politics.’

To start off the lecture, Katz showed pieces of art from the 19th and 20th centuries to prove that contemporary society is not as progressive as people often think. Several pieces he showed depicted gay erotic encounters Katz said he couldn’t imagine seeing painted today.

‘These pieces were done before the terms ‘homosexual’ and ‘gay’ were even coined,’ he said.

Students found his perspective enlightening and unexpected.

Kassie Brabaw, a sophomore English and textual studies and physics major, said she would have never made the connections Katz did in his lecture.

‘It was really interesting to hear from someone who knows what he’s talking about,’ Brabaw said.

Katz talked about the perception of queerness in the 19th and 20th centuries and said people were only deemed queer when they engaged in acts that were not natural for their particular gender.

‘It didn’t matter what gender your partner was,’ he said. ‘We always assume that the past looks like us, but when we dig deeper, we find out it doesn’t.’

Katz then showed the censored video, a grisly compilation of footage from an AIDS protest and metaphorical snapshots, including the one the Catholic League and other opponents of the video were most offended by: an 11-second clip of ants crawling over a crucifix.

The original video, crafted by late artist David Wojnarowicz, was a silent film, but Katz added a soundtrack to grab more attention in the exhibition. He used chants from the AIDS protest, such as ‘1, 2, 3, 4, civil rights or civil war’ and ‘black, white, gay, straight, AIDS does not discriminate’ to tie the images and the meaning of the video together.

‘This was designed to be symbolic and indirect and to force people to think about issues in the gay community in new ways,’ Katz said.

The gallery’s censorship of the video was the most stupid decision he could think of, he said.

‘I find it very, very ironic that the same Republican-led Congress that read the Constitution out loud is now threatening the separation of church and state and freedom of speech,’ he said.

Katz ended his lecture with a reminder to stay focused on the big picture, calling his exhibition a canary in a coal mine.

Said Katz: ‘We have to remind Congress that the Constitution still holds sway.’

ertocci@syr.edu

Published on February 7, 2011 at 12:00 pm