Expert: AliMcJ - 11/20/2003

Question
I'm having a lot of trouble doing research for this, but do you know of any examples where someone has been executed or punished for a controversial peice of art?

thanks

Answer
German Abstract Expressionists had to hide their work (in false walls) to avoid punishment by Hitler.  The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) hosted an exhibit a few years ago called "Degenerate Art," which these pieces were called by Hitler.  They might have some archived info (their education department is very large and they are very good about answering email, so ask them -- look around on the net a while first, under Art + Hitler; "Degenerate Art;" and Degenerate Art + Hitler.  Hitler + Art + Censorship.

Not too long ago (within ten years, less than) a prominent intellectual poet was executed in an African Country.

A friend of mine in college had his entire Master's Exhibit of Sculpture impounded by the Long Beach Police Department while an obscenity case went on against him -- unfortunately the docents were touring the department one day and one of them was shocked by some very fine artwork no worse than Edward Kienholtz'  Actually, I believe that Edward Keinholtz had some of his pieces seized, one of which in in LACMA now.  Many artists in the 60's had to go to court over their work.

Can we include the McCarthy hearings in this too?  J Edgar Hoover was convinced that "the Jews and Communists in Hollywood" were using film as a propaganda medium.  That's why films before the early 50's were so much more intellectual and better-written than the Rock Hudson-Doris Day pap of the 50's -- the writers caught up in the blacklist left the country; some ghostwrote for others -- and you will find those ghosts behind the better scripts of the 50's.

Don't forget the fatwah put out against prizewinning author Salman Rushdie for "The Satanic Verses."  He had to go into hiding for years, total hiding.  He's out now, since the death of the Ayatollah, but will never feel safe.

It is more common than you would think.

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