http://leannegoebel.com/2009/11/09/a-lack-of-awareness-wael-shawky-and-the-non-issue-at-lucky-number-seven/ Award-winning Art & Culture Journalist writing about the Rocky Mountain West and Southwest Sat, 05 May 2012 06:08:39 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://leannegoebel.com/2009/11/09/a-lack-of-awareness-wael-shawky-and-the-non-issue-at-lucky-number-seven/#comment-493 Tue, 10 May 2011 17:17:39 +0000 http://leannegoebel.com/?p=922#comment-493 [...] in January, Egyptian artist Wael Shawky was awarded the Ernst Schering Foundation Art Award. The prize, which is awarded by the Ernst [...]

]]> http://leannegoebel.com/2009/11/09/a-lack-of-awareness-wael-shawky-and-the-non-issue-at-lucky-number-seven/#comment-184 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:18:15 +0000 http://leannegoebel.com/?p=922#comment-184 Censorship – This is a very difficult issue. It is easy to denounce any form of censorship in the name of Freedom of Expression. Were the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery wrong when they decided to cancel the Mapplethorpe Exhibit? It is easy to say – of course they were wrong & that the exhibit was hardly offensive. But, the Trustees knew that they were in the middle of the “culture war”. They knew that they would lose any and all NEA support. The institution was in a no-win situation. It would suffer damage regardless of what it did.
It was very odd to be in Marfa when J Meese decided to do a perfomance of a German’s interpretation of the Wild West (sponsored by Ballroom Marfa). It was simply odd. How interesting is it to have Meese, wholly unfamiliar with a culture mock it and mix his own sexual performance with his preconcieved notions? Fine, I did not care.
In some ways, their is an irony here. Americans feel that they know what’s best for the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Perhaps, in the name of Freedom of Expression, we should send the Chippendales to do a perfomance in Tehran. Things sometimes need to be censored. Noone in the art world does this lightly.
This is a legitimate issue for debate, but neither side is 100% correct. I do not come down on either side of this issue because I simply do not know enough. But, I will say that institutions must sometimes censor things. In fact, they do so all the time – simply in making curatorial decisions, etc.

]]> http://leannegoebel.com/2009/11/09/a-lack-of-awareness-wael-shawky-and-the-non-issue-at-lucky-number-seven/#comment-183 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:44:30 +0000 http://leannegoebel.com/?p=922#comment-183 I find your article (and the story for which it is about) more interesting than a lot of the work that was featured in that exhibition.

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