As Te Papa prepares its
own Andy Warhol exhibition it will be aware of the controversy over the
censoring of Warhol’s work in Asia. The latest bout started when his portraits
of Mao Tse Tung were excluded from the exhibition Andy Warhol: 15 minutes
eternal shows in Beijing by the Chinese Ministry of Culture. More weirdly the
Singapore Government also put the skids under the Mao pics in the same
exhibition for a very specific reason. It does not allow political leaders to be
represented in works of art. At all. While not a great moment for audiences or
curatorial independence, before we get too carried away let's acknowledge our
own well developed mode of censorship - self-censorship.
The self-censorship by curators and museums has
ensured that virtually nothing has been seen of Warhol’s homoerotic work of the
seventies: not his best work, doesn’t fit the curatorial theme, wrong dates
etc. etc. The definitive MoMA retrospective had only three mild examples as
opposed to 10 images of Mick Jagger. Needless to say examples of this work
won't be seen touring Asia any time soon. The pages illustrating this post show
the absurdity of where this can all lead. Here's what Frankfurt’s very reputable
Kunsthalle did to Jeff Koons’s Made in heaven series in their catalogue for a
recent Koons painting show and made itself look ridiculous in the process.
Which of course is what censorship is good at.
Image: The Kunsthalle Frankfurt catalogue featuring
a carefully trimmed ‘detail’ of Glass dildo by Jeff Koons. Yes, that it is
Cicciolina's high-heeled foot you can see.
