About host, Jill Janows, and panelists Margaret Miles, Christopher Leighton, Peter Gay, David Ross, and Robert Peters

First Posting
Peter Gay - 04:47pm Feb 1, 2000

The question as I understand it, has to do with the freedom to speak, print, perform about religious topics. My position is quite simple. I believe in the utmost freedom for self-expression, with two exceptions: 1, if the expression is likely to provoke bloodshed or riots (I should add that i do not mean to encourage people to manipulate situations by simply threatening to start trouble if this or that minority is not heard, and 2, if the expression is deliberately aimed at hurting the feelings of those who cannot very well defend themselves, like children. This point should definitely include religious subjects, so that, say, blaspheny should not be considered unacceptable.

potentially "blasphemous" art
Margaret Miles - 01:47pm Feb 2, 2000

I am against all forms of censorship. Actually, I deplore the amount of violence that circulates in the media, but some of the greatest art of the Christian West could certainly be censured for violence (crucifixion scenes, for example) if censureship were to be done. The problem really is that mass media now brings violence to everyone, whereas audiences used to self select. Thus vulnerable populations are stimulated to copycat crime, while the whole society habituates to more general but deeply pervasive tolerance of levels of actual violence that could be addressed if we really would not tolerate it (enforced gun laws, etc.). Screen violence naturalizes violence so that we expect it, and thus do not seek its sources.

A great part of the outcry against art that is considered "blasphemous" is the result of the publicity given such exhibitions by the media. "No publicity is bad publicity," is the reigning attitude. If books and exhibitions were seriously reviewed as to their artistic merits, their ability to make the reader or viewer THINK, then people could exercise judgment about what they want to read/see, and, in the best of all worlds, all works without artistic merit would be greeted with inattention and indifference. If, however, the work of art is painful to view but makes people consider the world from another perspective, it should receive attention.

Robert Peters/Initial comment to the question
Robert Peters - 02:46pm Feb 3, 2000

Art exhibits, novels, films, and plays have also been 'attacked' on the grounds that they are anti-Semitic, homophobic, misogynist, or racist. National organizations such as the ADL, GLAAD, NOW and NAACP exist in large or small measure to 'play a role in the distribution and exhibition' of art or entertainment that may adversely affect their constituencies.

This is their right under the Constitution, and it is the right of morally conservative religious groups to do the same.

This is not to say that the ADL, GLAAD, NOW, NAACP, a Catholic organization or an organization affiliated with the 'religious right' is always correct in its judgment, but it does say that the answer to the question, 'Should public sentiment play a role in the distribution or exhibition of art or entertainment?' should not depend on whether the sentiment comes from a 'religious' or 'morally conservative' organization.

I will add that a person does not have to be 'religious' to be offended by porn masquerading as 'art' or by gratuitous sex, vulgarity and violence in 'popular culture.' Especially where kids are concerned, most Americans still have a sense of decency."

Public religious sentiment
Margaret Miles - 02:52pm Feb 3, 2000

The question asks whether "public religious sentiment" should come into play in judgements about the distribution or exhibition of works of art. This seems to me to assume that there is a more or less monlithic religious "sentiment" that is fairly evident to everyone. In the present pluralism of American public life this is simply not the case. What affends one religious group will not affect another, making decisions about what is offensive extremely and evidently perspectival. In the current climate of opinion, it seems much more problematic to offend minority religious groups or people of religions that are fairly new to North America. Majority religions, especially Christianity, are more routinely the subject of artistic attack. And, though I am a Christian, I think this is ok. Because Christianity has been the dominant religion in North America, and because it has been so influential in setting American values, social critics are more likely to engage Christian images in the artist's problematicization of American society. My criteria for socially valuable art (again) is, does it make its viewer think."

Inherent Conflict
David Ross - 05:30pm Feb 3, 2000

History teaches us that religous subject matter is inherently contentious, regardless of the level of orthodoxy espoused by either the reader or writer. It is the nature of organized relgion, especially within the context of well-disciplined religous orders, to confront and contain any dissonant message (including those found in works of art) whether they come from within the orthodoxy or emerge from a so-called heretical point of view.

If these statements are true, then it should come as no surprise that religious subject matter in art and literature remains at the center of the continuing American culture wars.

It almost goes without saying that free speech has its roots in the questioning of authority (including religious orthodoxy), yet we seem still unable to tolerate the denial of (or insult to)faith. This anti-democratic hypocracy empowers demagogues of all stripes, (funds political campaigns)and serves to support forces opposed to not only the idea of free speech, but to the idea of free thought as well.

Twice I have been on TV talk shows with spokesmen from the Catholic League for Civil Rights --once in Boston during the Mapplethorpe affair, and more recently in San Francisco during the response to the "Sensation" exhibition. Oddly, in both cases, the spokesmen made a point of my Jewish heritage, and asked if I would be as sanguine if it was being "attacked." Each time, I noted that my idea of Judaism embraced free and open debate of even core beliefs, and that it was my understanding that many progressive Chrisitans, Jews, Muslims and others shared an equally open-minded and confident approach to their spiritual lives.

So, the very idea that a work of art, either by Mapplethorpe or Offili constitutes an "attack" on someone's belief continues to strike me as oddly disingenuous at best. An expressed religius sentiment, especially one embedded in a complex work of art, can only be so simplistically reduced to an attck if there exists no respect for the complex variety of spiritual experience that exists outside of the organized orthodoxies of established religion.

In both instances I stated that each artist was expressing their own sense of the sacred, and exploring their own relation to one of the most personal experiences any human being can attempt to communicate. In both cases, the spokesmenn simply stated that the artists could not possibly be a real Catholics. Immediate ex-communication by lay defenders of the faith seems a bit harsh, but then, that is the level of insecurity expressed by the hyperbolic outrage of religous fundamentalists. When a big city mayor threatens to cut off funding to a distinguished art museum for an analogous offense, he is acting in a similarly foolish manner.

As a nation, we have come a long way in regard to freedom of expression. But as a body politic, the response by hate mongers and opportunistic politicians makes disturbingly clear that when it comes to protecting deeply held religous beliefs we are ready to go to war over challenges posed by controversial art and poetry.

Good art should speak to people on many levels. While it need not always be confrontational, art has no obligation to make anyone feel good about themselves or their community. We owe it to our society and to the core values of democracy, to safeguard artists against tyranny in whatever form it may take, and to keep the idea of free speech as a truly sacred value."

censorship
Christopher Leighton - 10:50pm Feb 3, 2000

The Culture Shock series suggests that censorship is not only ineffective, but the attempt to squash particular artistic expression may unwittingly conceal our complicity within a corrupt social order. The greater task facing religious communities revolves around the development of new habits of reading and interpreting the art work that circulates in the popular culture—and to conduct this careful reading in the light of their particular traditions. This educational duty leads to some vexing questions. What are the aesthetic and theological criteria that different religious traditions utilize in their assessments? Can works of art hold different, indeed conflicting meanings? How then does one adjudicate between these interpretations?

Christians have long known that there is something scandalous about their core religious claims. If the gospel does not startle and offend, it is only because people have been deadened by its familiarity. Art will rattle us out of our complacency and to show us new ways of seeing and envisioning the world. The art work that captures the eye and in some cases disrupts and disturbs our sense of propriety may be serving a prophetic function. For example, jazz offered a potent critique of religious sensibilities that had grown estranged from the sensuous dimension of our humanity. Jazz exposed the failure of many Christians to recognize and affirm their sexuality, and it is a failure that continues to plague religious communities. Jazz also brought to light the social pathologies of racial discrimination and segregation.

In our own time, rap music may illuminate the inability of my own religious community to fathom the dynamics of rage and violence. To read the art that offends us as a critique of my own community’s myopia promises to engender a far more fruitful inquiry than will be advanced by policies of censorship. I think the first task is for our religious communities to enter the fray, to encounter the outpourings of artistic creativity in the culture, and to engage this work in sustained and critical analysis. I want to note that his task does not belong exclusively to a group of specialists. The job presents an ongoing educational responsibility largely neglected that the members of each religious community are obliged to pursue."

shocking art
Margaret Miles - 12:27pm Feb 4, 2000

The function of art is not to entertain. Or, as Picasso once said, "Painting is not done to decorate apartments." It is certainly not to reassure us that our settled opinions are affirmed, either. Art should start conversations (like this one), exposing the multiple ways people see and interpret. I am a little disappointed that everyone who has responded to the invitation to talk about these matters here is so impeccably literate and liberal. I would like to hear what a person thinks who favors censureship, for example. (And I hope this person would explain how it would work. I might favor censureship if I were the person responsible for censuring! But I doubt I'd be appointed to this office and I sure don't trust anyone else to decide what I can see!) The point of talking is to invite the widest possible range of ideas and opinions to engage one another. Let's see what this range is!

response from Jill
Jill Janows - 03:02pm Feb 4, 2000

Thanks to everyone for their thoughtful initial postings. I'm struck by Bob Peter's point that all types of advocacy organizations, religious, political, cultural, ethnic, etc. may have strongly held positions on artworks and seek to play (and actually play) a role in the distribution and exhibition of art. But when religiously conservative (or politically conservative) organizations criticize a publicly-funded exhibit as blasphemous this is sometimes characterized as pro-censorship intolerance. Is there any difference between some Catholics' calls to censor Chris Offili's art at the Brooklyn Museum and the protests which have greeted "Birth of a Nation," a film which has been used as a KKK recruiting film, for much of the last century? Is one principled and the other not? Is the religious aspect a key difference?I'm also interested, Margaret, in your assertion that Christianity is fair game for attack in artistic work because it is so dominant in North America. But just how far could those attacks go and under whose auspices, should the religiously faithful really be asked to pay for them, as they are by implication in the Sensation show?

Second Comment of Robert Peters
Robert Peters - 04:40pm Feb 4, 2000

The subject of 'Culture and Censorship' is a complex and expansive subject. 'Culture' broadly defined includes the worlds of art, literature, entertainment and pornography. 'Censorship' is used to describe both government efforts to restrain or influence 'speech' or 'press' and private efforts. Our nation's founding fathers wisely limited the 1st Amendment to government action, and my comments today focus on four government restrictions.

I hesitate to include pornography as part of 'culture,' but today it is not just clandestine, organized crime controlled businesses that distribute porn. It is also mainstream cable and satellite TV companies and hotel/motel/videostore chains.

But whether its an organized crime or 'mainstream' business, there are still child porn, obscenity, obscene for minors and public display laws that apply. Some people call enforcement of these laws 'censorship,' but the laws are constitutional.

Child porn, obscenity, obscene for minors and public display laws also apply to the sale and exhibition of 'mainstream' TV, film, and music/rap productions.

Presumably, few 'mainstream' entertainment productions violate adult obscenity laws since to be legally obscene, a work must depict hardcore sexual conduct and must, when taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest and lack serious artistic, literary, political and scientific value.

A depiction of a child engaged in sexually explicit conduct, however, can constitute child porn even if the work, taken as a whole, has serious value. Most mainstream entertainment companies avoid depicting children engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Child porn, obscenity, obscene for minors and public display laws can also apply to the exhibition and sale of 'art.'

Most of the 'art' that has been the focus of controversy is clearly not obscene for adults, either because it does not, when taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest or because it does not depict hardcore sexual conduct.

Several years ago, a museum director in Cincinnati was prosecuted for exhibiting photographs of adult sexuality. The jury acquitted the director because the prosecutor did not establish that the photos lacked serious artistic value. By definition, if a work has 'serious artistic value,' it is not obscene.

There have also been a number of child porn cases involving 'artists.' Those not attempting to sexually exploit a child under the guise of 'art' would be well advised to be careful how they pose the child. The law prohibits the 'lascivious' depiction of a child's genitals or pubic area, not nudity per se.

Mr. Peter's comments
Jill Janows - 06:09pm Feb 4, 2000

Robert, these are interesting points about obscenity and child pornography in specific, but the main question for the panel is about art which offends religious sensibilities. The argument against Ofili's Virgin Mary Painting, Dogma, Corpus Christi or to go back to an older example, Piss Christ, was not that they were obscene in a legal sense (appealing to the prurient interest among other things as you point out) but that they were deeply offensive to some and considered attacks on belief.

I can see that the issues you raise would be directly relevant to a case like Lolita, explored elsewhere on the site.

Did I Ever Censor an Artist
David Ross - 07:40pm Feb 4, 2000

Yes I did.

In the 1978 I organized a group exhibition of media art works by young Southern California artists, and invited a wide range of artists to participate. One artist who chose to submit a work without an invitation was a friend of another artist in my initial group of invitees. His name, which I will omit from this account, submitted an audio tape with what he claimed was a recording of a sexual enounter with a corpse he had acquired illegally in Mexico. I refused to put the work in the show as I considered the act demeaning to my sense of humanity, and as such unable to qualify in any fashion as a work of art. As curator, I felt it was my right and responsibility to draw the line and declare my position on this matter.

In other words, as curator or editor, it was my right and responsibility to make a choice based on my own subjective sense of propriety. If someone else wanted to exhibit the work, that would not be my business, and I would take no step to stop that from happening. And today, as 22 years ago, I stand ready to discuss my decision and\or debate a curator, critic or even the artist holding an opposing view.

Anyone who works in the arts make choices all the time, and in that sense, we all act as censors in some respect. My concern is whether or not government has the right to usurp this role, or whether or not religious authorities (in some countries the same people) can impose their own dogma on the public in a broad, exclusionary or even punative manner.

Is art only about feelings?
Christopher Leighton - 09:09pm Feb 4, 2000

In response to the challenge posed by Margaret Miles, I wonder if we can take some hyperbolic leaps and risk landing in some less familiar terrain. I was fascinated by the reasons, actually the feelings of impropriety, that led David Ross to exclude the “tasteless”submission to his exhibition. If Christians, Jews, and Muslims were to assess this challenge, would they have different reasons for their exclusion. Do they have anything distinctive to contribute to the conversation? Is there a theological discourse that might provoke a new way of thinking about the issue?

As a Christian with an expansive awareness of its peculiar blessings and curses, I want to entertain the possibilities that emerge from the rehabilitation of the concept of idolatry—and I want suggest that there is a very different aesthetic that this theological category presupposes. The views that emerged in the wake of the Enlightenment suggest that art does not connect us to an external world or convey transcendental verities. Art becomes increasingly defined as an autonomous human activity, and governmental agents and religious leaders have no business interfering in the freedoms of artistic expression. The trajectory, largely launched by Kant, leads to the notion of “art for art’s sake.” And it is no accident that only in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that museums, art galleries, and concert halls begin to emerge. Art’s distance from religious and political oversight promised liberation from the tyrannical repression of the powerful.

Yet, art’s autonomy went hand in hand with its isolation, and I am inclined to think is also inseparable from its marginalization. Why? Because art is no longer seen as a means of connecting to a reality beyond our own affective experience. Art embodies the inner state of the artist, and our aesthetic judgments simply indicate the emotional resonance of the encounter with the art object. Art is only answerable to itself. So understood, art cannot refer to anything beyond our subjective state, and it therefore carries very little social responsibility. This view of aesthetic experience makes incomprehensible the condemnations of religious folks. Their cries of outrage are written off as a misreading of the work. The offended believers are dismissed for layering an imagined message on top of their own aesthetic reaction. They falsely attribute their own emotive projections onto the art work. Religious protestation gets blown off as ignorance and dogmatic zealotry.

The category of idolatry carries the conviction that art often points beyond the realm of feelings and communicates a distinct kind of knowledge about ourselves, the world, and sometimes even God. Referential art of this kind calls for aesthetic and theological judgments. The retrieval of the concept of idolatry enables the religious community to respond iconoclastically. In other words, the assertion that a particular work is idolatrous might uncover ideological masks and break the spell of those products of the human imagination that prompt us to pursue false ends by corrupt means.

In her scholarship, Margaret Miles has described the dynamics of “seeing” in the thought of Augustine, arguably the most important theologian of the early church. He might sound a bit strident if we were to recover his voice and add it to our panel. Yet, some of his warnings might prove immensely instructive. I suspect that he would not be so timid in his indictments precisely because the stakes are so high.

additional questions
Jill Janows - 01:07pm Feb 5, 2000

Thanks to all for insightful comments. Here are some points I think we could explore further.

Christopher Leighton has mentioned the need for religious people to find new habits for reading and interpreting popular culture and contemporary art. But David Ross alludes to the issue of whether organized religion seeks to perserve the status quo. Does this suggest that the new habits Chris Leighton proposes are impossible? Is the tension between religious understanding and popular culture inevitable? Are there examples of contemporary works that speak meaningfully to both worlds? Would they be hung in museums?

contemporary art and organized religion
Jill Janows - 01:10pm Feb 5, 2000

Margaret Miles speaks of attacks on Christianity in art as possibly ok, but in fact, neither Chris Ofili or Andres Serrano intended their works as attacks. They were more likely, in David Ross' term, to be expressing their own "sense of the sacred." But they were doing so as contemporary artists, who use tools such as irony or ambiguity in their work. Does organized religion, which almost by definition deals in moral absolutes, have any way to respond to these elements of irony and ambiguity? In other words is the "utmost freedom of expression" Peter Gay refers to in conflict with religious dogma?

sexuality and violence in religious art
Jill Janows - 01:12pm Feb 5, 2000

A question for the panel prompted by Bob Peters' comment about gratuitous sex, vulgarity, and violence in popular culture. In some classic religious art of the renaissance and baroque eras scholars have commented on the sexualized way in which the human body is portrayed. This was in evidence, among other places, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition of works from the Vatican Collection, where some art mades a connection between sexual passion and religious passion. Margaret Miles has also spoken in this panel of the intense violence in some religious art (we use the example of St. Sebastian in another section of this Web site). Given these kinds of elements in Christian art, how does one define what is gratuitous and what isn't? Could an exhibition like the Vatican show be as problematic as Sensation?

range of views
Jill Janows - 01:14pm Feb 5, 2000

Also, Margaret, your point about exploring the whole range of viewpoints on this issue is an important one, and, in fact, not everybody on the panel is a liberal. Robert Peters heads Morality in Media.

Thanks again, everyone, for your participation. This is a very rewarding discussion.

No irony necessary
David Ross - 05:26pm Feb 5, 2000

It seems that over-dtermined readings of works of art or literature, which strip them of them ambiguity or insist on only one level of meaning, is the real culprit. I recall a Babtist minister rising from a texas audience in response to a Mapplethorpe/Serrano lecture I gave in 1989, who informed all of us that he felt "Piss Christ" to be a thoroughly religious and deeply spiritual work, as it showed the power of Christ to take what was base and make it into something exaulted. i was stunned, but then had to admit that I never considered that idea about the work before. When I later asked the artist about this approach, he denied this reading, but nevertheless, it remains a valid one that spoke to the needs of that parfticular viewer.

The short point I am trying to make is that irnony is not always the issue, but rather sincerity on the part of both the artist and the viewer of the work.

(No Title)
Robert Peters - 08:52pm Feb 5, 2000

Third and final comment of Robert Peters (PBS - 2/5/2000):

"As I see it, there are three problems with 'Hollywood' entertainment. First, much of it is mediocre at best. Second, there is a pervasive secular and liberal bias. And, third, it is permeated by gratuitous sex, vulgarity and violence.

"For the most part, the answer to bias is not a ban or restriction. The answer is 'balance.' In other words, give both sides to a legitimate controversy -- whether it is abortion, the environment, feminism, homosexual rights, politics, religion, etc. -- a fair opportunity to make their case.

"I can still remember watching the ever-biased, always liberal 'Donahue' talk show in the early-mid 1980s. I hated that show, but I often thought, the answer was not to get Donahue off the air. The answer was to get a talented talk show host on the air who was just as conservative as Donahue was liberal. Of course, that never happened because the liberal, secular propagandists who control the TV networks didn't want the public to hear both sides. Instead of finding a talented conservative, they brought in more liberals.

"But when Donahue began to sink into the gutter of sleaze and sensationalism, my response was that someone ought to tell him to either clean up his show or pack his bags. He did eventually pack his bags, but not because the networks were offended. In fact, the networks brought in more sleaze mongers, until it got so bad that the audience for garbage couldn't support everyone. Donahue's ratings plummeted, and only then did he have to pack his bags.

"Some people believe that the motion picture Production Code did great harm to 'artistic creativity.' In truth, it was the best thing that ever happened to Hollywood -- because for the most part, it prevented the industry from sinking into the gutter of sex, vulgarity and violence in order to attract an audience. It's hard to believe now, but there was a lengthy period of time when the film industry had to depend almost totally on creativity and talent to be successful; and they did a wonderful job of it.

"This is not to say that the Code didn't have its negatives. In attempting to put a leash on Hollywood's wolves and dogs, the Code may also have prevented legitimate examination of difficult and painful subject matters. Therefore, I do not advocate that Hollywood return to the letter of the Production Code.

"But to go to the other extreme and advocate absolute 'artistic freedom' is to play both hypocrite and fool.

"It is playing the hypocrite because there has and always will be pervasive 'censorship' in Hollywood, as there should be. For example, with few exceptions, mainstream films have never portrayed Jews and racial minorities in an ugly light. Once upon a time, Christians also enjoyed that privilege, but no more.

"It is playing the fool because only a fool could choose not to see the incredible power that media in general and films in particular have to shape the values of individuals and societies, either for good or for evil; and values influence behavior.

"Liberals love to champion 1st Amendment rights, and thank God for those cherished rights. But if responsibility doesn't walk hand-in-hand with rights, we will most assuredly lose the rights."

final comment
Margaret Miles - 02:53pm Feb 6, 2000

I hate to sound like a Ludite, but I wish this panel were talking face to face. I have a thing for warm bodies in a room! The comments and questions have been very insightful, but in this format they necessarily end rather indecisively--with a whimper rather than a bang!

Ok, I take the point that Andres Serrano, etc. did not intend their work as attacks on anybody's sense of the sacred. Neverthless, "Piss Christ" was perceived as an attack by numerous people. Artists' intentions do not govern possible meanings. That's why I love conversations about artworks. No one person, including the artist, can tell you "what it means." But conversation is presently skewed by immense media hype of "blasphemous" art. The only possible answer, I think, is not quite that "anything goes," but rather accurate information that allows people to decide whether they want to engage with particular artworks or not, and education that (minimally) helps people understand that religion is not about "moral absolutes" (except, perhaps in the very broadest and most "subject to interpretation" sense). It is about thinking passionately and sensitively about self, society, and world in ways that reflect and live out commitment to a world view. All religious people do not, of course, accept the same world view, but all, I think, in so far as they take religion seriously, endeavor to weave into the fabric of their lives the attitudes, practices, and commitments that incarnate the universal generosity from which the life of all living beings emerges. Some specify further. Augustine wrote in his homily on I John, "God is love; that is all you need to know." The rest, to gloss Augustine, is interpretation and implementation of that fundamental knowledge. What does that have to do with absolutes and even dogma? Yes, we all had bad experiences with religion as children, and these lead to caricature. But a bit more exploration might reveal that religion is about a quality of attentiveness. So is art. Both deserve trained and exercised eyes. Education helps, but years of graduate education are not required. What is required is the commitment to look long and carefully. And, as Martha Nussbaum put it in THE FRAGILITY OF GOODNESS, "We must always be on the lookout for what is there in the world: we cannot rest secure that what we see is something we have seen before."

final comment
Moderator - 05:53pm Feb 6, 2000

Margaret, that quotation from Martha Nussbaum underlining the need to be engaged observers is a very fitting note to end the panel discussion. Thanks again to all the contributors for the thoughtfulness of their entries. Part of the mission of the Culture Shock Web site is to provide context to the cultural conflicts which surround the arts and to spur dialogue. This panel has served that aim very well.