skip to main | skip to sidebar The New Courtauld Mafia
Wide-ranging, opinionated, accessible culture coverage from the students of the Courtauld Institute of Art.
Thursday, 13 December 2007
A Photo Affair
The Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, The Netherlands, has evoked quite the debate after refusing to display a work of art last week. The museum selected a series of photographs by the Iranian artist Sooreh Hera, but decided a week before display to refuse one of the photographs in a critical series on the Iranian Muslim view on homosexuality. The museum director Wim van Krimpen was of the opinion that this particular picture was purely made to cause an uproar and decided not to make his museum a part of it. He did accept the other photos of the series to be on display. The photos show men in promiscuous positions, obviously referring to homosexuality. The faces of these men are however covered with masks. These masks show the likenesses of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his son in law Ali. Sooreh Hera wants to display, and protest against, the hypocrisy of Iranian president Ahmadinejad’s statements on the non-existence of homosexuality in Iran.
The refusal of the museum to display this one photo came after, amongst others, protests from the Islamic Democrats. This party is represented in the city council of The Hague and protested because they see these photos as very hurtful and insulting. The debate it has led to is focused on whether this is yet another instance in Dutch society where fear for Islamic fundamentalism prevailed in decision making. This is not to say that the Islamic Democrats are fundamentalists in any way but that the display of these photos could lead to repercussions in the future. In my opinion, on the one hand, the museum director has the full right to refuse this picture if, to him, it does not feel right to display it. He tried to prevent his museum from being part of one of the most heated controversies in the past few years. However, this refusal led to full media attention. On the other hand, the artist has the full right to make works as she wishes. Art will not always please everyone and when displayed in a museum it is an individual choice whether to go and see it or not. If you do not want to be confronted with certain matters, you simply do not go to the museum.
Dutch Muslims felt the need to speak up in these times in which a Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, makes one insulting (and insane) anti-Islam proposition in the parliament after another. Similarly, the artist felt the need to speak up against what she views as the intolerance of Islam for homosexuality. With his goodwill move, the museum director tried to prevent his museum from being caught up in this debate. By now, MuseumgoudA in Gouda has decided to display the full series. So if this post made you curious about what triggered this debate, you know where to go. However, to avoid disappointment, do not get your hopes up, because the photos are not that great. Any way, let us in the end value a free country like the Netherlands, which provides the opportunities for all these decisions and actions simultaneously.
Posted by Lieke W. at 12:36
3 comments:
Will C. said...
It might be interesting to relate this story to another conflict between artist intent and museum display recently. Though a bit different, the decision of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, or MassMOCA, to display in its unfinished state a large scale installation by the Swiss artist Christoph Büchel raised similar questions about the relation of artist and museum. Büchel fans like Roberta Smith of the New York Times bayed for blood, criticizing MassMOCA for going against the saintly sculptor's intentions, while others highlighted the fact that the artist had gone wildly over budget and was calling for the museum to buy for the installation in addition to a two story house, trailer, and police car, an airplane.
While a commercial artspace has the ability to present unmoderated the work of artists on its roster, a PUBLIC museum, ideally a place for quality works of art that better the lives of the people it serves, has the duty not to fall prey to the vanity of contemporary artist-geniuses but to assert its judgment of quality. If the scholars in charge of a museum judge works to be of questionable artistic merit or egregiously offensive to members of the community, it is their duty as public employees not to display them.
Though an institution like MassMOCA is about as close to a commercial artspace as a museum ever gets, even they were forced to step in and assert their authority when an artist they had commissioned to fill a space proved unable to do so within budget.
Without having seen the works in question, it sounds like the Gemeentemuseum acted with similarly sound justification in this case. Now if only their leadership would do something about their revolting H. P. Berlage building that calls to mind an ammonia-soaked 1930s middle school, the unfortunate lower level in which a pounding techno soundtrack accompanies the visitor as he browses choice works of the Hague school, and pandering exhibitions that include, in spring '06, one that had as it's unifying principle something along the lines of "oooh, look at all the birdieeesss" complete with bird tracks on the gallery floors.
13 December 2007 13:41
Lieke W. said...
ha, you know exactly where to hurt, when accusing Berlage (one of the biggest architects in Dutch history) of making revolting buildings. I am sure that many disagree (I do I do!)
Also, I would say that the aim of a public museum to "better the lives of the people" sounds quite old-fashioned. In my opinion, a public museum must also contribute to disuccsions and debates going on in society, which the Gemeentemuseum obviously considered by selecting these photographs. This ultimately leads to (self)reflection, which is a higher good than authoratively trying to better people's lives. This case is not at all about vanity of the artist, I see how this fits your contemporary-arts-view, but I think, she makes a valuable point. It is more that the way she expressed it, troubled the museum and many others.
oh, and you must know by now how much the Dutch love techno, it is true culture ;)
