The Self-Censorship Trap: Some Artists Walking Right Into It
by Judith Bergman • November 28, 2019 at 5:00 am
The Index on Censorship has identified what appears to be an overly cautious approach to commissioning new artwork. "Artists will create the work that gatekeepers and commissioners will adopt...."
"I love my freedom. I'm aware of the very real threat to that freedom from Islamic fascism and I'm not going to pander to them or justify it like many people on the left are doing." — The artist Mimsy, whose artwork was removed from an exhibit entitled Passion for Freedom at the Mall Gallery, London, on the grounds that it might be "potentially inflammatory".
This kind of censorship among artists, however, unfortunately, only contributes to the ever-shrinking space of free expression. Some artists, evidently, only approve of certain kinds of free expression. They never appear to consider that a similar boycott might happen to themselves, if they happen to fall afoul of current political orthodoxy.
"Ai Weiwei should be the first to know that this kind of thinking is totalitarian.... Political art represents both the struggle and the vaccine against the culture of silence found in any society. The political artist breaks down taboos so that the roads are opened for the exchange of thoughts and ideas between individuals and between citizens and rulers. Therefore, political art is necessary. And so this exhibition is necessary." — Jon Eirik Lundberg, curator of the Læsø Art Hall, Denmark.
Index on Censorship, a London-based organization that campaigns for free expression worldwide, recently launched a new support service for artists, Arts Censorship Support Service.
The service is apparently intended to "push back against censorship and keep the space for artistic freedom of expression as wide open as possible", according to an interview by ArtsProfessional with Associate Arts Producer Julia Farrington of the Index on Censorship.
