CARNAL NATION

The governing body of Glasgow, Scotland's Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) has refused to show three works of art by artist Dani Marti commissioned for sh[OUT], a controversial exhibition celebrating the lives and history of LGBT people, because they contain nudity and references to drugs and sexual activity. Among the censored works of art, two videos and a sound installation, were two created during a three-month, £5,000 ($8,250) artist's residency at the gallery. The first video Time Is The Fire In Which We Burn features an interview with a former male escort and porn actor about being HIV positive, using crystal meth, and engaging in sexual acts while high on the drug. The second video Ausmusdad focuses on a 63-year-old man who came out to his family as both gay and HIV positive in his late forties; the video includes full-frontal nudity. The third work is a sound recording from the basement of a popular gay nightclub in Glasgow. Gallery administrators claim that that they planned to reschedule and relocate Marti's works to another venue, the Tramway, in order to "reframe the debate" of the sh[OUT] exhibition. The artist blames political pressure and says that the program changes contradict the stated purpose of the exhibition.

The exhibition, which features work by such well-known LGBT artists as Robert Mapplethorpe, Nan Goldin, and David Hockney, has aroused controversy since it opened in April. Because of explicit content, unsupervised children have been barred from the exhibition, and planned school visits were cancelled. More recently, religious groups protested an installation entitled Made in God's Image, in which the public was invited to write comments and commentary in an open bible. GoMA officials feared that Marti's work would create further controversy by shocking the public. "shOUT is about civil rights," said the artist. "But they are compromising freedom of speech. They are compromising the permission of the people in my art works to speak about their emotions in public. The reaction of GoMA and the council is exactly the same that is happening to these individuals, making it hard to talk about coming out, about being gay, about disclosing their HIV status."

A GoMA spokesperson justifies the program change by claiming that it is for the good of the entire exhibition. "The nature of some of the exhibits, and more specifically, certain elements of the outreach programme have provoked a response that has negated both the artistic and societal endeavour. In order to reframe the debate, a weekend of film and discussion at Tramway will be held and Dani Marti's work will be included... but out first priority must be to protect the integrity of the entire programme, 99% of which is unchanged." Censorship is still censorship no matter how you display it. In protest, Marti has pulled a fourth work, which was not slated for removal, from the exhibition. The artist now promises to create guerilla works of art near the gallery and administration buildings. We suspect that the people of Glasgow will certainly get an eyeful then.