A Lightning Rod of Un-controversy

“Our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive—

the risk to be alive and express what we really are.

~ Don Miguel Ruiz

Isn’t it interesting how life works?  Things just seem to end up connecting.   

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post for The Pinkline Project exploring a simple paradox:  Why, if DC is so politically progressive, is its art culture so strangely conservative? 

The post sparked quite a bit of feedback. 

“Art is meant to make you uncomfortable,” wrote a buddy of mine, “otherwise it doesn’t say anything.  So maybe DC’s audiences are risk-averse.”

“We may talk a lot about democracy,” said another friend, “but once you walk into an agency, many of them function like organizations from Hungary 1959—in other words, repressive.” 

“If that isn’t the great paradox,” someone posted on Facebook.  “It’s something I often think about.”

“Oh god,” someone else commented, “this is so true.”

“Just try going in front of the Commission of Fine Arts with a project sometime,” another person commented.

All these comments rang true.  But one comment in particular struck me.  “Personally,” said a friend of mine who teaches dance, “I am scared to create the art I want to make, because I know what can happen if it turns political.” 

Wow, I thought.  Here is someone who is actually afraid to create art.  What does that tell us about our city’s receptivity to creativity?

But here’s what’s even more bizarre.  As these comments poured in, I also happened to be writing an art review for a well-known DC blog.  The review covered a photography exhibit I’d recently seen at a new local gallery.

Here’s the thing:  the exhibit featured images of nude women.  Shocking, I know.  But it’s not like these images were Mapplethorpe’s, mind you.  There were no scorpions poised on the loins.  No crazy bullwhips.  Quite the contrary.  The photos actually emphasized the natural beauty of the female body.  Were they seductive?  Yes.  Were they dreamy?  Yes.  But risky?  No.  

So, once I finished writing the review, I sent it off to my contact at the blog.  Now, granted, she did have some issues with my style.  (Not everyone’s a fan of casual prose—I get that).  But here’s what’s more interesting.  She didn’t feel comfortable publishing the nude images I’d sent her of the photo exhibit—even though that was the particular exhibit we’d agreed I’d write about.

Bummer, I thought.  It’s 2010, and you can’t even post a piece of art on a blog that is dedicated to covering art exhibits.  I know, I know…people read the blog while they’re at work, and they don’t want nudes popping up on their computer screen.  Fair enough, I thought, and agreed to go back to the gallery director to see if he could conjure up any non-nude images for me to use for the review. 

During all this back-and-forth, it started dawning on me how much the situation resembled the paradox I’d written about only weeks earlier—how DC is politically progressive, yet culturally conservative.  So, just for kicks, I sent the gallery director the link to my Pinkline Project paradox-post. I was curious what he thought.

Turns out he was of the same camp.  “Despite all the great names (Corcoran, Phillips, etc.), DC doesn’t seem to be alive in terms of its own creative life force,” he said.  That’s why he worked so hard as a gallery director; he was desperately trying to cultivate more creativity in our city. 

But here’s the clincher.  Just as the blog editor, the gallery director, and I all reached an agreement on how I was going to write the review (sans those nude images, of course)…then the fated news arrived.

Some of the gallery’s neighbors had complained.  They didn’t like that there were nude images on display.  Think about that for a second.  They literally didn’t like that there were images of nude bodies—the same thing you and I see every day in the shower.

So, what was the outcome?  Well, the gallery director essentially told me that doing a review of his exhibit could potentially jeopardize the future of the gallery.  In other words, it was time to put the kibosh on everything.  That, or totally overhaul the article to couch the nude exhibit within the larger context of their other, less controversial, exhibits.  Either way, he was now redirecting his efforts away from media exposure and towards genuine relationship building with the neighbors—for which I commend him. 

(Side note:  And yes, I realize exposing this story to the public eye could endanger the very gallery I intend to help.  But at some point, you have to take a stand on a topic that is too important to be left unexplored.  Do the neighbors have a right to complain?  Absolutely.  But also think about the stifling effect this has on creativity.  In fact, the director now plans to have his next show be of a less controversial subject matter, just so he doesn’t rattle the neighbors). 

Here’s my point:  Is it any wonder our city’s artists—and directors—think twice before taking risks with their art?  Can you blame them?     

So I ask you this:  How can we, as a city full of passionate and intelligent people, create a culture that is more receptive to creative risk-taking?  Especially when what’s at stake is nothing less than the true expression of who we are.