Respect goes BOTH ways

Thought I would add her to the Doodle Cloth since she is an issue right now and sparked a wave of nude art being added to the "women's voices out loud" exhibit. 
There will be a village council meeting which will address the public art policy and a call for respectful discussion and consideration for everyone's feelings. Oddly enough that courtesy seems to be one sided considering  how the artists and curators were treated initially was less than respectful without any opportunity for discussion and means to address the situation. Nancy and I would have have been MORE than willing to find a fun way to deal with it that would have been respectful of all concerned. 
Some have offered their complaints about what is and isn't appropriate to put in a community gallery and I wonder where have they been all these years? The Village owns this gallery and many of these types of works and the rumbaugh painting have been displayed off and on for years in the Bryan Center Community Gallery and the village (and the naysayers) have had ample opportunity to discuss the content of the work prior to the last two exhibits. Taking offence AFTER the fact and a village employee using borderline legal claim (our work being borderline sexual harassment of village employees and obscenity) against local artists is not conducive to supporting the arts in Yellow Springs and building respectful partnerships.


Author of You Can't Say that David Bernstein " decries the trend by which issues of taste are turned into issues of sexual harassment, thus allowing the most prudish to dictate the public's taste in art." 
Uh huh!

Comments

Yvonne said…
Nudity has been a part of art for EONS...How can one (or two) person DICTATE what is appropriate? I could understand if this was 100 years ago, when clothing covered almost everything, but we are in the 21st century and nudity is even on TV at times, albeit briefly. I see things EVERY DAY on the street, on TV, in books, that I find offensive, but I don't try to censor them unless they are HARMFUL or DANGEROUS. Harassment, BS!
dinahmow said…
This is one of the first blogs I read(before I started my own)and I've always thought that Yellow Springs is the kind of place I'd like to live -arty, happy, lots of fun and a great community spirit.
As you say, where the heck have these malcontents been?
If I don't like some of the work I see in galleries, I just leave.In most cases, I go back for a second look!

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