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Artists censored for dealing with "controversial issues"

Artworks by high school students were banned from the Young People's Art Exhibition in Colorado Springs for having "inappropriate" content.

Addie Green's painting, called "Dismantled Stereotype," shows a high-school football player standing in front of a pickup truck. On the truck is a bumper sticker in the colors of the rainbow.

"Is that a gay pride sticker?' asked a member of the selection committee, "We can't have that ——it's a reference to a gay issue.'

"Dismantled Stereotype" was deemed too controversial, and banned from the show. A second entry, a portrait of a homeless man, followed. The piece was made by a student who had spent a lot of time with the homeless, capturing the gritty life of the streets. The man was smoking a cigarette.

"[The judge] said, "No, no, no, no tobacco use."

(...)
Guidelines prohibiting "controversial issues" were distributed to parents, teachers and students entering the 44th annual Young People's Art Exhibition. Here is District 11's Fine Arts Division of Instruction's definition of controversy:

"Controversial issues ... are defined as those problems, subjects or questions about which there are significant differences of opinion, for which there are no easy resolutions, and discussion of which generally creates strong feeling among people. Although there may be disagreement over what the facts are and what they mean, subjects usually become controversial issues because of differences in the values people use in applying the facts, or, more specifically, themes of violence (includes any kind of weapons), ethnic biases, religious denigration, alternative lifestyles, nudity, gender or racial biases, bias toward socioeconomic and physically or mentally handicapped populations, and safety and humane treatment of all life. Subjects of drugs, drug paraphernalia or alcohol and gang related [sic] subject matter is also considered controversial."

Via Placebo Katz.

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