Jack Kingston wants investigation of ants-on-Jesus display
The D.C. arts community is slowly coming to grips with the new order of things in Washington.
U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Savannah, who just happens to be making his case to become chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, was on Fox News this morning, calling for an investigation into a decision by the National Portrait Gallery to exhibit a work of video art that depicts a small statute of a crucified Jesus with ants crawling over the figure.
The exhibit was removed Tuesday. Here’s Kingston:
Said Kingston:
“This is a museum that gets $5.8 million in taxpayer dollars and in the middle of a high deficit, 15 million unemployed Americans, they decide to have money to spend like this…..This is a museum that, by the way, has next to it a display of the American presidents, on the other side, Elvis, and then you go through this – which is really perverted sick stuff – ashes of an AIDS victim, in a self-portrait, eating himself. Male nudity, Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her own breast – lots of really kinky and really questionable kind of art art….
And right next to Elvis, too. Disgusting. Kingston continues:
“They claim that this is not paid for by tax dollars, yet this is a public building with a publicly paid staff, public heat and air-conditioning, if you will, public security. So there’s no question the taxpayers are subsidizing this. It’s no different than the Pentagon going out and paying $500 for a hammer….”
The Washington Post has this brief clip of the removed – and unquestionably strange — exhibit, along with the following:
Officials at the National Portrait Gallery on Tuesday removed a work of video art depicting Christ with ants crawling over him after complaints from a Catholic organization and members of Congress.
The four-minute video, created by the late artist David Wojnarowicz, had been on exhibit since Oct. 30 as part of a show on sexual difference in American portraiture.
The piece was called “hate speech” by Catholic League president William Donohue and a misuse of taxpayer money by a spokesman for Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), the presumptive incoming House speaker.
Officials at the museum and the Smithsonian Institution, which includes the Portrait Gallery, said they had not intended to be offensive by showing the work and removed it to better focus on the exhibit’s strengths.
“The decision wasn’t caving in,” said Martin E. Sullivan, the museum’s director. “We don’t want to shy away from anything that is controversial, but we want to focus on the museum’s and this show’s strengths.”
An 11-second portion of the video shows a small crucifix covered with ants. The video is included in the exhibit, “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture.”
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66 comments Add your comment
dd
December 1st, 2010
4:40 pm
Thanks, Jack. Glad you represent normal folks, and not the weirdo’s who frequent the AJC online site (while most folks are working). Get govt out of this business completely, and then private funders can fund any type of art they want, and take the heat along with it.
DannyX
December 1st, 2010
4:45 pm
Sorry Cindi, ABC uses public airwaves. We should not allow that kind of trash during the regulated 8-11pm time slot. ABC uses “Dancing With the Stars” as a recruiting tool for those that advocate bad morals, the REPUBLICANS.
Republicans undermined Dancing With the Stars before. Ex US Congressman and now convicted felon Tom DeLay pranced on that show before the morally challenged Bristol.
Who’s up next ABC? Senator Vitter (Republican) and his dirty diaper on DWTS? ex Senator Craig and a pretty “tap dance?” Is this what Republicans consider art???????
You Republicans make me sick.
MountainDawg
December 1st, 2010
4:46 pm
More blasphemous “filth” passed off as art…AND funded (as Kingston stated) on the taxpayer dime. Imagine the uproar if a star of David or Star and crescent was portrayed in such a manner.
SUSETTE WILLIAMS
December 1st, 2010
4:49 pm
NOT WITH MY TAX DOLLARS!
Legend of Len Barker
December 1st, 2010
4:58 pm
Don’t tell Jack this, but our public libraries also have books that he might find questionable. Government funds public libraries.
Government funds things for the people. Including stuff you might not agree with, Kingston.
You have it backwards. If you want to censor it, you pay for a private business, a private art gallery to exclude it.
Besides, if you can claim that this shouldn’t be on display in a public gallery and shouldn’t be funded, I should be able to maintain my residence in your district* and be able to claim whoever the heck I want as my representative. Especially since I voted against you in November.
* Berrien County. Yes, I admit it.
Bobby Anthony
December 1st, 2010
4:58 pm
I agree with Jack.
Think About It
December 1st, 2010
5:04 pm
Well, I didn’t want my tax dollars being spent on unjust wars. It’s not like the artist as an individual was being supported by tax dollars (at least this article did not explicitly say he was), just the display of the installation’s final outcome. I’m fine with that, as long as there are displays promoting multiple viewpoints.
I believe someone already made the point, but in order to develop one’s own opinion of what he/she finds appealing, of what he/she agrees with intellectually and politically, a person must be introduced to multiple perspectives. It’s difficult to grow if you don’t work at it – no pain, no gain, right?
Art should challenge you and the way you perceive the world – religious art of the Renaissance helped people in Western Europe to better understand their own world through the stories in the Bible (because the Catholic Church was the most powerful entity around not because those parables are the most effective at explaining everyday life, but I digress), while a theme found throughout art in the 20th century is the attempt by survivors and bystanders to make sense of immense suffering. A theme found in the work of art in question.
I’m sorry you were offended by a dead man’s video art installation. How much of your tax money do you really think went to support this – and, by removing it from a gallery that is still open, how much do you think you will save?
‘Hide/Seek’ Portrait Draws Calls For Congressional Investigation | The State of the Union
December 1st, 2010
8:07 pm
[...] A GOP lawmaker from Georgia is breaking ground on the party’s ambitious new agenda by calling for a congressional investigation into a recently removed artwork in the National Portrait Gallery that featured a controversial [...]
EV
December 1st, 2010
8:48 pm
” Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
troglodyke
December 1st, 2010
9:12 pm
The DoI is the foundation of our government. It is our foundational document. American Exceptionalism exists because our Founders were able to establish this country on a foundation that includes strong Biblical principles. Ours is not a Godless Constitution.
Where did you study history? In Sunday School?
Must be, because that’s where the grown-ups who believe in fairy tales (yeah, the gloves come off when I’m up against delusions) tell you stuff like the above.
The CONSTITUTION is the governing document of our country, sir. You know, that document all your Republicans are always railing about? Funny how you ignore it when you want to try to convince people that our country is a Xtian one. Please tell me where in the U.S. Constitution god is mentioned. Or have you ever read it?
Miz Trog…dyke, you certainly are exercising your free speech rights–of blaspheming the Lord Jesus Christ, but you should know that your speech is in no sense free as one day the price you pay for your blasphemy will require the ultimate payment.
I’m shaking in my boots. Really. You believers are so smug when you tell us we are going to hell. When you can produce evidence of any of your stories, I’ll be upset about blaspheming your invisible deity.
Truth be told, I am generally one of those “live-and-let-live” atheists. I rarely voice my opinions as strongly as I have done so here. But I get tired of being stomped on and lied about. If you think atheists are angry, in a sense, you are right–but it has nothing to do with “not knowing” your god. It has to do with your continued ignorance and smugness and using our system of secular laws to benefit your religion and your religious beliefs.
Atheists bend over backwards every day to avoid seeming angry or confrontational, and that includes me. We allow people like you, who have not studied history properly, who want to demean us for our ability to reason and not be controlled by religion, who lie to children and the uneducated about this being a “Xtian country,” to have the upper hand 99% of the time.
Sorry to be so blunt, but I get sick of it.
As for taxpayers funding art, blasphemous or not, I’m against it.
Republican Congressman Calls For Congressional Investigation Of Controversial Artwork · Live Video Streaming, Online Video Platform & HD Stream
December 1st, 2010
9:17 pm
[...] GOP lawmaker from Georgia is breaking ground on the party’s ambitious new agenda by calling for a congressional investigation into a recently removed artwork in the National Portrait Gallery that featured a controversial [...]
Truth Wins Out - Wingnut Georgia Congressman Wants ‘Investigation’ of Smithsonian
December 2nd, 2010
2:25 pm
[...] to the New Normal, where hicks call for investigations into art exhibitions. Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Savannah, [...]
Sammy
December 2nd, 2010
3:07 pm
Guess what! I’m a taxpayer, and I’m glad my tax dollars support public, government-funded art.
I am, though, tired of my tax dollars being spent on charter schools, NASA, a couple of profit-generating “wars,” corporate welfare/tax breaks for the likes of Enron and Halliburton, and road repairs for the parts of town and the USofA I never drive in.
Hmph!
Conservatives Attack Smithsonian Art with Religious and HIV/AIDS Theme | GLAADBlog.org
December 2nd, 2010
3:09 pm
[...] acknowledged the private funding, but still says it should be investigated, saying “They claim that this is not paid for by tax dollars, yet this is a public building with [...]
Sammy
December 2nd, 2010
3:16 pm
A crucifix with ants crawling all over it ain’t art!
A crucifix with maggots painted red, white, and blue crawling all over it, though, now that’s art!
December 4, 2010 « Stevex09
December 4th, 2010
2:29 pm
[...] entitiy. They get something like $5.8 MILLION, and then used it to put this crap on display. “Officials at the museum and the Smithsonian Institution, which includes the Portrait Gallery, said t… …” Jeez, what kind of pin-heads are running that place? “they had not intended [...]