{"id":3086,"date":"2024-09-23T04:50:27","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T11:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/?p=3086"},"modified":"2024-09-23T04:50:29","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T11:50:29","slug":"on-the-display-of-shocking-art-get-a-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2024\/09\/on-the-display-of-shocking-art-get-a-room\/","title":{"rendered":"On the display of shocking art: get a room"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Guardian<\/em> reports that a gallery in the small Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye was investigated (though not prosecuted) by police after complaints of a painting placed in the gallery\u2019s front window<\/a>. At artsjournal.com<\/a>, where I first found this story, the very knowing headline is \u201cSome Welsh folks called the police on a gallery\u2019s front window\u201d, and so we know where this is all going: rural rubes can\u2019t handle art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

With its literary festival and numerous bookshops, Hay-on-Wye may attract the biggest talents in the arts but, seemingly, not all artistic talent is appreciated by some residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The owner of the Chair<\/a> gallery in the town has been warned by police that she could be committing a public order offence after exhibiting a painting of a naked woman in the front window of her high street shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officers went to the gallery after complaints that the painting, which features a naked woman wearing cowboy boots, her legs splayed to reveal a black triangle with pink wool on top, is not art but pornography. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Poppy] Baynham, a third-year student at Central Saint Martins, part of the University of Arts London, said she was shocked by the reaction to her painting, which had been chosen for the window simply because it was the right proportion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey have said it\u2019s pornography, which I can\u2019t really wrap my head around,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what kind of pornography they\u2019ve been looking at, but it\u2019s definitely not my painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m a student in London and my art never gets any attention like this because London is obviously the hub of art,\u201d Baynham added, musing that perhaps Hay-on-Wye, situated on the Powys-Herefordshire border, was less \u201copen-minded\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I have been to more BFA exhibitions than some people have had hot breakfasts, and I like to be encouraging – these are artists trying to gain a footing, still developing ideas and craft and expression, and the viewer has to be generous. So I am not writing here about the quality of the art – I haven\u2019t seen it, The Guardian<\/em> gives only a partial view, and, well, it is undergraduate work. In fact, nobody<\/em> anywhere in the story tries to claim this is in any way really good art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My question is a different one: what art do you place in the front window of your gallery?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story gets off on the wrong foot by taking to task a complainant who suggested the work is pornography. It isn\u2019t, but the fact that it isn\u2019t is not enough to justify whether a crude painting of splayed legs is something to place where it is in the face, as it were, of any passers by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I support freedom of expression. I have no time for those busybodies who would seek to remove anything they imagine might offend their own tastes from public and school libraries. I think museums and galleries have the right to exhibit works that shock, works that could cause offence to people of varied beliefs. It was deeply wrong to try to prosecute the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center over their exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe\u2019s The Perfect Moment<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But public spaces take us into a different realm. The CAC didn\u2019t hang a large banner on the outside of its building featuring one of Mapplethorpe\u2019s more provocative works, and a good thing too. Because some people really do not want to face that as they go for a walk, or homeward plod their weary way from the office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It doesn\u2019t mean you cannot exhibit the art; it just means that you show some discretion as to what is appropriate, or not, in a public space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A case I used to teach students was Piarowski v. Illinois Community College<\/a><\/em>, in which the chair of the art department (not a student) decided to feature his own work (lol) in a very public space, and where the work was offensive to some staff and students. The college tried to get the chair to move the work to an enclosed exhibition space, but he contested that: somehow he needed exposure to the entire campus whether they wanted it or not. It is a classic Richard Posner opinion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

A decision as to where within a public forum to display sexually explicit art is less menacing to artistic freedom than a decision to exclude it altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept of freedom of expression ought not be pushed to doctrinaire extremes. No museum or gallery, public or private, picks the most prominent place in the museum to display those works in its collection that are most likely to offend its patrons; and even though the consequence of its decision is to discourage \u2014 though very mildly we should think \u2014 the production of art calculated to shock, to outrage, to epater les bourgeois,<\/em> we do not think the decision has constitutional significance.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That some \u201cfolks\u201d in Hay-on-Wye do not like Ms Baynham\u2019s art is not surprising; I have the strong sense that the gallery knew<\/em> this, and was engaged in trolling the residents. But to what end?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Guardian<\/em> story ends:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The painting is due to be removed on Sunday, when the week-long exhibition ends. Baynham said the reaction to it would now form part of her dissertation. \u201cWe are going to do an experiment and get a gallery in London to do the exact same thing and see the reaction in London and what people say and feel.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll take a stab at it: some people in London won\u2019t like it either, but complaints will be fewer because living in London rather numbs a person to this sort of display. It is not greater open-mindedness, just greater resignation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cross-posted at https:\/\/michaelrushton.substack.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Guardian reports that a gallery in the small Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye was investigated (though not prosecuted) by police after complaints of a painting placed in the gallery\u2019s front window. At artsjournal.com, where I first found this story, the very knowing headline is \u201cSome Welsh folks called the police on a gallery\u2019s front window\u201d, and so we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-issues","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/image-1.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3dIW5-NM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1236,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/04\/capital-inequality-and-investments-in-art\/","url_meta":{"origin":3086,"position":0},"title":"Capital, inequality, and investments in art","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"April 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"What are the effects of an increased concentration of wealth on the art market? 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And there are good reasons for that; this is a big, diverse, dispersed country, and local arts councils are best placed to respond to residents' tastes and cultural\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"No services","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Detroit-empty-street.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Detroit-empty-street.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Detroit-empty-street.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Detroit-empty-street.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Detroit-empty-street.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4628,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2025\/12\/john-careys-what-good-are-the-arts\/","url_meta":{"origin":3086,"position":2},"title":"John Carey’s “What Good are the Arts?”","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"December 18, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Literary critic and academic John Carey\u00a0died last week at the age of ninety-one. I always enjoyed reading his reviews. If you hadn\u2019t already guessed how the Bloomsbury set and their literary contemporaries viewed common folk, his book\u00a0The Intellectuals and the Masses\u00a0gives you chapter and verse. I enjoyed\u00a0Henry Oliver\u2019s appreciation of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2215,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2017\/05\/can-art-corrupt-our-politics\/","url_meta":{"origin":3086,"position":3},"title":"Can art corrupt our politics?","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"May 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"At Time magazine, Alex Melamid suggests it can, that the infantilism found in (some) works of modern art has led us, in the end, to an infantile president of the United States: Whatever the intelligentsia nurtures and celebrates in our galleries and academic journals is bound to flow eventually into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"what will this lead to?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Koons-231x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3653,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2024\/12\/art-politics-trump\/","url_meta":{"origin":3086,"position":4},"title":"Art, Politics, Trump","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"December 5, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"A favourite old book of mine from my childhood is Kenneth Clark\u2019s\u00a0Civilisation, which goes along with his television series. 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