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Emergency Screening of David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in My BellyPost an Event »

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SF Camerawork

December 10 - December 10, 2010

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1011 Market Street 2nd Floor San Francisco, CA 94103
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Emergency Screening of David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in My Belly
SF Camerawork and the Queer Cultural Center present: A Fire in My Belly – The unedited video by David Wojnarowicz recently censored from the National Portrait Gallery's Hide/Seek: Difference and Disire in American Portraiture exhibition after objections raised by several conservative members of Congress and the Catholic League without input or discussion with the curator or public. This Emergency Screening is part of a nationwide movement to screen the film and discuss it publicly—in particular the meaning of censorship in the age of the Internet. The 13 minute video will be followed by a presentation by art historian, writer and activist Robert Atkins who will provide historical context for such right-wing acts of censorship and help lead a panel discussion that will include queer activists, scholars and artists. Robert Atkins, Ian Carter, Kim Anno and other distinguished panelists will elicit audience responses and potential plans for making sure such censoring of exhibitions and ideas do not go unchallenged. The evening will culminate by comments from Jonathan D. Katz, curator of Hide/Seek, who will join us from New York via Skype. SF Camerawork, 657 Mission St., 2ndFloor Friday, December 10th, 2010, 7pm On December 1, World AIDS day, the Smithsonian Institution leadership bowed to pressures from the Catholic League and elected representatives of the new Republican majority, ordering the Director of the National Portrait Gallery to remove David Wojnarowicz’s video, A Fire In My Belly, from the current exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. Spokesmen for the religious right have characterized the film as anti-Christian “hate speech pure and simple” and called the NPG’s milestone exhibition, the first at a major US museum to privilege GLBTQ perspectives, an “outrageous use of taxpayer money.” They have publicly called for the show’s cancellation, along with heightened surveillance of federal support for the arts. It is particularly ironic that Wojnarowicz’s 1987 piece should play such a central role in this controversy. In 1992, the year Wojnarowicz died of AIDS, the artist won a historic Supreme Court case, David Wojnarowicz v. American Family Association. The courts sided with Wojnarowicz in his suit against Donald Wildmon and the American Family Association, who had distorted his work for use in a pamphlet protesting NEA funding for exhibitions featuring work by queer artists and AIDS activists. A recent statement issued by Wojnarowicz’s artistic estate concludes “the artist’s fight for freedom of artistic expression, once supported by the highest court, is now challenged again. In his absence, we know that his community, his supporters, and the many who believe in his work will carry his convictions forward.” SFCamerawork and the Queer Cultural Center will join a growing list of institutions across the country to protest censorship by screening A Fire in My Belly and hosting a presentation by the distinguished writer Robert Atkins about the historical and political implications of renewed right-wing attacks on the arts. The film and presentation will be followed by a panel discussion with leaders from San Francisco’s arts and humanities communities including Ian Carter and Kim Anno followed by Hide/Seek curator Jonathan D. Katz who will join the discussion via Skype.