tion (FSA) of the Works Progress Administration
(WPA). German photographer Hans Haacke was
met with similar disapproval not by the government,
but by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New
York, for producing an exhibit in 1971 consisting of
photographs of tenement apartments in New York
City, revealing through the accompanying text the
owners and mortgage holders of each property, all
of which was public record. The exhibition was can-
celed and the curator was fired, despite Haacke’s
agreement to remove the names from the wall labels.
In this circumstance, the gravity of the apparently
innocent photographs of buildings is not implicit in
the images themselves, but rather in the context in
which the artist seeks for us to understand them.
Yet historically, the key objectionable image has
been the human body, and controversy ensues
when the body portrayed questions the moral stan-
dards of sexuality, or more specifically, heterosexu-
ality. Whether presented clothed or nude, in war or
at home, in groups or in isolation, the human body
is constantly viewed and scrutinized according to a
society’s value system.
An early example of both political and sexual
censoring occurred with the work of Minor White
(1908–1976), who began his photography career in
the late 1930s. An example of a self-censoring artist
in his early years, White omitted overt references to
his homosexuality. A veteran of the U.S. Army,
White worked and experienced great success for
many years within the acceptable limits of his med-
ium. His first experience with censorship occurred
when White developed more personal work that
was accompanied by his poetry. In the immediate
post-World War II era, San Francisco’s Palace of
the Legion of Honor refused to allow the poetry to
join White’s photographs; it was deemed both too
personal and lacking in patriotism. In the late
1940s and early 1950s, White photographed male
nude subjects that were not sexually explicit or
outwardly homosexual. Bound by his self-censor-
ship, these works were not shown at the time.
However, many of these works were eventually
exhibited in 1989. While homoerotic or homosex-
ual depiction became more acceptable toward the
end of the century, homosexual content was at the
center of one of the most volatile censorship battles
of the century.
The most pervasive and publicized appearance
of censorship in the late decades of the century
was the outcry against photographs deemed to be
of ‘‘obscene,’’ ‘‘indecent,’’ or otherwise distasteful
subject matter, generally relating to prurient or
anti-religious (typically anti-Christian) themes.
Most notable amongst examples of this genre are
the exhibitions by Andres Serrano and Robert
Mapplethorpe in the late 1980s, both of which
erupted in a firestorm of controversy. Serrano,
whosePiss Christof 1987 presented a plastic cru-
cifix submerged in a jar of urine, was targeted by
irate members of Congress and the religious right,
who condemned the photograph as offensive and
overtly anti-Catholic. A series of graphic images
of erotic homosexual activity and nude children in
Mapplethorpe’s 1989 touring exhibitionThe Per-
fect Momentresulted in the cancellation of the
show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, in Washing-
ton, DC, followed by the arrest and indictment
(and subsequent acquittal) of Dennis Barrie, the
Director of the Contemporary Art Center in Cin-
cinnati, who rebuffed an order by the county pro-
secutor to remove seven of the photographs. The
maelstrom caused by these artists was due not
only to the perceived unsuitability of the subjects
of these photographs, but that the artists and/or
the exhibiting institutions were funded by grants
from the National Endowment for the Arts
(NEA), which rekindled the continuing debate
about the purpose of and selection process for
government grants for the arts. While the media
fanfare surrounding the Serrano and Map-
plethorpe cases have made them the most notor-
ious instances, scores of photographers have been
met with both successful and unsuccessful
attempts at censorship that have been decidedly
less visible. For example, works by Alice Sims,
Sally Mann, and Jock Sturges, have been cited
for indecency for their use of nude or seemingly
abused children.
BRADLEYC. Bailey
Seealso:Erotic Photography; Ethics and Photogra-
phy; Farm Security Administration; Mapplethorpe,
Robert; Photo League; Propaganda; Representation
and Gender; Serrano, Andres; Socialist Photography;
War Photography; Works Progress AdministrationFurther Reading
Bezner, Lili Corbus.Photography and Politics: From the
New Deal to the Cold War. Baltimore and London:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Bolton, Richard, ed.Culture Wars: Documents from the
Recent Controversies in the Arts. New York: New
Press, 1992.
Dubin, Steven C.Arresting Images: Impolitic Art and Uncivil
Actions. London and New York: Routledge, 1992.
Foerstel, Herbert N.Free Expression and Censorship in
America: An Encyclopedia. Westport, Connecticut and
London: Greenwood Press, 1997.CENSORSHIP