Name: Bill Paul's artwork attacked for being anti-Christian, pornographic and homoerotic

Date:  1985 - 1995

Location:  North America

Subject:  Explicit Sexuality , Nudity , Political/Economic/Social Opinion

Medium:  Mixed Media , Installation , Sculpture

Artist: Bill Paul

Confronting Bodies: The Christian Coalition; various U.S. politicians

Date of Action: 1991

Specific Location: Florida

Description of Artwork: In February 1991 an instillation of Bill Paulﾒs work appeared in the art gallery at Valencia Community College in Florida. In this exhibit, Paul wanted to represent the parallels he saw between the politics of AIDS and the genocide of Jews in Nazi Germany. His Valencia exhibit dealt with difficult topics ﾖ male nudity, death, manﾒs inhumanity to man. One piece featured an old suitcase stuffed with phallic shapes, covered in tar and piled to suggest bodies stacked up in the German concentration camps. Another of Paulﾒs works exhibited was a tribute to a man who had committed suicide, and died alone with no one to claim his ashes. Paul decided to give his remains a home. He put the ashes in an old jar and scattered broken glass beneath them as a reference to kristallnacht, the infamous ﾓnight of broken glass,ﾔ when Naziﾒs smashed synagogue windows and stores in Jewish neighborhoods. Thinking the man might have been thinking about religion before he committed suicide, Paulﾒs tribute also included a set of photos of a nude Christ figure with a crown of thorns.



Description of Incident: A clerical worker at Valencia, shocked by the male nudity and the references to Christianity, charged that Paulﾒs work was blasphemous and anti-Christian. The clerical worker contacted local ministers including George Crossley and John Butler Book who then contacted the Christian Coalition. The Christian Coalition sent out a mass-mailing to supporters about the exhibit. The organization also took photographs of part of the exhibit, prominently featuring the male nudes, and sent them to state legislators and Governor Lawton Chiles. Many of the politicians who saw the photos, including Chiles, were aghast. Despite never seeing Paulﾒs exhibit, Chiles took action against it; he wrote to Secretary of State Jim Smith asking him to ﾓensure that future exhibits of this nature will not be paid for by the taxpayersﾔ.



Results of Incident: The Christian Coalition convinced U.S. citizens and political figures that Paulﾒs art is pornographic, homoerotic and anti-Christian, and as such should not be sponsored by U.S. taxpayers. As a result, it has become more and more difficult for controversial artists to be awarded grants.



Source: Florida Magazine article titled "Artist Under Fire" from June 16, 1991 issue

Submitted By: NCAC

 







	


FileRoom Search  |  
Table of Contents  |  
Category Homepage  |
NCAC