Q. What is the enemy of art?

A. Most people would agree that the most serious enemy is censorship. Threats to artistic expression of any kind are intellectually dangerous as they can ultimately infect all forms of free speech.

The image above is from a short video entitled Fire in My Belly by the artist David Wajnarowicz which was at the center of a major censorship controversy this year. The video was removed from a show entitled Hide/Seek at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. after complaints from the Catholic League and conservative Republicans. Wajnarowicz’s video includes a short clip of ants crawling on a crucifix, and although this work is widely understood as dealing with the suffering associated with AIDS, conservatives succeeded in having the work removed from the show. Many artists and leaders in the art world were outraged by the Smithsonian’s response to conservative pressure and many staged protests against the decision to remove the work. Probably the most inventive of these was initiated by Mike Blasenstein who wore an ipad on his chest playing Fire in My Belly while he stood inside the museum.

The Chinese artist, Ai WeiWei has been regularly censored by the Chinese government. His studio has been destroyed several times, his blog has been repeatedly disrupted and censored, and he was recently imprisoned on groundless charges of tax evasion.

Artists are often caught up in culture wars by the simple fact that they push our cultural, social, and aesthetic limits and in doing so they may directly or indirectly push the political envelope. Their work can also be used by others for political messaging, which may or may not have anything to do with the nature of their work. It is not hard to understand why creativity and creative expression can be viewed as subversive since the imagination is all that is needed to envision change. The hard part is honoring and protecting the right to personal expression of all kinds.