Chicago Art Institute furors
The Chicago Art Institute has been the center of notable controversies, particularly in the late 1980s, highlighting the intersection of art, politics, and community values. A significant incident occurred in May 1988 when local aldermen removed a painting titled "Mirth and Girth" by David K. Nelson from an exhibition at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). This painting, depicting the late Mayor Harold Washington in a provocative manner, sparked accusations of racism and homophobia, leading to a public outcry and an apology from SAIC amidst threats to its funding.
Following this, in 1989, another controversial artwork by graduate student Dread Scott titled "What is the Proper Way to Display an American Flag?" ignited further national debate. This interactive piece included a flag on the floor and photographs related to flag burning, which prompted widespread demonstrations and legislative responses, including attempts to criminalize the act of laying a flag on the ground. These events not only revealed the tensions surrounding artistic expression and cultural sensitivities but also resulted in significant policy changes at the institute regarding how student works could be displayed. The furors surrounding these artworks illustrate the complex dynamics within the artistic community and its relationship with societal norms and governmental authority.
Subject Terms
Chicago Art Institute furors
Date: May, 1988; February 17 to March 16, 1989
Place: Chicago, Illinois
Significance: Controversies surrounding two student art exhibitions raised strong calls for censorship
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) was cast into the national limelight in May, 1988, when black city aldermen marched from the city council chambers to the school—an internationally recognized private art school whose sister institution is the Art Institute of Chicago—and removed a painting from a student exhibition being held in a nonpublic part of the school. The offered rationale for seizure of Mirth and Girth by David K. Nelson was prevention of a possible riot. The confiscation took place after a city council debate on a resolution that claimed that the artist had “demented and pathological mental capacities.” Nelson’s painting is a crude, full-length portrait of the first black mayor of Chicago, Harold Washington, who had died a short time before. The painting presents him as clothed only in women’s underwear, with a bloated belly, clutching a pencil in his right hand. The portrait was simultaneously construed as racist, homophobic, and an insult to the macho tradition of politics in the city. In response to intense public pressure as well as a threat from the city to withhold funds not only from the school but the Art Institute as well, the SAIC issued an apology in the city’s major newspapers and promised to increase its efforts in minority faculty hiring. Nelson’s painting was returned to him damaged, and a lawsuit was waged on his behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Following this incident was a second controversy that focused extensive national attention on the SAIC. The episode centered around an interactive work titled What is the Proper Way to Display an American Flag? by Dread Scott, a graduate student at the School in 1989. Scott’s work consisted of the title in text on the wall and a small photographic collage featuring an American flag-burning demonstration in South Korea and coffins draped with American flags. Below the photo was a ledger on a wall shelf used to register viewers’ reactions. Directly below the shelf lay a three-foot by five-foot unfolded American flag on the floor. The work was part of a minority student group exhibition and opened on February 17. Within a week, the work was provoking daily demonstrations. There was political grandstanding by defenders and detractors as well as periodic rituals of veterans picking up the flag, ceremoniously folding it, and putting on the wall shelf. Security guards would then unfold it and reinstate it in its intended place. Street demonstrations denouncing the exhibit had an estimated 2,500 to 7,000 participants. Some veterans tried to confiscate the flag and close the show. The city and state legislatures passed bills making it a crime to deface and defile the American flag, including laying it on the floor. The Chicago law was later repealed. Financial support was withdrawn from the SAIC and new policies were made to guarantee the right of the institute to determine when and where student work would be shown and to remove any work that the institute saw as hazardous to viewers or disruptive to the educational process.