Extreme Reactions to Art

The blogger's headline summed it up perfectly: Another controversy, more death threats. It's almost become a punchline, the notion that any artwork exploring both sex and Islam will be met with a flurry of extreme reactions (death threats, riots, burned-down embassies...again?). The controversy in question this time involves the Iranian artist who goes by the name Sooreh Hera, whose photography of naked gay Muslim men wearing a mask said to depict the prophet Mohammed was pulled from an exhibition at the municipal museum in The Hague once it became clear to the museum director that that's what she was showing.

There seems to be some confusion around whether she misrepresented the nature of the work, but that's really beside the point in context of censorship here (what? an artist must disclose each and every possible reading before being included in a show?). As The Times of London reported:

Speaking on the telephone from an unspecified location in the Netherlands last week, the artist, an Iranian exile who goes by the pseudonym of Sooreh Hera, said she had been threatened with “execution”. She accused the director of the municipal museum in The Hague of cowardice for caving in to Muslim extremists.

Her story is a reminder of the tensions that have put the Netherlands and other European countries on the front line, sending dozens of people threatened by extremists into hiding since 2004, when a Dutch film-maker was murdered on the street and his collaborator driven into exile.

This leaves Hera, 34, in no doubt that she is in real danger. “They said to me, ‘We’re going to burn you naked or put a bullet in your mouth’,” she said, referring to menacing e-mails.

“They say, ‘Now you are locked in your home and you cannot go out any more’.”
[...]
She said that by photographing gay Iranian exiles in masks of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, and Ali, his son-in-law, she had wanted to expose a “hypocritical” attitude towards homosexuality in countries such as Iran, where men can be hanged for homosexual conduct.

“They condemn homosexuality but in countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia it is common for married men to maintain relations with other men,” said Hera.

Of course, Muslims are hardly the only people to over-react to art work (Chocolate Jesus anyone?) or artist statements (death threats to the Dixie Chicks spring to mind), but the worst reactions from any side do seem to come in response to the mix of sex and religion.

Now I'll be the first one to defend the position that folks should discuss other people's religion with respect in most contexts (I think comedy has a bit more leeway to be disrespectful here, so long as that context is clear, and cartoons in particular should have the most leeway [with jokes about threats to one's life and well-being being the line in the sand]), but I do wish the world's religions could grow up to where they were able to discuss sex in the context of faith without offending their God. Surely God would not blush at any question his children might have about their bodies, why on earth do God's messengers?

Oh, I know, I know, the Garden of Eden, and carnal knowledge, and the effectiveness of shame in controlling people and all that...but seriously, God knows full well that Muslim men have sex with each other. Who do these extremists really feel this artist is offending? (Rhetorical question.)

I've been asked before what I would do if work we exhibited elicited threats, risking the wellfare, if not life, of those who might visit and/or work in the gallery. I was lucky before in that this particular scenario (i.e., where the work was first approved and then revealed to be offensive) hadn't been brought up. Back then I avoided the question by suggesting I would use quality as my only criteria in making the decision, but this example illustrates that that was a fantasy. (And so I learn.)

If there was truly a chance that the artist or someone in the gallery might be killed because of work on the walls, I would have to consider taking it down. I like to think I could absorb all the risk myself somehow (send our staff on vacation, hire security, ???), but the truth is the extremist might simply wait to demonstrate their displeasure. How would I live with myself if someone got hurt?

Even in the case of Sooreh Hera, the artist is blaming the museum for the position she's in, as if by standing up to the extremists and exhibiting the work she would be safer?

Actually, if enough museums/galleries stood up, she just might, though. If it was clear that the nutjobs who would kill someone over an expression would not change anything, my guess is such threats might decrease. In other words, standing up for freedom of expression in the face of threats is the only way to ensure it survives. Yes, it's risky, and yes there may be consequences, but there are most surely consequences for not standing up, and I'm not sure in the long run those are not more painful.