The Human Zoo (compact version)

Here is a shorter version of a longer blog piece: Catherine Bennett (“What price artistic freedom when the bullies turn up?”) writes that “I struggle to see the essential difference between [Lee] Jasper’s determination to deny sight of Exhibit B to London audiences and the remarks by Lord Griffith-Jones in the Lady Chatterley trial, in 1960: ‘Is it a book that you would ever wish your wife or your servants to read?’” As no other white commentator seems willing to defend the protesters, let me attempt to clarify.

The Human Zoo and the ‘Censorship’ Debate

Today’s comment piece in The Observer by Catherine Bennett (“What price artistic freedom when the bullies turn up?”) was the latest piece of hand-wringing despair in our media at the success of the campaign to pressure the Barbican to withdraw (some say ‘censor’) ‘Exhibit B’. Bennett compared it to the protests over ‘Jerry Springer: The Opera’ and Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s ‘Behzti’, ending by admitting that “I struggle to see the essential difference between [Lee] Jasper’s determination to deny sight of Exhibit B to London audiences and the remarks by Lord Griffith-Jones in the Lady Chatterley trial, in 1960: ‘Is it a book that you would ever wish your wife or your servants to read?’” As no other white commentator seems willing to defend the protesters, let me attempt to clarify.

Gerhard Richter

i. Grey

The grey monotony of
meaningless patterns

Miro @ Tate Modern

The hot and spongy landscapes
Of Catalonia
Swirling dangerously
While calm animals tend the land’s
fruits with impossible tranquility.

The people labour –
Emerge in outline
Disappear into symbols.

The artist – the consciousness of the world
The consciousness of the world – the art.