The Smithsonian censored a Wojnarowicz video, titled A Fire in My Belly, after pressure from the new House leadership to remove the video from the show. This action by the institution has sparked a lot of outrage, but also some really awesome artistic acts in response, such as someone standing in the exhibit wearing an iPad playing the removed video.
A friend who works at the NPG told me these same protestors have set up in a trailer outside the gallery, called the Museum of Censored Art, where they are showing the video. They also created a website, that takes the layout of the NPG website, and subverts it to portray a world where the NPG is proudly exhibiting A Fire in My Belly. (as well as share info about the Museum of Censored Art) Here is the official NPG website, and Here is the Museum of Censored Art site (notice how they even use an url that unsuspecting people might type in to get to the official site!)
Things like this have been done before (usually by unscrupulous businesses trying to get your password or give you popups), and I find this a fascinating use of digital medium to protest and also subvert the political actions of a very popular gallery. This also, to me, shows the potential of digital art to operate totally autonomously from galleries. What do you think?
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