Read All About It: Art Guys and Menil Given a UK-Style Thrashing in HuffPost, UK Way Back in 2011!
In case you missed it, (as I did!) a piece titled “Homophobia and the Arts” co-written by blogger James Payne and artist Michael Petry appeared in the Huffington Post, UK in late December, 2011. In the strongly-worded piece, Payne and Petry mention misleading signage downplaying Rauschenberg’s same-sex relationships at several exhibitions as an example of “practices within the art world that keep openness at bay,” but the bulk of their ire is aimed at “The Art Guys Marry a Plant” and the Menil’s acceptance of the piece, which was removed last weekend from the site it has occupied since 2011.
Check out my comments on that article and see if you think Rainey’s and others’ characterizations of my criticism of The Art Guys and the tree piece as “homophobic and anti-gay marriage.” Here’s a typical example:
I agree with your basic point, James, and no one’s been a more public critic of The Art Guys’ piece and the Menil Collection’s acceptance of it than I. As an artist and critic myself, though, nothing trumps artistic freedom for me (and no scare quotes are needed). The Art Guys’ piece fails on the merits, not because it’s anti-gay — in fact, I would have had more respect for an honestly homophobic work that had something real going for it than their piece — but by the standards of social sculpture, their chosen medium. You can’t make a successful social sculpture that’s willfully oblivious to the social context in which it occurs, and you can’t claim to blur the boundary between art and life while doing the opposite (The Art Guys remained married to their wives and ultimately outsourced the tree’s “care” to the Menil, which ignored warnings that vandalism was easily possible and likely).
It’s worth distinguishing between heterosexism and homophobia; pointing out the former without accusing its practitioners of the latter may help them realize that merely voting the right way on a given issue isn’t enough. Of course, that requires their being willing to truly listen and engage in open, honest dialogue, something The Art Guys — and certainly not the Menil — haven’t done so far. Now that you’re giving this international attention, maybe the Menil will.
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Such shocking, uncivil discourse! Elsewhere in the comments, I criticized the author for not contacting the Art Guys and the Menil for comment.