The director of the Detroit Institute of Art has canceled an exhibit of religious and sexually oriented art on the grounds that it is too offensive for the city's multiethnic population. Among other pieces, the exhibit — which opened last Wednesday — included a vial of urine from Andres Serrano's highly publicized photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine. It also included a "Bathtub Jesus" with a doll wearing a condom and a video of British performance artist Tracey Emin, naked, involved in a "menstruation ritual" in a shower. Another exhibit had a racial epithet on the label.
The exhibit is the work of Pontiac, Mich., artist Jef Bourgeau. "It's shock art and that was the point he was trying to make," said DIA spokeswoman Annmarie Erickson. "But when the people inside the museum are questioning it, it was time to reconsider. The museum really feels comfortable with the decision we made. We had a responsibility to the artist, but a greater one to the community."
The Detroit Museum's decision to pull back on a potentially offensive exhibit contrasts with the Brooklyn Museum of Art's decision last month to display a dung-spattered Virgin Mary in an exhibit called "Sensation." Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani threatened to cut the city's $7 million subsidy to the city. The matter is now in court.
The decision to cancel the Detroit exhibition was made by Graham Beal, the museum's new art director, who saw it for the first time Thursday. Mr. Beal then issued a press release saying he "reluctantly" decided to postpone the exhibit on the grounds it would "cause offense to important parts of our community." Detroit has high concentrations of blacks, Catholics (Pope John Paul II visited the city in 1987) and Muslims.
The exhibit, which was two years in the planning, is called "Van Gogh's Ear," and is the first of a series of 12-week installations exploring the course of 20th-century art. The first part, which would have lasted five days, was intended to include references to past art-world controversies. Mr. Bourgeau said the museum's modern-art curator had already signed off on the show last Wednesday. But Mr. Beal balked when he discovered that three of the artists therein were also featured in "Sensation" and ordered the exhibit locked up.
"Nobody complained about the show," the artist said. "Now I have a controversy over work no one's ever seen. It was to swing the gamut from Van Gogh to Tracey Emin, how an artist's life is inseparable from their work. The show was trying to create a dialogue with people, but it never had a chance."
However, Miss Erickson says that ever since the story broke Saturday in local media, she had received 75 to 100 calls, all favorable. "Given everything that's been happening at Brooklyn [Museum of Art], we've been very sensitive to issues swirling around this," she said. "We were concerned with how the community would react. "The artist took the position that this is my exposition, and if you don't like it, tough. There were pieces in the exhibition that would hit on everyone's hot button. He gave us a take-it-or-leave-it proposition."
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