This article does not aim to flesh out the arguments for or against public funding for offensive, or controversial art - I think most people are actually quite good at seeing the clash of ideas at play in this issue already. However there seem to be two problems with debate which have been reoccurring problems for this topic over many years.

The first issue is that most people seem to have an overly narrow understanding of how art is funded - essentially most people forget that a major part of how public art funding is manifested by governments is through the provision of gallery space, not commissioning art per se (although that does go on). Remember the controversy when the NGV purchased Blue Poles? The issue wasn't that the government had paid for that art to be created, but that it paid for the right to display it. Many of the following examples were controversial because governments allowed them to be displayed in public spaces, not that the government paid/subsidised the creation of the art.

Secondly people appear to be constrained by a very limited knowledge of examples, generally limited to Piss Christ and one or two others. Obviously both teams need to be to explain what they mean by 'offensive art' and its value/impacts, and for that you need a decent number of examples.

Hopefully this article goes some way to addressing both issues. The examples in this piece were chosen because they were either very recent, or because they are classics. Also they were selected because they were highly controversial (you might find yourself remembering them as you read about them). Naturally they are not the only examples, or even necessarily the 'best' examples you could use in a given debate on these issues, but they are certainly useful examples to know.

Dutch artist Erwin Olaf's portrait of the late Princess Diana sparked controversy because it featured a Mercedes Benz emblem embedded in her bloodied arm. The picture was part of Olaf's satirical exhibition, entitled Elegance And Perversity shown at the Australian Centre for Photography in NSW July - Aug 2005. The Federal and State government co-fund the gallery. While Olaf says it satirises modern consumer culture, it outraged monarchists. The result was protests and letter writing campaigns, which have failed to have the picture removed.

Andre Serrano's Piss Christ Everyone knows about this controversial piece. It provoked intense outrage amongst members of the Christian community, culminating in a man attacking the picture with a hammer. The photo featured a crucifix (arguably the most important symbol of Catholicism) suspended in the artist's own urine. Serrano said it was a commentary on organised religion, not the existence of religion or of the Christian faith. Catholics in particular and Christians in general, didn't really care what its intent was.

Chris Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary was controversial because it featured a black Mary, smeared with African elephant dung (the artist's trademark) on one breast and surrounded by cut-out pictures of genitalia taken from pornographic magazines. It was displayed at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in '99. After protests about the blasphemous nature of the artwork it was placed behind a plexiglass screen to protect it. Dennis Heiner, a 72-year-old Christian, and retired English teacher, feigned sickness to get near the wall then took out a plastic bottle and squeezed white paint behind the screen in a broad stroke across the canvas.

Responding to the outcry by Christian groups New York's Mayor Rudolph Guilianni withheld the museum's monthly funding and threatened eviction unless the exhibition was closed. The case went to court and Guilianni was forced to back down. Ofili said that the piece was not designed to offend Christians or Catholics.

Prior to this controversy, Ofili, the British born black, practicing Catholic, had been in the news for winning the Turner Prize with his immensely controversial piece Elephant Dung, which really doesn't need much explanation.



Classic Examples: two commonly cited examples of film censorship in Australia are Hustler White and Salo o le 120 giornate di sodoma (it's probably OK to just call it "Salo").

Hustler White was made in 1996 by cult Canadian filmmaker Bruce LaBruce - you should ask Roland about him, I think its safe to say he's a fan. In fact I seem to remember watching another of LeBruce's work at Rollie's one time called "No skin off my arse" about nazi punks being sodomised... good times...

Hustler White is the story of a writer (played by LaBruce) who is travelling to LA to research the male hustling (prostitution/rent boy) scene. The film features images of various perverse sexual acts, which hustlers apparently perform for their clients. It was banned because it featured an "actual sexual scene" (an erect penis) and an "offensive fetish scene" (a client being burned with a cigarette, and being cut repeatedly with a razor blade across the buttocks while the hustler moans in delight). The former meant the film was considered pornographic (could not be shown in a general cinema release), the later objection was said to revolve around the fact that the sex scene would "offend most viewers". The film was shown, unedited, in the US and France.

Salo was made in 1997 by art-house Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini. It tells the story of a small cabal of powerful men, members of Italy's fascist WWII government, who kidnap a group of teenagers and over the course of many days sexually abuse and torture them. Eventually, when the group have satiated their wildest and most sadistic fantasies, they murder the children. Having never seen the film I can't comment on just how bad it is, but it reportedly features scenes in which children are raped, forced to eat faeces, urinate on each other and undergo torture. It's should be a classic example for pro-censorship teams.

Interestingly this film, arguably much worse than Hustler White, was banned for 5 years after it came out, and then the ban was overturned. Numerous challenges ensued, sponsored by state politicians, which failed. In 1998 the Federal Attorney General, Daryl Williams, pushed for yet another review which resulted in the film being banned once more. Again the film can be seen without editing in the US and France (or probably at Roland's).

Want more classic examples to flesh out your debate? Find out more about Romance, Baise-moi (rape me), Ken Park and Happiness - all of which were restricted, banned temporarily or permanently in Australia and other parts of the world either justifiably or otherwise. The first two were banned in Ireland, but so was The Life of Brian so draw your own conclusions.


Recent Examples: two films recently have re-ignited the censorship debate. Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat sparked controversy for two important reasons - its incredibly sick, and it was 'publicly funded'. A perfect example for a debate.

The movie was part of the 2005 Melbourne International Film Festival (which received $500,000 in Council, State and Federal funding). The movie is effectively a documentary following the story of Canada's most notorious animal cruelty case. The men who conduct the torture of several cats (including a cat being hung from the ceiling by its neck, disembowelled and then beheaded alive) claim the acts fall under artistic freedom (which is why it was filmed and hence the title 'Casuistry' - a form of applied ethics). The actual documentary-filmmakers are not the torturers, but have made the film as an exploration of the motives and legitimacy of the torturers. In fact they once claimed that the film sends a powerful pro-vegan message, as well as being a study into the art world's tolerance of animal cruelty.

The final case study is the recently approved Mysterious Skin by American director Gregg Araki, which has an R rating. The Federal Attorney General sought to have the film banned after receiving complaints from Australian Family Association (AFA) and Festival of Light. The film was also shown at the 2005 Melbourne International Film Festival. The movie explores the understandably controversial issue of child sexual abuse, and somewhat like the earlier notorious film Lolita, it is attacked for approaching the issue in a soft, art-house way that critics say dull viewers to real pain and horror of child sexual abuse. It has also been said that the film is tantamount to a 'how-to guide' for paedophiles as it shows a child molester "grooming" his victims before abusing them.

The film is a series of flashbacks seen from the perspective of two men who as children were abused by their baseball coach.

On August 1st, 2005 the film's R classification was ratified by a 4-2 vote of the OFLC.



Hopefully these examples will help shed some light on the relevance and importance of this debate, as well as provide more 'meat' for teams to analyse and contribute to the debate.

It is worth while reading up on (or better yet, go and see) these examples because obviously controversial and offensive art can be interpreted in many ways, and often the artists themselves are loath to definitively describe the motivation for their work.

Again I want to stress that there are many other examples that could be relevant and effective and these are by no means the 'ultimate' case studies for any debate of this type. But I have tried to choose examples that could be used for both sides, and some that are so contested that in specific debates they could end being key examples for either side. Please feel free to contribute additional examples, and to discuss these case studies further.

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