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Re: FW: Exhibiting controversial materials



Dear Curtis,

Congratulations on the exciting new acquisition.  I have had experience
exhibiting (and presenting at conferences) sexually explicit material.  I
was the curator of the photography, art, and artifact collection at the
Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender & Reproduction at Indiana
University for five years.  During my time there, we had three exhibitions
from our permanent collection and loaned pieces to other institutions in
the US and Europe.  Our largest exhibition was "The Art of Desire" (1997)
and celebrated the 50th anniversary of the institute's incoporation.
Although the show did not travel beyond Bloomington, IN, we did receive
national attention for the exhibition and catalog.  Over 1,000 people
attended the opening and approx. 6,000 visited the gallery during the
six weeks the show was on display.  Fortunately, none of the responses
directed to the institute or the gallery were negative.  The Concerned
Women for America did protest the
Kinsey Institute the day after the exhibition opened.  This, however, took
place downtown (not near the institute or the gallery) and focused on some
of the historically controversial (though misguided) aspects of Kinsey's
research rather than anything connected to the exhibition.

We did take a number of precautions to ensure the success of the show.
First of all, the selection process was carefully undertaken by a team of
curators. The criteria used for selection were outlined in the exhibition
catalog and displayed in a statement on the gallery wall.  Second, signage
clearly indicated that the show included
sexually explicit materials.  These were displayed prominently at the
entrance of the exhibition.  Third, and perhaps most important, extensive
scholarly didactic labels were used to place the materials within a
cultural context.  The historical importance of the collection
combined with the scholarly approach to displaying the materials
were perhaps the reasons that no negative responses followed--even
in this conservative region.

Similar strategies were employed for our other smaller shows.  And, again,
we did not encounter any difficulties from any group.

I hope this is helpful to you.  If you are interested in the institute's
exhibitions, you might wish to visit the website at
www.indiana.edu/~kinsey

Best wishes,

Jennifer Pearson Yamashiro
Former Kinsey Institute Curator

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Archives & Archivists [mailto:ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU]On
> Behalf Of Curtis A Lyons
> Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2000 11:27 AM
> To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
> Subject: Exhibiting controversial materials
>
>
> All,
>
>         A group of erotic drawings done by a very famous person (not an
> artist by profession) has come into our possession. They leave nothing to
> the imagination, are quite large and detailed, and portray one or more
> people (usually the artist and his wife) engaged in various sex acts. They
> have been published twice before so they are not anything that anyone
> couldn't already see if they desired. The artist is dead, his wife is not.
>         The library is quite excited to have these and might want to
> display them at some point in the future. My director asked me to query
> this list and ask whether anyone has ever exhibited material that was, to
> the minds of at least some, pornographic and what the reaction was.
>
>                                         Curtis Lyons
>                                         VCU Special Collections
>
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>

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

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      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
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Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>