Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution G. Wayne Clough has emerged from the high castle towers to talk to The Washington Post's Jacqueline Trescott and The New York Times' Kate Taylor. If Clough's pledge that the Smithsonian will "continue a dialogue" is to be believed, it is a dialogue that will take pace at a glacial pace. Witness, [...]

Tyler Green reports that the Museum of Modern Art has acquired David Wojnarowicz's A Fire in My Belly. [UPDATE: In fact it was the New York Times's Kate Taylor who got the story first.] I don't know that I follow how that is the "strongest institutional response" yet to the censorship of the work by [...]

Step outside the southern entrance of the National Portrait Gallery tomorrow, and you'll encounter another establishment set up for your viewing pleasure: The Museum of Censored Art.
Staffed by D.C.-based artists Michael Blasenstein and Michael Iacovone, who initially protested the Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough's censorship of the Hide/Seek exhibit with iPads, and volunteers, the "Museum" is [...]

Michael Blasenstein and Michael Iacovone, who were detained and ejected from the National Portrait Gallery last month for displaying a censored video artwork inside the museum, are back to protest the Smithsonian Institution. They return with a format much larger than an iPad—plus the proper paperwork for their demonstration.
Blasenstein and Iacovone will park a trailer [...]

I'm not a fan of top tens. And because I just began covering art for the Washington City Paper in the middle of the year–with a fall hiatus–I don't feel qualified to give a list of "best shows." But, there are several things I'm ruminating about going into 2011.
The Washington Project of the Arts is [...]

It was, undoubtedly, the Year of the Anty Christ.
Leading off Washington City Paper's Arts in Review issue is critic Jeffry Cudlin's lengthy consideration of the controversy surrounding the removal of a David Wojnarowicz video from the National Portrait Gallery's "Hide/Seek" exhibit, as well as, well, the rest of the exhibit. He calls "Hide/Seek" a game-changing exhibit. [...]

Philip Kennicott says yes. In an impassioned essay for the Washington Post, Kennicott calls for the resignation of Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Wayne Clough, arguing that his official decision to remove a video work by David Wojnarowicz from the National Portrait Gallery earlier this month rolled back on the progress of Smithsonian museums and [...]

During last night's panel at the Washington Jewish Community Center, National Portrait Gallery historian and "Hide/Seek" curator David Ward said that removing an important artwork from the show threatened to undermine the entire exhibit. He said that the work represented a fine example of the themes that the show's critics don't want to discuss. He [...]

Taking a page from the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation says that it will suspend all funding for future Smithsonian exhibitions unless David Wojnarowicz's A Fire in My Belly is reinstated in the "Hide/Seek" exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.
Trustees for the Mapplethorpe Foundation met on Wednesday and adopted a unanimous resolution to [...]

As Tyler Green reported at ARTINFO, artist A.A. Bronson has asked that the National Portrait Gallery return his work, Felix, June 5, 1994, on view in the "Hide/Seek" exhibit. This is a notable development because Bronson's stark, large-scale print occupies a significant place in the exhibition layout. It's also noteworthy because the National Portrait Gallery [...]