Photo by FishFeathers. It’s been nearly two months since the Smithsonian removed David Wojnarowicz’s “A Fire in My Belly,” and the criticism towards Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough’s decision has not died down. In fact, one of the Smithsonian’s own museums, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden released a statement on their website decrying the precedent that Clough set. The statement reads, in part: The attempt by any individual or group to restrict the…

Last night, the Washington Jewish Community Center (DCJCC) hosted a packed house of over two hundred people for the highly-anticipated panel discussion “hide/SPEAK: An Evening with David C. Ward of the National Portrait Gallery.” The panel also included Transformer director Victoria Reis, ARTINFO blogger Tyler Green and DCJCC Bronfman Gallery director Dafna Steinberg.

But everyone was there to hear Ward, the National Portrait Gallery historian and co-curator of Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, explain his stance on the Smithsonian’s controversial decision to pull the Wojnarowicz video and their subsequent rejection of AA Bronson’s request, made in protest, that his work be pulled from the show and returned to the National Gallery of Canada.