(Woop, Woop) That's The Sound Of The Art Police

I stood, staring down at an image of Duane Hanson's sculpture Woman with a Laundry Basket (1974) and was brought back to a memory of a school trip to the Art Gallery of South Australia during the nineties. At the time, I was just a girl, probably around ten. I remember the artwork's realism being quite impressive, but she unsettled me. She wears glasses, has curlers in her hair, a laundry basket on her hip, and is pregnant. Her face, cast downward, had the look of defeat. She was terribly alone. She gave me a sick feeling in my stomach. I was too young to articulate why I felt this way. It wasn’t until last week during sculpture class, when I saw her again in a book, that I heard myself say out loud in conversation with my art lecturer and peers: I think she’s the reason why I didn’t have kids. The woman represented a life I didn't want for myself, a life of domesticity and mundane routines. A path that girls like me from migrant working-class families went down because back then, choices were limited. I can now translate that sinking feeling as a young girl, scared my future would be like hers, forever trapped in a moment of sadness. This recent connection I made communicates how art can influence our unconscious perceptions, often in ways we don't fully understand until later in life.

During this class, we discussed Andres Serrano's Piss Christ (1987). I was unaware of the artwork but learned that it pushed artistic boundaries and sparked debates during that time about censorship, freedom of expression and the role of art in challenging societal norms. Did this change anything? When I got home that evening to share all of this with my husband Jonathan, he said he was young but remembered the Piss Christ controversy. As a young boy, he came to the realisation that there was a segment of society that didn't believe in free speech. The amount of power conservative Christians had on society surprised and bothered him. This formative moment in time might have been a political awakening that unconsciously deepened his atheism. 

Similar themes of political correctness are now playing out in the dispute surrounding Khaled Sabsabi's removal from the Venice Biennale, due to his past politically controversial works including Thank You Very Much (2006). The decision to rescind Sabsabi’s selection has been met with plenty of criticism. Creative Australia could be accused of acting as the art police, determining what is deemed acceptable for exhibition and what is not. I thought the organization's role was to support artistic freedom, facilitate artistic expression and protect artists from external pressures, not act as gatekeepers. 

Too often, the world seems fraught with rigid political thinking into left or right dichotomies, overshadowing any nuance. Interestingly, controversial works like Andres Serrano's Piss Christ and the removal of Khaled Sabsabi from the Venice Biennale show us how outrage can, paradoxically, amplify the visibility of the artist and their works that are being suppressed. Instead of silencing them, the backlash inadvertently draws more attention to them, potentially increasing their cultural relevance and artistic significance. It’s the Streisand effect. In 2003, Barbra Streisand attempted to suppress the publication of a photograph showing her Malibu mansion from the internet, which only increased people's curiosity about it. Did Creative Australia and conservative Christians inadvertently make us all more aware of works that might not have received the same amount of attention if they had just let artists' art? Do attempts to censor art ultimately serve to promote it, and if so, what does this say about the power dynamics between artists, critics, and the public? 

While we continue to navigate the complexities of censorship and artistic expression, we can say that the value of art lies in its capacity to inspire and provoke. As for my own connection to Woman with a Laundry Basket, art can challenge and influence us in so many unforeseen ways that we may not be aware of at the time of engagement. What art resonates with us can be deeply personal, shaping us in ways that cannot be managed or measured in a spreadsheet or graph. Art plays a vital role in our lives, and instead of shutting out, we should embrace the diverse artistic voices that enrich our social, political and cultural landscapes.