Oct
23
Harvard ‘Gay Porn’ Exhibit Used to Attack Obama Official
October 23, 2009 | 1 Comment
Our Constant Readers are aware, I’m sure, of the right-wing media attacks against Kevin Jennings, the Obama administration’s Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools via the Dept. of Education. CLICK HERE for the background on why the right wing has targeted him. Mr. Jennings, who is openly gay, has had his name popping up in the news lately attached to a variation of the phrase “gay porn art exhibit.” That certainly caught my eye. This alleged “connection” has the conservative blogs and others infuriated. What’s the rumpus? The “gay porn art exhibit” is actually an exhibition called “ACT UP New York: Activism, Art and the AIDS Crisis, 1987-1993” currently underway at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts via the Harvard Art Museum. CLICK HERE for more details…
It opened October 15 and is scheduled to run through December 23. A man named Kevin Jennings is listed in the credits as having contributed “gifts and grants” that made the exhibition possible.
The Carpenter Center describes the exhibition as including “over 70 politically-charged posters, stickers, and other visual media that emerged during a pivotal moment of AIDS activism in New York City. The exhibition chronicles New York’s AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) through an examination of compelling graphics created by various artist collectives that populated the group.”
Also included is the ACT UP Oral History Project, “a suite of over 100 video interviews with surviving members of ACT UP New York that offer a retrospective portal on a decisive moment in the history of the gay rights movement, 20th-century visual art, our nation’s discussion of universal healthcare, and the continuing HIV/AIDS epidemic.”
The Carpenter Center and the Harvard Art Museum view this exhibition as “an opportunity to reinvigorate a debate around the realities of HIV/AIDS today, and about the links between visual art, political activism, health, and human rights.”
However, the right-wing media bloggers and others are taking offense to the explicit content of some of the photographs and other materials in the exhibition, and are linking them to Mr. Jennings. If we are talking about the same person — and it’s not clear that we are — then he was among a group of foundations, grant providers and others whose contributions to the Carpenter Center allowed this exhibition to take place. He did not appear to have any curatorial responsibilities.
But the explicit content of some of the materials have now given rise to a new round of attacks. We’ll see if it takes hold in the national media. But if you start hearing Mr. Jennings’ name and reputation connected to a “gay porn art exhibit,” this is what they’re talking about.
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Very interesting news.