US museum pulls video after Catholic complaints

A top Washington museum has removed a video portrait from an exhibition after a group of Catholics said it was offended by an image of the crucifix covered with ants.

The National Portrait Gallery’s “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” has been presenting 105 works of art spanning over a century of American art and culture since late October.

It includes pieces by artists as diverse as Georgia O’Keefe, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Annie Leibowitz.

But the museum removed a four-minute video portrait by David Wojnarowicz after regretting “an impression that the video is intentionally sacrilegious”.

A Fire in My Belly was a homage to fellow artist Peter Hujar, Wojnarowicz’s lover who died from AIDS in 1987. During a segment of about 11 seconds, ants are shown swarming across a crucifix, images the Catholic League called “hate speech” and a “vile display”.

“In fact, the artist’s intention was to depict the suffering of an AIDS victim. It was not the museum’s intention to offend,” museum director Martin Sullivan said in a statement.

But the Catholic League said it was not persuaded.

“To say that it was the artist’s intention to show the suffering of AIDS victims – and not to offend Christians – is unpersuasive,” it said. “Let them next invite an artist to put their bugs on an image of (the Prophet) Mohammed and then explain to Muslims that they never meant to offend them.”

It also wrote to Congress asking lawmakers to reconsider the propriety of funding the Smithsonian Institution, which runs 19 museums, including the National Portrait Gallery, that are free and open to the public.