MoMA Gets Censored Smithsonian Exhibit

New York City's Museum of Modern Art has acquired the video created by late gay artist David Wojnarowicz, which was pulled by the Smithsonian after an outcry from the GOP and the Catholic League's Bill Donohue.

The museum acquired both the original 13-minute version of the video, titled “A Fire in My Belly,” and a separate 7-minute excerpt made by the artist; the two are now being shown in a loop as part of a display of contemporary art from the museum’s collection that will remain up until May 9. Mr. Wojnarowicz, who died of AIDS in 1992, made the video in the late 1980s in response to the AIDS crisis. It was included in a show at the National Portrait Gallery, a Smithsonian museum, examining gay themes in American portraiture but was removed after it was attacked by Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League, and several Republican congressmen who objected to an image in the video of ants crawling on a crucifix.

Another artist is threatening to sue the Smithsonian in a protest demand to have his own work removed.

UPDATE: The Catholic League's Bill Donohue isn't too upset with the MoMA move, but he still manages to call the museum's (straight and married) director a "queen."

Unlike the Smithsonian, which is federally funded, MoMA is largely supported by fat cats like Glenn D. Lowry, the museum's director, thus alleviating some of our objections. Lowry makes over $2 million a year and lives for free in a $6 million condo atop the museum. Unlike the rest of us, he pays no income tax on his housing. Looks like the artistic community got fleeced twice: once by embracing the "pathological nonsense" of this masterpiece, and once by the corporate welfare queen who runs—and lives in—the joint.