Essay Example on the Controversy in David Wojnarowicz's Fire in My Belly

Introduction

David Wojnarowicz's Fire in my belly was and still is one of the most controversial exhibition videos ever made. In November 2010, the Smithsonian Institution removed an edited version from David's short silent film A Fire in My Belly from the exhibit 'Hide/seek following complaints from the Catholic League and the possibility of reduced federal funding for the Smithsonian.

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Described as an abstract and symbolic short film, A Fire in My Belly is a video shot in Mexico and begins with a shot taken from a moving car down the Mexican streets. The original version of the video which is 13 minutes long is gradually interrupted by gradually and fast-moving shots of newspaper headlines reporting violent crimes. A few other images appear sequentially; a suspended world globe that is on fire, a cartoon-like puppet dancing and a disembodied and dropping coins. Two different gruesome scenes then show bullfight and a cockfight. The scene then gradually switches to an acrobatic wrestling match in which both wrestlers are masked. The camera then takes us to a circus scene; the animals can be seen performing and we are swiftly moved to a Mesoamerican archaeological site with demonic-looking sculptures. This scene lingers on for a while as does the wrestling match. This scene abruptly ends when the dancing puppet is shot at with a paint pistol.

A recurring image of metal wheels turning is again seen. We then see images of street beggars and armed police, candy skulls, a painting of an Aztec human sacrifice and mummies displaced from graves in a cemetery. A tombstone is also seen being washed away.

We are then moved to a scene where halves of a loaf of bread are being sewn together and this scene alternates with that of a man's lips being sewn shut. This is then followed by man masturbating which also alternates with images of sides of beef in a slaughterhouse. Ants crawling on a crucifix lingers on the screen and gradually alternates between shots of blood dripping into a bowl. Finally, the puppet and the globe reappear and both are burning.

Living with HIV/AIDS and being a homosexual was considered a great challenge in the '80s and '90s (combined with the high mortality rates as a result of the greatly feared epidemic). A time when David Wojnarowicz decided to use his art to immerse himself in AIDS politics. David's fire in my belly is essentially an abstract view of vulnerability under attack.

The nature of the controversy

The crude and abstract nature of David Wojnarowicz's a Fire in My Belly raised a whole lot of questions as to the appropriateness of this particular work of art. Despite it being part of a series of work of arts in the "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture" exhibition, Fire in My Belly was particularly brought down as it was considered particularly offensive to Christianity.

Mr. Wildom, a Methodist Minister had previously termed the images in the video excerpt as blasphemous and pornographic (A man masturbating and the images of the crucifix crawling with ants).

The emergence of the internet in the '90s further promoted David's video which had previously been brought down by the Smithsonian Institute. This new discovery exposed a large number of people to something that they would have never known existed before. This led to the beginning of protests on December 1st, 2010 and spread through to 5th December forcing the Smithsonian Institute to respond.

I feel that the controversy was hardly warranted after doing a deeper such into what actually went through David Wojnarowicz mind when he created the video. This for him was a way to express the anger that he felt due to the countless number of people dying due to AIDS and addiction and the fact that politicians used this to their own advantage. Museums can definitely avoid these kinds of controversies by ensuring that an artist's work is fully displayed without any edits as this reduces the legibility of the work. Only an artist can understand the sequence of his art. Despite the abstract nature of his, David was clearly trying to put a message across.

Bibliography

Cotter, Holland. "As ants crawl over crucifix, dead artist is assailed again." New York Times 10 (2010).

Carr, Cynthia. Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2012.