64 Arts: Art and Controversy in Rural Illinois

Last spring, Susan Twomey, who curates the Buchanan Center for the Arts in Monmouth, Illinois, put out a call for artists to enter a nationally juried art exhibition called 64 Arts. Among the entries was a collection of vases by a California-based artist named Joe Pinkelman.

Joe’s vases were highly controversial and contained images taken from gay pornography. Twomey struggled with displaying the vases as part of the exhibition even before contest judge Eric Fishl chose the pots as winners in several categories.  This hour on Focus, Chris Berube talks with Twomey, Fishl and Lawrence Weschler, who recently published an article about the contest and the controversy surrounding the vases in the Believer Magazine, about controversial art and censorship. 

The entry deadline for the 2013 64 Arts Exhibition closes this Friday, June 14. Find more information at the link to the Buchanan Center for the Arts below.