ABSTRACT
On Saturday 4 December 2010, Michael Blasenstein and Michael Iacavone entered the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, to protest the removal, a few days earlier, of a film by artist David Wojnarowicz – entitled A Fire in My Belly – from the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. The ‘iPad protestors’, as the media later referred to them, positioned themselves within the exhibition galleries, close to the entrance. Blasenstein played the four-minute video – removed by the Smithsonian’s Secretary, Wayne Clough, in response to a sustained campaign mounted by opponents including the Catholic League and Republican House Speaker, John Boehner – on an iPad, hung around his neck. Intrigued and sometimes bemused gallery visitors were handed flyers explaining the motivation behind this attempt to reinstate the censored artwork (Figures 1.1-1.3). Iacavone stood nearby, filming events as they unfolded amidst the visible and growing unease of the gallery’s security guards, until police officers arrived to remove the protestors1 (Capps 2010).
