Reading the Art World episode twelve: a conversation with Gareth Harris, Chief Contributing Editor of The Art Newspaper, and previously its Deputy Editor, on his his recently launched book Censored Art Today.
If you look at it on a very basic level, I think this populist wave is continuing across the world with governments and that does have implications for artists and how censorship will come to be enforced as such. So on that level, I’m slightly worried that the populist governments, the authoritarian governments as such, will continue to clamp down. And that will have consequences for artist populations everywhere. — Gareth Harris
Listen to this podcast on Spotify and Apple.
Order the book here .
I chose Gareth’s book because it provides a careful and informed discussion of the many ways the centuries old issue of censorship has been increasing the last several years — and the surprising and not-so-surprising ways artistic expression is being suppressed.
Gareth Harris expertly analyzes the different contexts in which artists, museums and curators face restrictions today, investigating political censorship in China, Cuba and the Middle East; the suppression of LGBTQ+ artists in 'illiberal democracies'; the algorithms policing art online; Western museums and 'cancel culture'; and the narratives around 'problematic' monuments.
Gareth has written numerous articles for the Financial Times on the visual arts and the art market, and has also written for The New York Times, The Times (London), Apollo Magazine and Frieze.
Learn more about Reading the Art World here.
Follow Harris’ bi-monthly blog Trigger Warning for up-to-date censorship issues.