hide/seek

In the Life asked me to story produce a segment on the Hide/Seek exhibition that opened in Washington, DC last year. The original producers left the project and I had two weeks to take their material and create the segment by deadline. I wrote the script over the weekend, supervised a week of editing and then sought clearances for the numerous images that appear in the segment. Being able to work with these incredible images and hear the stories behind them was the funnest part of the assignment.
As the first major exhibition at the Smithsonian to feature prominent American artists with a lesbian and gay perspective the piece broke many barriers. As the co-curators explain in the segment, despite the fact that several important American artists are or were gay - Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly - most major institutions remove any mention of this from large retrospectives of their work. Why this is the case became clear soon after the edit was finished.
At the time this segment had to be delivered the controversy over the David Wojnarowicz video excerpt, "A Fire in my Belly" had not yet broken out. The original piece with it's powerful and disturbing images was created as the artist faced death from AIDS, yet religious political conservatives attacked the Smithsonian and the institution caved in, removing it from the exhibition. Clearly the culture wars are far from over. In the Life ran a follow up video on the controversy.
The original segment can be seen at their site online, or check your local PBS listings for airtimes this month. I took a trip to DC to see the exhibition last month and I highly recommend a visit if you are in the area - it is up until February 13.