Student claims censorship over art featuring gay porn

By Fabian Mayer, February 4 2016 —

A University of Calgary student and artist says she is being censored after conditions were placed on her art show in the Little Gallery on the sixth floor of the Art Building.

Second-year communications and women’s studies major Zac Slams said the conditions require she place a sign at the entrance warning viewers of explicit content. The gallery door must remain also shut, including at the show’s opening on Thursday evening, where the door is permitted to be “ajar.”

The show is called “Dial ‘P’ for pleasure” and exhibits collages featuring images from gay pornography.

Art department head Brian Rusted said the department has a responsibility to alert potential viewers to the content’s graphic nature.

The Art department, which usually does internal promotions for Little Gallery exhibitions, will not do so for this show.

“We don’t have any obligation to promote the work of someone who’s not in the department,” Rusted said.

Slams claims she has seen nude art displayed in the space without any signs.

“For some reason as soon as it’s gay guys in the work it’s like ‘we have to put a sign up and we have to shut the doors’,” Slams said.

Rusted admitted other artists have explored themes of sexuality before, but could not comment on whether similar restrictions were placed on those shows.

Slams was slated to curate an exhibition by transgender artists in the same space this spring, but that show has now been cancelled. Slams, who secured sponsorship and artists prepared to exhibit, believes the decision to cancel the show is related to her current exhibition.

“They saw a bit of my artwork, they didn’t like it and so they definitely didn’t want me curating a group show there,” Slams said. “I guess they think I’ve caused enough problems.”

Master’s student Alexandria Inkster is responsible for scheduling exhibitions in the Little Gallery. She said it had nothing to do with Slams’ current show and that Slams was free to request another time slot. Inkster said the spring show was cancelled because a faculty member asked for the space.

“Students and faculty from within the department actually have priority access to the galleries for the purposes of exhibiting their work,” Inkster said.