Censoring Art

Art is continuously subjected to insidious forms of censorship. This may be by the Church to guard against moral degeneration by the State to promote a specific political agenda or by the art market to elevate one artist above another. Now and in the last century artwork that touches on ethnic religious sexual national or institutional sensitivities is liable to be destroyed or hidden away ignored or side-lined. Drawing from new research into historical and contemporary case-studies <i>Censoring Art: Silencing the Artwork</i> provides diverse ways of understanding the purpose and mechanisms of art censorship across distinct geopolitical and cultural contexts from Iran Japan and Uzbekistan to Britain Ireland Canada Macedonia Soviet Russia and Cyprus. Its contributions uncover the impact of this silent control of the production and exhibition of art and consider how censorship has affected art practice and public perceptions of artworks.