Censorship Conclusion

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An important distinction must be made between urban protest art and rebellious, anarchic, illegible tagging, as seen under interstate bridges. Street art occurs on a grand scale, and the themes and artistic forms are readily apparent. Such themes can be recognized in Blu’s mural through the analysis of his painting. Through the images depicted in his street art, Blu protests against a greedy corporate war machine, the rich that send the poor to foreign lands to fight for their financial interests. Relatively restrained compared to his previous anti-war murals, Blu’s censored depiction of coffins draped in dollar bills satirizes the well-recognized coffins of soldiers draped in American flags. This satire is meant to question the true motives of wars overseas. Yet the neat arrangement of the coffins and the coffins themselves are meant to respect the dead, honoring the sacrifice the soldiers have made. The mural simply questions the expense and value of life, in support of soldiers and war veterans against the arbitrary and unnecessary dispatch of soldiers and the ultimate loss of life. A private organization should value free speech, especially in their attempts to recognize this right in street art. The value and in fact the constitutional right to freedom of speech is meant specifically to protect unpopular and minority opinions. Now, as depicted in Blu’s mural, the favorable and popular opinions of wealthy men and corporations silence urban outcries for societal change and promote war. This protest, a protest against censorship, is the ideology behind street art. The censorship of street art, especially when commissioned by an organization with prior knowledge and therefore reasonable expectations, amounts to the censorship of the unpopular opinions and protest represented by the themes of street art.

The whitewashing of Blu’s anti-war mural characterizes censorship as the suppression of uncontrollable, unpopular opinions. No matter how unpopular the opinion, especially displayed in an appropriate way and commissioned by a museum, the value of free speech extends to art forms, especially those trenchant in protest and free speech themselves. Street art is a medium of uncontrollable protest and the outcries of unpopular opinions. The true motives of censorship often lie in a fear of the uncontrollable and an attempt to assert power over that which cannot be controlled. The value of unpopular opinions and public protest through all mediums of free speech could not be more important than they are in the wake of censorship. The Museum of Contemporary Art attempted to control an uncontrollable art, just as censorship attempts to control the uncontrollable outcry of people who believe it is time for society to change.

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