The Stranger reports that AA Bronson, an artist whose work is featured in the National Portrait Gallery’s “Hide/Seek” exhibition has asked that his work be removed from the exhibit after the censoring of a video that the Religious Right was unhappy with. Here’s his letter to Portrait Gallery director Martin Sullivan:

Dear Martin Sullivan,

I have sent an email to the National Gallery of Canada requesting that they remove my work “Felix, June 5, 1994″ from the “Hide/Seek” exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. I had resisted taking this step, hoping that some reconciliation could be reached regarding the censorship of the David Wojnarowicz video, but it is clear that this is not coming any time soon. As an artist who saw first hand the tremendous agony and pain that so many of my generation lived through, and died with, I cannot take the decision of the Smithsonian lightly. To edit queer history in this way is hurtful and disrespectful.

yours truly,
AA Bronson
Artistic Director

Bronson is the latest arts luminary to renounce the Smithsonian’s censorship. Earlier this week, the Warhol Foundation, a prominent arts funder, announced that it would refuse to fund any future Smithsonian exhibits if the National Portrait Gallery didn’t restore Wojnarowicz’s work to the exhibit. The Mapplethorpe Foundation joined them in suspending funding for the Smithsonian.

Last week, People For’s Michael Keegan traced the path of Wojnarowicz’s work from an expression of suffering during the AIDS crisis to political lightning rod for the Religious Right. Read it here.
You can also sign People For’s petition telling the incoming GOP House leadership not to censor free expressing.