Suspended art

Student artwork removed after School of Art received a complaint

Jeanne Fronda, Staff

Some art isn’t always welcome in the hallways of the FitzGerald building. Just ask Sigourney Burrell, a University of Manitoba School of Art student who had one of her artworks removed due to a complaint from a visitor.

The untitled work, which was a chalk pastel drawing of a naked woman performing oral sex on a horse, was put up on a wall of the fifth floor of the FitzGerald building, which is one of buildings on the Fort Garry campus where art students and faculty work. It was placed in the building’s hallway last month, but was later removed after a visiting party from Minneapolis saw it and commented that the image portrayed an explicit act.

“I’ve been trying to forget [the removal] because it hurt so much having that happen,” said Burrell.

In the past, she had always put up her artwork without conflict, and she said this particular piece was commenting on feminism.

“I’m not trying to degrade females; I’m saying that they’re doing it to themselves,” said the third-year art student, who came up with the image after she had initially written a song about a horse.

“[The drawing] had so many more ideas about it — about feminist reality and how women are portrayed in society. There’s “Girls Gone Wild.” It’s like we’re degrading ourselves, but we’re doing it to ourselves. It’s this weird twist on . . . women having power, and we’re using our power to do [to ourselves] what men did to us before . . . It’s just a woman [who] represents women in contemporary situations.”

Burrell was unaware that her work had been removed, as she had been out of the country on a school-related trip when the complaint was made. Since the drawing had no name signed on it and no message that indicated who owned it, the then acting School of Art director, Mary Ann Steggles, decided to remove it from the wall.

“The drawing was only removed and placed in the director’s office for her [Director Celia Rabinovitch] to determine whether or not it was offensive,” said Steggles. “The drawing has never been deemed offensive.”

Steggles said the party that made the complaint was “contemplating sending their son/daughter to the School of Art.” The party included a grandmother and two children both under the age of 12. The criticism of Burrell’s work was that some members of the party viewed it as an offensive image of a woman who was performing an explicit act. Steggles noted that the complaint mentioned the work should not be in such space where young children might be able to view it.

“We have lots of tours,” said Steggles. “But students probably don’t realize that.”

Steggles said that as the then acting director, she fell within her rights to remove the painting, as her actions were within the guidelines provided to the school by the university lawyer.

“Had the work of art been in a classroom and not in a public hallway immediately adjacent to an elevator used by the public, the drawing would not have been removed,” said Steggles.

According to the Criminal Code of Canada, a public place is defined in Article 7 section 319 as including “any place to which the public have access as a right or by invitation, express or implied.”

Steggles said addressing the complaint was part of her job as the acting director.

“It’s a fine line between people having freedom of expression, which I totally believe in, and whether or not people are offended,” she said. “Some things that are offensive to one person are not offensive to another . . . It’s a hard thing to call.”

Burrell said she found it absurd that her work had to be taken down.

“I find it ridiculous,” she said. “The point in me being in art school is to hang up art and express yourself through images . . . the classrooms are a good place, but you can’t leave things in there. People are always working in there . . . The point of hanging up my drawings is so that people look at them.”

Burrell retrieved her drawing, which was undamaged, before the school’s art director, Rabinovitch, could view it to determine if it was appropriate for display in a public space.