Photo removed from art opening

• By SANDY DAVIS
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jul 14, 2009 - Page: 1B

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A local artist said his work was censored when one of his photographs — a black-and-white photograph of a nude woman — was removed from the Art Melt art show Friday at the Shaw Center.

Forum 35, the local organization sponsoring the annual art show, has since returned the photograph to the exhibit, but Kenneth Wilks, the Baton Rouge artist, said it’s a moot point now.

“The show runs through July 20, but unfortunately it’s really a single-night event since nearly everyone goes on the opening night,” Wilks said.

Susan Brunner, who owns Brunner Gallery in the Shaw Center where the Art Melt show was held, said Monday there were between 9,000 and 10,000 people at the Friday night show.

Erin Monroe Wesley, president of Forum 35, said in a statement Monday evening the group regrets the decision to remove the piece “without in-depth consideration of its impact on the artistic integrity of the piece, the artist, and the arts community.”

Forum 35 “will work to ensure this mistake is not made in the future,” she said, adding that the group “values the arts and considers a vibrant arts community a necessary component of a truly great city.”

Wilks said he discovered his photograph had been removed shortly after he arrived at the Art Melt show Friday night.

He said he was approached by a member of Forum 35 who told him the nude photograph had been taken down.

“She really didn’t give me a reason why,” he said.

Wilks said Real People #3, the name of his exhibit, consisted of two photographs.

One of the photographs is of a woman standing, facing the camera clothed.

The other photograph is the same woman in the same position except she is naked.

“The point of the collection is to draw into question the very perception of individuals and to ask which is the more real individual: Is it the nude with nothing to hide behind or is it the individual that we present with our clothes and how we do our hair and things like that,” Wilks said.