National Trust Faces Backlash Again ….

[naomi24]

…for covering up male busts and paintings at an exhibition to celebrate women.

This follows a number of politically correct fiascos from this organisation. Sad that such a worthwhile undertaking can’t simply focus on its purpose. Time to cancel my membership.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/national-trust-faces-backlash-for-covering-up-male-busts-at-exhibition-a3981526.html

[MWG14]

Mine too.

[spathiphyllum]

"We know it is not unusual for some people to dislike or disagree with what they see in contemporary art.

“This temporary student exhibition at Cragside was not about censoring art or being politically correct, but to encourage people to look at the collection differently and stimulate debate."

Well.. I'm sure we can help stimulate the debate.

Surely selectively covering certain appendages is forcing you to look at the collection through a censored lense? You cant not think about why or what is under the coverings.

[pastafreak]

It wasn't "appendages", Spath ...but rather complete statues and busts. So not censorship in the way you might be imagining.

[woofgang]

well they wanted to stimulate debate and they did.....

[spathiphyllum]

How do they know these busts and paintings didn't identify as female?

[woofgang]

ha ha good one spath

[spathiphyllum]

;)

[kvalidir]

Tedious, patronising gimmicky *** which instead of making us 're-examine our opinions' etc just irritates the bejaysus out of me. Not a National Trust fan anyway tbh, very difficult people to work with or get a straight answer from.

[AuntLydia]

It was for three weeks August to September. "

"This temporary student exhibition at Cragside was not about censoring art or being politically correct, but to encourage people to look at the collection differently and stimulate debate."

Which it did -sorted.

[Mamyalynne]

“Sometimes it doesn’t work as we intended and we accept the feedback we have received."

We live in hope.

[naomi24]

It didn't stimulate the debate intended.

[AuntLydia]

naomi what do you think the debate intended was? How do you know it was not stimulated? The fact the majority of people either didn't 'get it' or were annoyed is cause for debate itself surely?

[spathiphyllum]

Yes, Al

[naomi24]

AL, the debate intended concerned "the thousands of anonymous women who worked at the Elswick Works and Cragside over the last hundred years”.

The people complaining don't appear to be talking about that - and neither are we.

[spathiphyllum]

True

[AuntLydia]

Naomi // AL, the debate intended concerned "the thousands of anonymous women who worked at the Elswick Works and Cragside over the last hundred years”.//

Wrong.

The Exhibition was designed to “highlight the thousands of anonymous women who worked at the Elswick Works and Cragside over the last hundred years”.

The exhibition highlighted the women's role in Cragside . The ensuing debate, including the reasons for and against having it was secondary to the subject of the Exhibition.

[Canary42]

A very misguided move, with no sympathy for those visitors who come from afar with this being possibly their only opportunity to view all the art works.

The Trust's role is to preserve the past, not to follow current artistic fashion and foibles.

The person (people) who made this decision should be sacked for deviating from the Trust's aims.

[naomi24]

AL, what on earth are you nit-picking for? The exhibition was designed to “highlight the thousands of anonymous women who worked at the Elswick Works and Cragside over the last hundred years”. The Trust said the exhibition was "not about censoring art or being politically correct", but to stimulate a debate.”

Canary, I think they’re going to lose a lot of sponsorship if they carry on like this.

[AuntLydia]

Naomi I'm not nit picking I'm correcting you.

The exhibition was created to highlight something. The resulting debate concentrated on mainly what a daft thing it was to do. I totally agree with the absurdity of it and would have been very miffed if I had gone to visit and half the exhibits were covered up.

[naomi24]

AL, you're correcting me but you've got the wrong end of the stick. The resulting debate did concentrate on what a daft thing it was to do, but that wasn't the intention. The exhibition was intended to stimulate debate about the thousands of anonymous women. The National Trust didn't intentionally invite criticism. That would be ridiculous.