What Is DeviantArt Afraid Of?
My friend, the artist/journalist Ben Heine from Belgium, recently posted an image to his DevianArt page. According to Ben in a post to the Don Quichotte Cartoon Committee Yahoo group:
Hello DQ members, as I expected it, my illustration "God is Love - Use Condoms" (below and in attached document) has been deleted and censored by Deviant Art. So I uploaded it again with a "mature content" filter. I was deleted again!
See what Deviant Art is, it allows huge collections of images with genitals everywhere but not a little drawing defying the Institution... I find this pitiful. It seems that political art doesn't have its place on this "Big Brother" site. How does DA dare to call itself "Deviant" then?!
Anyway, I send this mail to suggest you to not open an account on DeviantArt as something like that could happen to you too. Ok, this is a shocking cartoon, but hey, it will never be as shocking as what the Pope said in his plane to Africa...
If you support individual freedom of expression, I beg you to post this image on your site, download it in high resolution, print it, etc so that it can be seen by more people, Thanks. Ben(click on image for full size version-David)
It is well know to many of us who produce art in support of Palestinians that members of the DeviantArt community selectively attack such works as ‘anti-Semitic’ to have them censored and removed by the DeviantArt administration. Generally, we have been able to counter these attacks by Zionists by simply designating our works as ‘mature due to sensitive subject’ labels. This makes the removal of Ben’s work all the more baffling.
As Ben stated, he even labeled his art as ‘mature’ only to find it still removed. Shame on you DeviantArt! Simple searching of the DeviantArt site will uncover many images of male and female nudity with questionable or obvious lack of artistic merit. I’ve seen some photographs that wouldn’t even reach the level of bad pornography of the amateur kind.
Ben’s censored image is not questionable in any way by a rational mind. His statement is obvious concerning the Catholic Pope’s recent ridiculous statements about condom use in Africa. Unfortunately, the Pope has ever right to make dangerous and misleading statements but it is also an artist’s right to respond.
DevaitArt’s actions in several areas like ‘sensitivity’ to Zionist complaints and the type of blatant censorship against Ben should make us all reconsider our association with the DeviantArt site. Maybe we should leave DeviantArt to bad Goth photography and horribly amateur, anime doodlers.
* As I was preparing the hyperlinks for this post, I became aware that Ben Heine’s DeviantArt page is empty due to “This person has been banned from deviantART permanently.”
This action gives me one more reason to delete my own account. I believe it is time to create a site of my own that will showcase editorial art that terrifies the main stream media.
To be continued…
Posts
3 comments:
Dear David I do agree entirely with what you said. Ben is a great artist, cartoonist and illustrator. He can be (this is part of his work) highly provoking, but he never lacks of touch, elegance and style. To ban his artistic works as they were pornographic is highly offensive for and for the artist and for all of those who like and can fully appreciate his work.
Up the cartoons!
Mario aka nerosunero
Dear David,
many thanks for your kind words. I appreciate very much. I'm not seeking to go back to DA. I'm really disgusted to see how they treated me and how impersonal this banning was. This was done almost totally automatically and electronically without even one human being sending a note to explain me the reason of the censure. Thanks Mario for your support.
Dear David,
Dear Ben,
I support you all the way to say your opinion without any censorship or supervision, and you remember our experience with censorship in last January when they removed our cartoons and called it (anti-Semitic)!
I am not Catholic or even religious, but the most shocking thing is not the cartoon but what The Pope said!
I am stand with you all the way and I hope this could not stop you to do and say what you mean and what you would say!
Ben, you are not alone !
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