"Tunnel of Love"
- Artist/Author/Producer: Judie Bamber and Carol Ashley
- Confronting Bodies: City officials in Hollywood
- Dates of action: 1993
- Location: Hollywood, California
- Description of the Art Work
- The "Private and Public Pleasures" exhibit included multi-media
installations by artists Judie Bamber and Carol Ashley, which deal with
the repression of female sexuality. The most controversial part of
Bamber's "Tunnel of Love" was a laughing plastic vagina that was placed
on a pedestal and spotlighted. Ashley's "Look The Other Way" included
text describing a lesbian fantasy written on a blackboard.
- Description of incident
- Working for Nomadic Site, a roving exhibition program sponsoring public
art in non-traditional places, exhibit curator Lauren Lesko selected
installations by Bamber, Ashley and artist Andrea Bowers to be displayed
in the storefront window of a vacant, city-owned building donated by the
Hollywood Redevelopment Project (HRP), a program of the city's Community
Redevelopment Agency (CRA). After attending the exhibit's opening, the
Hollywood Arts Council sent a letter to HRP Project Manager Cooke Sunoo
expressing concern that the exhibit was too close to the Visitor's
Center. Sunoo also claimed that although City Councilman Woo's press
secretary Julie Jaskol claims that "Councilman Woo never saw the piece
before or after it was covered up, [and ] has no comment on it."
- Results of incident
- In response to the letter, Sunoo told Lesko either to alter or close the
show. Consequently, Bamber covered the relevant portion of her
installation with a paper bag and Ashley draped black cloth over her
blackboard.
As a result of the incident, CRA enacted a written policy empowering a
"community Art/Design Advisory Panel" to approve or disapprove of artwork
to be displayed in the Hollywood community.
Source: Artistic Freedom Under Attack 1994
