The judging panel at this year’s Aspect Prize [one of the largest prizes for painting in the UK] have kicked-out a controversial oil painting at the annual Aspect Prize show in Paisley Art Gallery, on the grounds that the painting’s title is not acceptable.
The message behind ‘White House wog’, is intended to highlight discrimination in today’s society, yet it appears that the artistic interpretation used to get that message across was just too controversial for the judges.
On hearing the news that his painting had been kicked-out artist Dickson Brown commented, “Changing the title will materially change the work. Discrimination including racism is often hidden away in the mind. A key concept integrated in the piece is what I reckoned to be a pretty obvious ‘thought-trap’
Dickson continued, “We live in a country that’s supposed to have freedom of speech, so it’s a shame that visitors to the exhibition are going to be denied the opportunity to see a piece of art that has such a thought-provoking subject matter. Obviously I feel that the judges have got this one wrong – there’s nothing illegal about my work, so why should it be censored?”
Challenging all forms of discrimination is a major theme of Dickson’s work. ‘White House wog’ is actually about the hope of change. It’s about the hope that one day in the future, fathers will have equal parenting rights …just as in the sixties Martin Luther King had a dream that one day black people would have equality.
As a temporary measure, Dickson has decided to rename the work “I have a dream”, until such times as he has considered whether the painting’s thought-trap mechanism is likely to be widely misinterpreted in the public domain. A photograph of ‘I have a dream’ [the painting formally known as White House wog] can still be viewed in the ‘preview’ section of Dickson’s site [www.dicksonbrown.com]
