This story on the web site of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn is charging censorship at the Brooklyn Public Library. The story from the Real Estate Observer is also posted.

A web of political fear seems to be widening across Brooklyn.

There is a an exhibition opening at the Brooklyn Public Library on February 13. It is a re-exhibiting of an art show called Footprints: Portrait of a Brooklyn Neighborhood which was on display in Prospect Heights’ Grand Space in November, 2006. According to the original show’s website statement:
The proposed “Atlantic Yards” arena and building complex in Brooklyn is poised to be one of the largest redevelopment projects ever undertaken in New York City. Its targeted 22-acre site is known as the “Footprint.”

In the midst of the debate over “Atlantic Yards” and Brooklyn’s future, local artists have banded together in an effort to move beyond the sound bites and take a closer look at this place, its community, and at issues surrounding redevelopment.

Their work may be viewed on this site, and will be exhibited at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Main Branch, on Grand Army Plaza, from Feruary 13 thru April 21, 2007.
It is now being reported on the Real Estate Observer blog that particular works in the show’s re-display at the Public Library have been excluded. That’s one word for it. We call it censorship. From the Observer:

He [original Footprints show co-organizer Dan Sagarin] said library officials saw the exhibit when it was up at Grand Space last fall, and decided then not to take the more overtly critical pieces, including one very large portrait his sister, Sarah Sagarin, painted of arch-opponent Daniel Goldstein, as well as other, more abstract work….

Two of the several works the library censored (or “refused”) for being “too critical,” include: an exquisite depiction of the proposed arena as a toilet bowl, by artist and manager of Freddy’s Bar and Backroom Donald O’finn; painter Sarah Sagarin’s portrait of DDDB spokesperson and eminent domain plaintiff Daniel Goldstein. Other “rejected” work includes this photo and this photo by photographer Amy Greer.

The Observer follows up its initial story with this statement from the Public Library which seems to attempt to explain themselves by stating it is publicly funded.

But the statement does not answer the question: how are these works “too critical,” and if they are “too critical” why would that prohibit them from inclusion as per the original vision of the exhibit’s coordinators which must have caught the Public Library’s eye. Everyone knows the “Atlantic Yards” project is controversial and has drawn a lot of public interest. We’ll assume that is precisely why the Public Library chose to exhibit the show. But why, then, have they chosen to cherry pick it and run from controversy?

As reported in the Observer story, Freddy’s will exhibit the “refused” art works, in a show opening on February 22nd with a reception on the 23rd. According to the Observer:
…Fortunately, one of the rejected artists, Donald O’Finn, knows some French, and he is mounting a “Salon des Refusés de la Bibliothèque de Brooklyn” at the condemned bar he manages, Freddy’s, with an opening Feb. 22…