Until you take a closer look at artist Mary Tartaro's piece, "Moon Bride," you don't realize it was crafted entirely out of feminine hygiene products.
When Tartaro created the wedding dress as a piece for her most recent show, she wanted to represent women in society and elucidate how, in the past, women were worshiped for their fertility but were sterilized when "packaged" in a traditional white gown.
Tartaro, who is also art programs coordinator and director of the Perspective Gallery in Squires Student Center, said she was told that the piece was too controversial for the show, which was set to open Sept. 5 at the Olin Gallery of Roanoke College.
Director of the gallery Talia Logan said she thought the dress clashed too much with Tartaro's metal works and upset the overall cohesiveness of the show.
"Censorship is something that is edited or pulled from viewing," Logan said. "I consider what I was doing curating."
Tartaro, once asked to remove the dress, decided to take every piece from the show.
"I would not go along with censorship," Tartaro said, who has been director at the Perspective Gallery for about a year. "My stand against that was: Either you're going to deal with my work and allow people to see it, or this show is not going to happen."
Tartaro earned the honor of displaying her work after winning a juried art show at Roanoke College in the spring.
While Tartaro and her husband were in the process of arranging the show, Logan called the day after preparation began and asked them to remove two pieces: One being the dress. and the other a series of taxidermic animals illustrating how nature is devalued in our society. Logan never saw the pieces beforehand and had only seen pictures of Tartaro's works on a CD.
"If you were to see her other pieces with the dress side by side, you wouldn't have known it was from the same artist," Logan said. "I can't stress this enough, I did it to improve the flow of the show ... I did not think it would truly offend."
Leave a comment 0 Comments Write a letter to the editor
All letters to the editor must include a name, e-mail, daytime phone number and affiliation to Virginia Tech. Affiliation includes: year and major for students; position and department for faculty and staff; current city for alumni and parents.