My censored digital painting, Bonfire of the Vanities Redux, was exhibited and part of the M 1563 inaugural sale during Miami Art Week in December 2022. You can view it here: https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xe118c9c2fc6742748441550fe22778893b772aa6/70
By the way, this is not associated with the fake Medici, the Cozomo de Medici account on Twitter. This is the Royal House of Medici, yeah the real Medici in Italy.
My painting that I finally decided to mint on Super Rare was censored and never included in the M 1563 inaugural sale in Miami. Here’s the story of how my painting censored by the real Medici:
I was already accepted into the inaugural Royal House of Medici show in December 2022 and I had signed an NDA. They challenged us to illustrate some historical event in our own way.
I need to mention one thing that puts a bit of a twist in all of this. I collaborated with Michael Stark on this painting. Michael Stark (friend, super collector, Medici Community Organizer) and I talked a lot about what scene I would illustrate and he gave me some great ideas which I used. I ultimately decided on Bonfire of the Vanities as I was attracted to the idea of illustrating censorship, and purging objects as ordained by religious leaders. Read more about the Bonfire of the Vanities here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonfire_of_the_vanities
Michael is one of my biggest collectors, and he’s also the Chief Community Organizer of the Royal House of Medici. He and I worked back and forth for a week or more discussing details, and I added a lot of people he suggested into the fire. If you look closely you can find over 50+ people who have been persecuted, censored, killed or have otherwise made some big contribution to society. The main topic of my painting is censorship. LOL!
So, after a few weeks of working diligently on the painting, I finally shared my painting. Then I got a call.
When I got the call saying someone in the higher ups in the Medici chain had decided my art needed to be “sterilized”, I was in shock. Utter complete fucking shock.
The woman’s body that was sawed in half was the problem according to them. I was told it was too grotesque, too violent, and also didn’t properly depict the Italian history. Also, I had put His Royal Highness into the scene, and that was problematic as well. I was instructed to replace the sawed in half woman’s body with something less violent, less bloody, more palatable. I really got the sense that these people at the top of the Medici food chain were more worried about how my bloody art would reflect on their precious egos and legacy. As if censoring artists has anything to do with creating a legacy of art….. What a total shitshow.
I spent quite a long time on the phone screaming, and at one point I remember threatening to expose this whole thing. I was disgusted, angry, and even though others have pointed out, I am not a Chinese artist and don’t have to deal with totalitarian governments, for me personally, I was in a really shit situation. I really felt like walking out right then and there. I should have but I had already agreed the show, made plans to go to Miami, and was so personally invested in sharing my artwork, that I instead caved in and accepted the censorship. In short, I was a total coward. It made me wonder how many other artists throughout history have been cowards, but we never knew about it.
My friend, collector and collaborator, Michael defended me during that call. He said it was not Medici’s role to censor artists, and I thought for a minute we would win. But we didn’t. They convinced me to change my art, remove the severed woman’s body, and replace it with something more palatable. I am ashamed and humiliated to admit, I did exactly that. I changed my art and did as I was told. BIG HIT TO MY CONSCIOUSNESS AND MY INTEGRITY!
In this art, the uncensored version above, I had created it a few weeks after Mahsa Amini, the woman whose death ignited a revolution in Iran was killed. The woman severed in half symbolized her, even though it wasn’t clear it was her. To me it WAS HER. Sometimes in art, I like to add a symbol that only I know about. This was one of those times. The woman who was being sawed in half represents all of us who have been killed, silenced, humiliated, abused, neglected or censored. She is you and me.
So, after I had agreed to remove the sawed in half woman’s body, I replaced it with a clothed Mahsa Amini. I comforted myself by thinking that I had improved the painting. But the reality is that I really loathe the change. The bloody woman being ripped in half was the thing that made me really feel that I expressed myself in my truest form. The censored version to me anyway, was just a milque toast cowardly and defeated piece of crap art.
Here is the censored version, the NFT that Medici has under their control (btw, it didn’t end up selling in Miami): https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xe118c9c2fc6742748441550fe22778893b772aa6/70
Medici has removed it from the website because the sale is over. I have no idea what’s going to happen to it. I signed an NDA that says that if it doesn’t sell in a year, I think, then I get it back. I WANT TO BURN IT.
I want to cleanse my mind of this experience, and the only way to do it is to tell the unvarnished truth. UGH. I also want to say, “Fuck You” to whoever in the Royal House of Medici decided to censor my art. You really know how to fuck with artists. GFY.
I added the special CAT ARMY gif today, to pay respects to our utopian future. Thanks Empress Trash, I will never forget how you saved me.
Note to collectors: this is a different version, the very first version, the uncensored, unfiltered version of the art I submitted to the Royal House of Medici. They own the censored version. These two pieces of art are not the same. Some additional elements have been changed today, too.
