Brenden Grey mentioned in his blog the other day that attempts were made to ban Steven Cohen from the high school art curriculum. Well, rumour has it, that a little old lady from Pretoria sent images of Steven Cohen and Peet Pienaar to her Dominee who sent them straight to the Minister of Education, who promptly and without consulting any teachers dropped it from the curriculum. It's also been pretty hushed up, I guess, so as to avoid debate around the topic. Now, no doubt, Cohen and Pienaar can be difficult artists to teach, but the curriculum does allow choice for teachers not willing or unable for religious etc reasons to teach them. Here's seven SA artists dealing with gender, teach three. By removing the two artists from the syllabus entirely, they have essentially been banned and censored. Which in turn means that the Department of Education thinks that these particular issues of gender and sexuality should not be taught.

ps. Before I hear from hysterical matrics, my source tells me you can still write on Steven Cohen if you already studied him during the year.

Labels: censorship, Peet Pienaar, steven cohen