BETTY TOMPKINS
Betty Tompkins is a pioneer of Feminist art. Her work involves photorealistic paintings/drawings of close-up heterosexual and homosexual intimate acts. Early in 2019 Tompkin’s Instagram account was deleted after posting a photo from her exhibition catalogue (Fuck Painting #1, currently in the collection of the Paris Centre Pompidou.)
“It was really clear that it was a printed page I was showing; you could see the fold. I mean, by that time, I was used to them taking my posts down, because they’ve taken down an awful lot. But that time, they took my account down.”
Tompkin’s account was later restored but she has a lot to say on the subject. “Instagram has nominated themselves to be the online voice for the art world,” Tompkins continued. “And they’ve succeeded. You can’t be active in the art world without a voice on Instagram.”
“Before Instagram, there were 15, 20 years between governments censoring me, so I was surprised each time there too. There are certain things I do when being censored to keep my sanity, and for Paris and for Japan, I did censored drawings of the pieces that were actually censored.” (2019 Interview with W Magazine)
This is not Tompkins first experience with censorship. Her work has been censored by governments in Paris (1973) and in Japan (2006). The work was stopped by customs who confiscated the works in transit. In response, Tompkins started a whole new series of work known as “Censored Paintings” in which she actively censors areas of her imagery to revisit the experience of being shut down.
IMAGE CREDIT: Fuck Grid #24, 2005, graphite on paper, 17 x 14 ins. 43.2 x 35.6cm, Censored Grid #10, 2008, pencil and ink on paper, 17 x 14 in., 43.2 x 35.6 cm | All Images Courtesy of Betty Tompkins and P·P·O·W, New York