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Art Censorship Panel Discussion

“When Artists Attack the King: Art and Censorship”

Thursday, November 1 , 2012 at 6 pm

Stanford, Calif. —When members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot were sentenced this past summer to two years for performing an anti-Putin song, the art world wondered how much artistic freedom had really changed since 19th-century caricaturist Honoré Daumier and his colleagues at the Paris journal La Caricature endured prison for their portraits of French king Louis-Philippe I. A panel of experts addresses this question on November 1 when the Cantor Arts Center hosts the discussion “When Artists Attack the King: Art and Censorship.” Panelists will explore censorship in the current art world and compare it to that which affected Daumier.

Connie Wolf, director of the Cantor Arts Center, will moderate the panel discussion, which begins at 6 pm, in the Cantor Arts Center auditorium. Admission is free, with open seating.
The panelists are:
· Dan Edelstein, Stanford associate professor of French and Italian and, by courtesy, of History
· Richard Meyer, Stanford professor of Art and Art History
· Brendan O'Byrne, executive editor of the Stanford Daily

“When Artists Attack the King: Art and Censorship” was inspired by the Cantor Arts Center exhibition “When Artists Attack the King: Honoré Daumier and La Caricature, 1830–1835,” on display until November 11. Through the show’s 50 works, Daumier and eight fellow caricaturists lampoon everything about Louis-Philippe’s reign—its ministers, their censorship of the press, their role in the inequalities of French society. For this, La Caricature’s publisher, illustrators and even its printers risked prosecution, imprisonment and fines.

The Cantor Arts Center is open Wednesday–Sunday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m., Thursday until 8 p.m. Admission is free. The Cantor is located on the Stanford campus, off Palm Drive at Museum Way. Parking is free after 4 p.m. weekdays and all day on weekends. Information: 650-723-4177, museum.stanford.edu.

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Publicity Photos: Contact PR Assistant Manager Margaret Whitehorn (650-724-3600, mmwhite@stanford.edu) for high-resolution images to publicize the exhibition.

Exhibition: “When Artists Attack the King: Honoré Daumier and La Caricature, 1830–1835” Learn more

Honoré Daumier, The past, the present, the future. (Le passé. Le présent. L'Avenir.). La Caricature, Plate 349 (Volume 7, Issue 166, January 9, 1834). Lithograph. Francis Alward Eames Fund, 1973.24.7.10.1