The affair shakes the world of culture. Why did the National School of Fine Arts (Ensba), in Paris, censor a work that it had just published, as revealed The Art Daily March 8? The book in question, The Suffragettes of arttraces the history of women in the fine arts, from 1817 to the 2020s. Commissioned from independent art critic Anaïd Demir, it appeared at the beginning of the year. “I then feel that a threat hangs over him, but I don’t know what,” confides the author. After ten days on the shelves, 1,100 of the 2,000 copies were destroyed. A new version, redacted by four pages, is printed in 1,500 copies. Cost of the operation: 10,000 euros and a controversy that is growing around the most prestigious art school in France.
In the four pages in question, the Metoo movement which shook up the institution in 2017-2018 was recounted. The school was then directed by the artist and academician
Jean-Marc Bustamante and many students put pressure on him, accusing him of indifference towards various cases of sexual, moral and racist harassment. Having reached the end of his mandate, he was not reappointed by the Minister of Culture, Françoise Nyssen, although he requested it, and will have to leave the school. In the book, mention of the charter for equality between men and women which has governed, since July 2018, the fight against harassment has been omitted.
The redaction is disturbing. Especially since the institution saw the arrival, in 2022, of a woman at its head, the first in more than two centuries of existence: Alexia Fabre, chief curator of heritage, defender of women artists. The one who has made the fight against harassment one of her hobby horses at Ensba takes responsibility for the shelling. “When the book came out, a lot of criticism emerged, particularly on two paragraphs in the last chapter, she explains. We therefore made the decision quickly, probably too quickly, to withdraw this chapter, because we had neither the time nor the possibility to fairly report this moment in history. »
Bustamante’s remarks censored
The two paragraphs in question recalled the role of a group of students as whistleblowers regarding sexual harassment. Also cited were comments by Jean-Marc Bustamante published in the catalog of the “Dionysiac” exhibition at the Center Pompidou in 2005. “Yes, man needs to conquer territories, woman finds her territory and stays there; while women are looking for a man, a man wants all women. »
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