Controversial Art Exhibition to Run in Brooklyn

A major exhibition opening next week at New York's Brooklyn Museum will include the controversial video that was removed from the showing earlier this year at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

The Wall Street Journalreports that A Fire in My Belly, a film by the late David Wojnarowicz that angered some in Congress and was labeled "sacrilegious" by the Catholic League, will be included when the edgy museum exhibits "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture."

The piece explores the early years of AIDS and was created before Wojnarowicz was diagnosed with the disease, which took his life in 1992.

The film's controversy stems from a 10-second scene in which ants crawl on a crucifix.

Arnold Lehman, the director of the Brooklyn Museum, said he considers the exhibition to be "an important aspect of American art in the 20th century."

"We decided to reconstitute it as originally planned by the curators. We haven't changed the exhibition in any way other than having to replace a handful of works of art that were otherwise promised to other exhibitions or institutions," he told the WSJ.

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