December 2008
WHITEHOT Magazine
Banned and Recovered: Artists Respond to Censorship
at San Francisco Center for the Book
By Courtney Dailey
Words by David Broom is a group of seven white frames with words silkscreened on the glass in red. The quotes all relate to banned books, and most come from readers or authors; a series of incredibly popular books are the target for Pope Benedict, “It is good that you enlighten people about Harry Potter because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul before it can grow properly.”
In the center of each frame, behind the words, is a blank impression the size of the absent book, a space of unknown potential; what might have been in these books to cause such furor? This, according to Judy Blume, (as painted on the wall at both locations) is the problem: “It’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship.”
