Critical Dialogue: Censorship: The Cultural Impact of Silencing Artists

Aug 4, 2025 10:00 AM-12:00 PM

Schermer Meeting Hall

Free and open to the public | Registration is appreciated

Join us for a thought-provoking conversation on the shifting meanings of art in the face of protest, violence, and censorship.

This dialogue examines how art objects can become flashpoints for public response—whether through acts of protest, vandalism, or institutional suppression—and how those responses reshape the work’s meaning and impact.

We will consider key questions: How does violence enacted on an artwork alter its message? What shifts when a work becomes the target of protest? And how do institutions—educational, legal, and cultural—navigate these tensions historically and today?

Together, we’ll explore the complex interplay between freedom of expression, public response, and institutional control in the contemporary art world.

Panel Discussion

The Critical Dialogue program at Anderson Ranch seeks to engage the community in lively discussion about contemporary art and art making. Artists, curators and other creatives lead these conversations, inviting a broad audience to join in on taking a closer look at art’s power to change the world.

Betsy Schneider is a photographer and filmmaker who explores and documents transformations of individuals and families over time and place.  She holds a BA from the University of Michigan, a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is part of notable collections including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, and the Museet for Fotokunst in Odense, Denmark. She has recently been a visiting faculty member at Massachusetts College of Art and Design and Harvard University. 

Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Shahzia Sikander took up the traditional practice of miniature painting during Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime, at a time when the medium was deeply unpopular among young artists. Sikander earned a B.F.A. in 1991 from the National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, where she received rigorous training from master miniaturist Bashir Ahmad. She became the first woman to teach in the Miniature Painting Department at NCA, alongside Ahmad, and was the first artist from the department to challenge the medium’s technical and aesthetic framework. The artist moved to the United States to pursue an M.F.A. at the Rhode Island School of Design from 1993 to 1995; from 1995 to 1997, she participated in the CORE Program of the Glassell School of Art at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Amy Adler, the Emily Kempin Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, is one of the leading scholars of Art Law in the US. She teaches Art Law, First Amendment Law, and Feminist Jurisprudence at NYU Law, and lectures about these topics to a wide range of audiences in both art and law. Adler’s scholarship focuses on the persistent conflict between legal rules and cultural and artistic expression, addressing topics such as fair use, moral rights, online norms, authenticity, and the art market. Her recent scholarship focuses on the role of copying—and copyright law—in contemporary culture. Another series of recent articles explores the relationship between art and free speech.

Adler graduated from the Yale Law School, where she was a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal. She graduated summa cum laude from Yale University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and where she received the Marshall Allison Prize in the arts and letters. Adler clerked for Judge John M. Walker Jr. of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Panel

Betsy Schneider

Betsy Schneider’s photography and video work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is part of many notable collections. She was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2011, and her book To Be Thirteen—a result of that fellowship—was published by Radius in 2017. Her current project The Best Girl on the Team consists of 50 interviews and portraits with people who have been the only girl on a sports team.

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Shahzia Sikander

Shahzia Sikander is widely celebrated for subverting pre-modern and classical Central and South-Asian miniature painting traditions into dialogue with contemporary international art practices and launching the form known today as neo-miniature. Recipient of the MacArthur grant, Sikander’s early work is touring at the Morgan Library, the RISD museum, and MFA Houston in 2021-2022.

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Amy Adler

Amy Adler, the Emily Kempin Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, is one of the leading scholars of Art Law in the US. She teaches Art Law, First Amendment Law, and Feminist Jurisprudence at NYU Law, and lectures about these topics to a wide range of audiences in both art and law. Adler’s scholarship focuses on the persistent conflict between legal rules and cultural and artistic expression, addressing topics such as fair use, moral rights, online norms, authenticity, and the art market. Her recent scholarship focuses on the role of copying—and copyright law—in contemporary culture. Another series of recent articles explores the relationship between art and free speech. Adler graduated from the Yale Law School, where she was a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal. She graduated summa cum laude from Yale University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and where she received the Marshall Allison Prize in the arts and letters. Adler clerked for Judge John M. Walker Jr. of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Learn More