The Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin (Imma), Ireland, has confirmed it will re-screen a film by the late UK artist Derek Jarman—which shows two men kissing—after rejecting claims that it censored the work because of a complaint from a member of the public.
According to The Sunday Times, the complaint was lodged in January by a parent who was unhappy that Jarman’s 1985 film The Angelic Conversation was being shown on an outdoor screen in the museum’s grounds, as part of a programme called Living Canvas at IMMA. The film—structured around 14 of Shakespeare's sonnets read by the actor Judi Dench—was scheduled to run for 14 days but was shown for ten.
Documents obtained by The Sunday Times under freedom of information laws reportedly show that the complainant wrote to Imma, saying: “Your outdoor screen is displaying close-up footage of topless adults kissing intimately. My five-year-old daughter walks in this space.”
Mary Cremin, Imma’s head of programming, responded, saying that the issue would be reviewed internally “with consideration for all visitors to the site”. She added that the film was certified as PG (parental guidance).
The matter was eventually referred to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland who passed it on to the Irish Film Classification Office; the latter said it would be happy “to provide an advisory rating for any films [Imma] is screening free of charge”.
In a lengthy Instagram post on 18 July, the museum said “it was dismayed at the current supposition that we would actively censor the work of Derek Jarman”, adding that “the event reported in The Sunday Times has been misconstrued as a rush to judgment”.
The museum confirmed that it decided to pause the screening of the work to seek clarification about showing a PG-rated film in the public domain, ensuring it was not “in conflict with any planning or screening legislation for art in a public space”.
The museum says it is a champion of LGBTQ+ artists, having presented exhibitions dedicated to the late British-Pakistani artist Hamad Butt and the gay Irish painter Patrick Hennessy in recent years. Imma stresses that “now clarification has been attained, [it] would be delighted to programme a second screening of The Angelic Conversation and would like to assuage the valid disquiet of all our LGBTQ+ community that we shall continue to proudly programme inclusively across our site”.
Imma confirmed to The Art Newspaper that the film will be screened again in August in the same location as previously.
