NEW YORK, NY.- In response to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery’s removal of artist David Wojnarowicz’s film from the exhibition “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” the Association of Art Museum Directors issued the following statement: It is extremely regrettable that the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery, a major American art museum with a long history of public service in the arts, has been pressured into removing a work of art from its exhibition “Hide/Seek.” More disturbing than the Smithsonian’s decision to remove this work of art is the cause: unwarranted and uninformed censorship from politicians and other public figures, many of whom, by their own admission, have seen neither the exhibition as a whole or this specific work. The AAMD believes that freedom of expression is essential to the health and welfare of our comm