This afternoon the Smithsonian released the following statement about “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” at the National Portrait Gallery:

The exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” which opened Oct. 30, recently sparked a great deal of controversy.

One of the exhibition’s 105 works—a short segment in a four-minute video created as a complex metaphor for AIDS—was perceived by some to be anti-Christian. It generated a strong response from the public. We removed it from the exhibition Nov. 30 because the attention it was receiving distracted from the overall exhibition, which includes works by American artists John Singer Sargent, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Annie Leibovitz and Georgia O’Keeffe.

“Hide/Seek” is scheduled to continue as planned until Feb. 13.

The museum and the Smithsonian stand firmly behind the scholarly merit and historical and artistic importance of the exhibition.

Acknowledging that some visitors may prefer not to encounter some of the subject matter in the exhibit, the museum installed signs at both entrances, reading “This exhibition contains mature themes.”

My analysis: Weak tea. The statement fails to admit the obvious error.

The statement stops short of saying the exhibition “will continue as planned until Feb. 13.” Instead it says that the show is “scheduled to” continue until Feb. 13.

It is laughable that the Smithsonian claims that it “stand[s] firmly” behind the exhibition. It already had an opportunity to do so and Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough went wobbly.

Furthermore, the NPG reports that the exhibition did not generate any complaints from the public until this bigoted hate group issued a vile statement. As I’ve said before: If the Smithsonian can’t stand behind its scholars, its historians and its exhibitions in the face of this cartoonish and manufactured repulsiveness, its leadership is both weak and poor.