1973-4, 72”(h) x96”(w) x 48”(d), Mixed-media kinetic construction
Excerpt from SF Chronicle, Tuesday May 4, 1976
“Nancy Worthington’s sculpture, entitled “Euthanasia” depicts a man in very poor health being kept alive by a life support system. It looked too realistic to some critics at Syntex Corporation’s national headquarters in Palo Alto yesterday, where the work of art…was banned from an exhibit. Worthington’s stomach-churning sculpture was removed from “the polymorphous multifarious sculpture show” and hidden in a closet near the ladies’ room of the company galleries. …The banning and closeting of her sculpture outraged, offended and then depressed Worthington, 28, a San Francisco sculptor who was, she said, “only trying to make a social statement. I was trying to help make people aware of what can happen to them on their death bed, how machines in our technological society become more important than life,” she said. The sculpture, she said, shows how “the dignity of an individual is usurped by doctors with all their fancy machines. I never expected this to happen—It’s censorship at its worst,” said Worthington, who likened the incident to “the Russians bulldozing away an exhibit in Moscow recently. I think there’s something wrong in our country when art is censored—It’s a scary thing.”
Exert from S.F. Examiner, Jan 5, 1978
“On the opening day of the exhibit, Worthington dressed in white, sat in the space where her sculpture had been. She held a picture of “Euthanasia” and a [marble slab] sign that proclaimed, “Censored.”
The S.F. Examiner article created an uproar in the community. The story was followed by the Associated Press, local TV and radio, and many people wrote letters to the editor of the S.F. Examiner. Syntex Corporation’s stock even went down!
After the intervention of BALA (Bay Area Lawyers for the Arts), Worthington was granted a one person show at the art gallery of San Jose State University. “Euthanasia” was exhibited.