Artwork Calls Putting Gun to Bush's Head a "Patriot Act"
Columbia College in Chicago is hosting an art exhibit titled "Axis of Evil" that features stamps designed by 47 artists. One of the pieces on display is a sheet of mock postage stamps featuring a U.S. flag background and a picture of George W. Bush with a pistol to his head. The words "Patriot Act" are written across the bottom of each stamp.
On the opening night of the exhibit, Secret Service agents took photos of the artwork and asked for the artist's contact information. The Secret Service, whose duty it is to investigate threats against the president, upset the exhibit's curator, Michael Hernandez deLuna, who said:
"It starts questioning all rights, not only my rights or the artists' rights in this room, but questioning the rights of any artist who creates - any writer, any visual artist, any performance artist. It seems like we're being watched."
Let Mr. deLuna be reminded that in this case, the only things being seriously and rightly questioned are his decision to exhibit art that seems to encourage the assassination of a sitting U.S. President by calling it a "Patriot Act," and the intention(s) of the work's creator.
4 Comments:
The curator showed incredibly poor judgement in not self-censoring unacceptably transgressive art. Second, expressing surprise that the exhibit attracted the attention of the Secret Service?? That just is what happens when people say or do foolish things that sound or look like threats.
These artists don't know how to make the government illegitimize itself into irrelevance.
That takes getting caught carrying arms on the battlefield in the service of the Taliban or playing courier for a terrorist underground messaging service or getting caught destroying classified counter-terrorism documents.
I hear they give you book deals for that.
Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are now species of slime-mold beetles
I prefer real art. You know, the really good stuff, like a bottle of urine with a cross in it, or wrapping a bunch of stuff with pink plastic and having the urban intelligentsia ooh and aah over it like slobbering fools? [insert rolling eyes here]
Good grief. The current trend in "art" [gag] almost makes me yearn for Picasso's ridiculous scrap metal joke in front of the Chicago City Hall. Almost.
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