Food for thought....
and regarding the last sentence of this article "Make sure you know what you are asking for, you may actually get it."
May 4, 2004
Republicans Lure the Arts to Politics and Protests
By JULIE SALAMON
Would it be that President Bush has made politics cool again for the arts in New York? Nothing in recent memory has stirred the far corners of this world like the prospect of the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden from Aug. 30 to Sept. 2 and of the crowds that will visit to record the event and to protest or support it.
This occasion has made unlikely partners of scruff and style, uniting old-time protesters, counterculture artists and mainstream producers as well as the "Sex and the City" crowd from the world of design, galleries, public relations and sleek magazines.
"Right now what's sexier than politics?" asked Heather Grayson, the actress and playwright who attracted strong notices for her solo show "After the Storm," based on her experiences as a soldier in the first American war against Saddam Hussein.
Dozens of arts organizations are making plans for at least four nights of political theater during the convention at East Village clubs, established theaters like Symphony Space, public libraries and of course the streets. The Internet is throbbing with information and strategies exchanged by people often identifying themselves by first name only or by acronym (FEVA, UFJP, THAW, WW3, NoRNC).
They want to make it clear that this is not the same old same old. In a recent e-mail discussion of who should speak for the various groups, Alexandra Tager, who rents art to the film industry when she is not organizing protests, said, "This presents a P.R. challenge to those of us who hope to tell our story to the world and to debunk the myths and stereotypes of violent-uninformed-crunchy-freaky-scattered protesters bent on wreaking havoc for the heck of it."
At the office of Downtown for Democracy, a political action committee, Erik Stowers, a founder, said, "Usually when reporters hear artists are doing something, they go, `Ha ha ha, they're going to dance around a building.' "
That is not what Christopher Wangro, a special events impresario, has in mind. "The Bush administration's ideas and policies have really ignited people," he said, adding that the convention "gives us a chance to respond."
Mr. Wangro has a long list of noncrunchy, nonfreaky credentials. Now a private operator, he is the former director of special events for New York City's Department of Parks and Recreation and has produced big public events like a parade of elephants for Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey and Pope John Paul II's appearance in Central Park.
He began planning for the Republican convention about a year ago. He and some colleagues arranged a series of discussions with focus groups, advertising and marketing executives, and strategists who had worked in the Clinton and first Bush administrations. From those discussions came the Imagine Festival of Arts, Issues & Ideas, which is planning at least 50 events.
Fund-raising began in March, when Agnes Gund, emerita president of the Museum of Modern Art, held a cocktail party at her home on the Upper East Side. Details of the festival are to be announced on May 24.
"We're not partisan," said Boo Froebel, an Imagine Festival organizer, who is a curator for the Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria on 42nd Street. Then she added: "But we don't want people to neuter themselves of political opinion. This is not the `boring' festival."
At Symphony Space the Thalia Follies, a cabaret show of political satire, will run every night of the convention. To help write the sketches, E. L. Doctorow, Roy Blount Jr. and Mary Gordon have already been recruited. After the show the audience can stay to watch television coverage of the convention on a big screen onstage. "You can get wine and beer and even popcorn to throw at the screen in congenial company," said Isaiah Sheffer, artistic director of Symphony Space, who organized similar shows during the Vietnam War and Watergate but not since.
The Asia Society will present Forgiveness Project, a multidisciplinary theater work based on a classic Chinese opera about a warrior's revenge, and there will be a staged reading of Sophocles' "Electra" at the Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library. Dance Theater Workshop will offer a Teen Poetry Slam with Danny Simmons (co-founder of Def Poetry Jam), and Joe's Pub will have something, not yet decided. The Bowery Poetry Club will remain open 24 hours a day with a roster of politically themed theater, music and poetry.
Deanna Zandt, creative administrator for the Poetry Club in the East Village, said her idea was "to give people a place to come together to have a good time, to burn off some energy, to have a safe outlet for their outrage at this."
Which doesn't mean there will not be plenty of street theater, perhaps still the easiest way to attract attention. "There's going to be 15,000 journalists of various kinds in New York City for those four days, and they're going to be bored a lot of the time," said Andrew Boyd, whose Billionaires for Bush troupe made its debut at the Republican convention in Philadelphia in 2000. "Our experience in Philadelphia was that the journalists were looking outside the convention for the pulse of the street, and in many cases it was more interesting to the public and the journalists than the proceedings at the convention."
The Billionaires pretend to be rich people — sort of updates on Thurston Howell III, the millionaire on "Gilligan's Island," carrying martinis and golf clubs — and mock Bush administration policies by pretending to praise them. (Saying things like "We're very happy George Bush is in town and happy 40 million people in this country don't have health care.")
Convention planners appear to be unperturbed. "We are confident that the N.Y.P.D. and the U.S. Secret Service will create a security plan that will allow the Republican National Convention to conduct its business in a safe and orderly manner, while ensuring that other individuals are allowed to voice their opinions at that time in New York City," Rori Patrise Smith, a convention spokeswoman, said.
During the convention in Philadelphia, Mr. Stowers of Downtown for Democracy handcuffed himself to other protesters in a human chain intended to block the route between the convention and delegates' hotels. Instead, Mr. Stowers and others in the chain were arrested and spent nine days in jail.
"I think street theater is great, but I decided after that if your intention is to defeat Bush and foil the Republican attempt to hijack our country, the most direct method is to directly engage in the political system," Mr. Stowers said. So he organized Downtown for Democracy, or D4D, registered it as a political action committee and has been raising money through events intended to attract cultural types more inclined to network and party than to protest. In March a reading featuring Jonathan Franzen, Paul Auster, Joyce Carol Oates and Michael Cunningham at Cooper Union raised $75,000; an art auction earlier netted $130,000
The money so far has gone to five Congressional candidates and to Moving America Forward, a political action committee in New Mexico, a swing state. "People can't quite grasp what we're doing at first," said Mr. Stowers, 25, who studied archaeology and anthropology at Brown University, dropped out of a Ph.D. program at Princeton and then began work on a novel.
Instead, Mr. Stowers is using e-mail. So much that he was wearing braces to protect inflamed nerves in his hands during an interview in his office in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as he worked to promote D4D's next event: a design auction, promoted on the organization's Web site as featuring furniture, lighting, flooring and tabletops, both new and vintage, by American designers.
New and vintage could also describe what is happening. While a smattering of plays, visual art and music emerged in reaction to United States involvement in Iraq, many people in the arts became disengaged from politics once the war began.
"There had been a lot of anxiety about taking a stand or being too political," said Valentina Fratti, a theater director and organizer for Theaters Against War, or THAW, a group of 200 theaters that formed about 18 months ago to organize protests against the invasion of Iraq. "That climate has completely changed. Now everyone seems to have a united goal, and the details of the politics don't matter. People want to get rid of Bush."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |
Art and Politics, Politics and Art...
-
Simply Joel
- Posts: 3483
- Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 9:08 am
- Location: Land of Lincoln
- Contact:
-
Simply Joel
- Posts: 3483
- Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 9:08 am
- Location: Land of Lincoln
- Contact:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 6, 2004
The Blog Generation Takes Up Its Trowels
By HILLARY ROSNER
AS the manager of an indie-rock band fronted by an accordion player, Camille Acey, 23, is used to uphill battles. So when Ms. Acey and the band, Movers and Shakers, decided to build a "rock garden" on the roof of a loft building in Long Island City, Queens, they solved the obvious problem with 175 pounds of neutral-tone buttons from a company that donates surplus materials to artists.
Ms. Acey was a contestant in a "gardening challenge" sponsored by ReadyMade, a Berkeley-based do-it-yourself magazine for those who are young, hip and inclined to turn their soda empties into camp stoves. The participants, chosen by the editors, had to remake a 100-square-foot space, relying on found objects and the landscape's existing features, all within a $200 budget provided by the magazine.
"Creative reuse was the central thing for us," said Ms. Acey, who writes a Web log and has sought gardening advice online from other bloggers. "I'm not a high-end person who's going to go spend $200 at Home Depot."
Ms. Acey may not fit the traditional image of a gardener, but she shares a passion that is blossoming among a certain segment of culturally plugged-in urban 20-somethings and early-30-somethings. They may not own backyards, but they are determined to make things grow. Many quietly cite Martha Stewart as an influence, while making clear that they disapprove of her "commercialism," as one of them, Briana Drennon, put it. And like 1960's hippies, some see what they are doing as an act of protest against the degradation of the environment and the spread of agribusiness.
"I'm thinking about gardening as a radical political act," said Fritz Haeg, 34, an architect who teaches in the environmental design program at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. "It means completely questioning the way we live, the way we get our food, the way we use and abuse natural resources, the way we occupy public space." Mr. Haeg plays host at a monthly salon that draws a young, flamboyant crowd. Events are themed — "avant-garde knitting" was a recent topic.
While gardening has yet to reach critical mass among this group, it is beginning to make an impact. Peter Bosselmann, chairman of landscape architecture and environmental planning at the University of California, Berkeley, said he has seen a bit of a shift among applicants for the graduate program over the last four years. Traditionally, students came with experience in horticulture, but now, Mr. Bosselmann said, they increasingly have art-related backgrounds.
"It's pretty clear that young people are decidedly interested in or concerned about the landscape," he said. "Most perceive it as chaotic or in need of care and health, in need of introducing ecological principles, in need of being more artful, more structured."
Ms. Drennon, 27, who calls herself "a typical L.A. indie walking stereotype" complete with art degree and tattoos, said her gardening habit began with "a pot of rosemary on a windowsill."
"Everything just sort of rolled from there," she said. Lured by a 2,000-square-foot yard, she moved from a funky Koreatown loft to leafier Venice. She also joined You Grow Girl, an online gardening site that says it "speaks to a new kind of gardener." The site, at www.yougrowgirl.com, is the brainchild of Gayla Sanders, 30, a graphic designer in Toronto, who started it out of frustration with other online gardening communities. To her, they all seemed aimed at an older suburban audience, with a significantly higher disposable income.
"There definitely is this stigma that gardening is something that women who are housewives do, or something that only goes on in the country," Ms. Drennon said.
On an April morning, seed packets spilled across her 40's-diner-style kitchen table. The seeds, for flowers and vegetables with names like papaya pear hybrid squash and Flaro-French flageolet, were booty from a seed swap organized by You Grow Girl. She said that members send around a big box of seeds they aren't going to use. Each takes what she wants, adds her own leftovers and mails the box to the next person on the list. "It's like Secret Santa in April," Ms. Drennon said.
Lauren Smith, another ReadyMade challenge participant, turned her yard in Brooklyn into a kitschy urban campground. "We took the legs off our barbecue and built a campfire pit," said Ms. Smith, 28, the assistant to the fashion designer Todd Oldham. "We put down mulch and took a bunch of bandannas and stitched them together to create an awning."
Ms. Smith and her boyfriend, Derek Fagerstrom, 28, the editorial production director at Esquire magazine, have mapped out a border of annuals around the campground and recently planted a cherry tree in the yard. The appeal of gardening, Ms. Smith said, "is that your concerns are: `How will I stake my tomato plant? `How can I get these bugs to stop eating?' It's a total escape. You don't think about your e-mail or your job."
Many young gardeners say they are cultivating patience along with plants. "It's such an obvious antidote to multitasking, to sitting in front of a computer, to the complicatedness of our lives," said Amy Talkington, 32, a filmmaker who has planted a Japanese maple, lantana, verbena and jasmine outside the bungalow she rents in the Little Armenia section of Hollywood.
Kerry Tribe, 31, grew plants in window boxes in New York, where she lived briefly and worked as a bike messenger, among other things, before moving to Los Angeles. She began gardening obsessively during graduate school at the University of California campus there. Her inspiration was a project she devised, taking literally what she called the "hothouse" vibe of the master's program in fine arts — "prowling collectors and dealers coming around to see what was new." Ms. Tribe transformed her studio into a hydroponic garden, growing plants solely for their names, like Celebrity Tomatoes and Early Wonder Beets.
"They were all qualities we were expected to cultivate in our art," she said. "People would say, `Where's your stuff?' and I'd say, `This is it — maybe we can have a conversation about gardening or something.' "
Like Mr. Haeg, at the Art Center College of Design, Ms. Tribe sees a political side to gardening: "It's a private act, but also a public act of resistance to the sprawling L.A. wasteland and the toxins in the air."
A similar spirit motivates Alexis Rivera, 26, a music critic and club promoter, who gardens with native plants and a certain amount of attitude on a hillside next to his apartment in the rapidly gentrifying Echo Park section of Los Angeles. "I don't have much money, so I steal stuff," said Mr. Rivera, adding that he once took a large fern from a fancy Beverly Hills hotel.
Gardening at rental properties carries its own challenges, like negotiating with landlords and reconciling your own transience with the relative permanence of the trees you plant. Amra Brooks, 30, a writer who rents a house in Atwater Village, near the concrete channel of the Los Angeles River, said she has spent at least $500 on her garden. She planted native perennials to attract birds and butterflies and several fruit trees. She has a mission that extends beyond her lease.
"With all the native stuff, you feel like you're giving back to the environment," she said. "That feels cool. Whether I live here or not, hopefully that tree will always be here."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
May 6, 2004
The Blog Generation Takes Up Its Trowels
By HILLARY ROSNER
AS the manager of an indie-rock band fronted by an accordion player, Camille Acey, 23, is used to uphill battles. So when Ms. Acey and the band, Movers and Shakers, decided to build a "rock garden" on the roof of a loft building in Long Island City, Queens, they solved the obvious problem with 175 pounds of neutral-tone buttons from a company that donates surplus materials to artists.
Ms. Acey was a contestant in a "gardening challenge" sponsored by ReadyMade, a Berkeley-based do-it-yourself magazine for those who are young, hip and inclined to turn their soda empties into camp stoves. The participants, chosen by the editors, had to remake a 100-square-foot space, relying on found objects and the landscape's existing features, all within a $200 budget provided by the magazine.
"Creative reuse was the central thing for us," said Ms. Acey, who writes a Web log and has sought gardening advice online from other bloggers. "I'm not a high-end person who's going to go spend $200 at Home Depot."
Ms. Acey may not fit the traditional image of a gardener, but she shares a passion that is blossoming among a certain segment of culturally plugged-in urban 20-somethings and early-30-somethings. They may not own backyards, but they are determined to make things grow. Many quietly cite Martha Stewart as an influence, while making clear that they disapprove of her "commercialism," as one of them, Briana Drennon, put it. And like 1960's hippies, some see what they are doing as an act of protest against the degradation of the environment and the spread of agribusiness.
"I'm thinking about gardening as a radical political act," said Fritz Haeg, 34, an architect who teaches in the environmental design program at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. "It means completely questioning the way we live, the way we get our food, the way we use and abuse natural resources, the way we occupy public space." Mr. Haeg plays host at a monthly salon that draws a young, flamboyant crowd. Events are themed — "avant-garde knitting" was a recent topic.
While gardening has yet to reach critical mass among this group, it is beginning to make an impact. Peter Bosselmann, chairman of landscape architecture and environmental planning at the University of California, Berkeley, said he has seen a bit of a shift among applicants for the graduate program over the last four years. Traditionally, students came with experience in horticulture, but now, Mr. Bosselmann said, they increasingly have art-related backgrounds.
"It's pretty clear that young people are decidedly interested in or concerned about the landscape," he said. "Most perceive it as chaotic or in need of care and health, in need of introducing ecological principles, in need of being more artful, more structured."
Ms. Drennon, 27, who calls herself "a typical L.A. indie walking stereotype" complete with art degree and tattoos, said her gardening habit began with "a pot of rosemary on a windowsill."
"Everything just sort of rolled from there," she said. Lured by a 2,000-square-foot yard, she moved from a funky Koreatown loft to leafier Venice. She also joined You Grow Girl, an online gardening site that says it "speaks to a new kind of gardener." The site, at www.yougrowgirl.com, is the brainchild of Gayla Sanders, 30, a graphic designer in Toronto, who started it out of frustration with other online gardening communities. To her, they all seemed aimed at an older suburban audience, with a significantly higher disposable income.
"There definitely is this stigma that gardening is something that women who are housewives do, or something that only goes on in the country," Ms. Drennon said.
On an April morning, seed packets spilled across her 40's-diner-style kitchen table. The seeds, for flowers and vegetables with names like papaya pear hybrid squash and Flaro-French flageolet, were booty from a seed swap organized by You Grow Girl. She said that members send around a big box of seeds they aren't going to use. Each takes what she wants, adds her own leftovers and mails the box to the next person on the list. "It's like Secret Santa in April," Ms. Drennon said.
Lauren Smith, another ReadyMade challenge participant, turned her yard in Brooklyn into a kitschy urban campground. "We took the legs off our barbecue and built a campfire pit," said Ms. Smith, 28, the assistant to the fashion designer Todd Oldham. "We put down mulch and took a bunch of bandannas and stitched them together to create an awning."
Ms. Smith and her boyfriend, Derek Fagerstrom, 28, the editorial production director at Esquire magazine, have mapped out a border of annuals around the campground and recently planted a cherry tree in the yard. The appeal of gardening, Ms. Smith said, "is that your concerns are: `How will I stake my tomato plant? `How can I get these bugs to stop eating?' It's a total escape. You don't think about your e-mail or your job."
Many young gardeners say they are cultivating patience along with plants. "It's such an obvious antidote to multitasking, to sitting in front of a computer, to the complicatedness of our lives," said Amy Talkington, 32, a filmmaker who has planted a Japanese maple, lantana, verbena and jasmine outside the bungalow she rents in the Little Armenia section of Hollywood.
Kerry Tribe, 31, grew plants in window boxes in New York, where she lived briefly and worked as a bike messenger, among other things, before moving to Los Angeles. She began gardening obsessively during graduate school at the University of California campus there. Her inspiration was a project she devised, taking literally what she called the "hothouse" vibe of the master's program in fine arts — "prowling collectors and dealers coming around to see what was new." Ms. Tribe transformed her studio into a hydroponic garden, growing plants solely for their names, like Celebrity Tomatoes and Early Wonder Beets.
"They were all qualities we were expected to cultivate in our art," she said. "People would say, `Where's your stuff?' and I'd say, `This is it — maybe we can have a conversation about gardening or something.' "
Like Mr. Haeg, at the Art Center College of Design, Ms. Tribe sees a political side to gardening: "It's a private act, but also a public act of resistance to the sprawling L.A. wasteland and the toxins in the air."
A similar spirit motivates Alexis Rivera, 26, a music critic and club promoter, who gardens with native plants and a certain amount of attitude on a hillside next to his apartment in the rapidly gentrifying Echo Park section of Los Angeles. "I don't have much money, so I steal stuff," said Mr. Rivera, adding that he once took a large fern from a fancy Beverly Hills hotel.
Gardening at rental properties carries its own challenges, like negotiating with landlords and reconciling your own transience with the relative permanence of the trees you plant. Amra Brooks, 30, a writer who rents a house in Atwater Village, near the concrete channel of the Los Angeles River, said she has spent at least $500 on her garden. She planted native perennials to attract birds and butterflies and several fruit trees. She has a mission that extends beyond her lease.
"With all the native stuff, you feel like you're giving back to the environment," she said. "That feels cool. Whether I live here or not, hopefully that tree will always be here."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
-
DVD Burner
- Posts: 11031
- Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2003 3:09 am
- Burning Since: 1986
- Camp Name: White Trash Camp
- Contact:
-
Lilly Flower
- Posts: 152
- Joined: Fri Nov 21, 2003 3:33 am
-
Simply Joel
- Posts: 3483
- Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 9:08 am
- Location: Land of Lincoln
- Contact:
FBI uses Patriot Act to arrest artists
Just ran into this article from a little while ago.
May 25, 2004
FBI ABDUCTS ARTIST, SEIZES ART
Feds Unable to Distinguish Art from Bioterrorism
Grieving Artist Denied Access to Deceased Wife's Body
DEFENSE FUND ESTABLISHED - HELP URGENTLY NEEDED
Steve Kurtz was already suffering from one tragedy when he called 911 early in the morning to tell them his wife had suffered a cardiac arrest and died in her sleep. The police arrived and, cranked up on the rhetoric of the "War on Terror," decided Kurtz's art supplies were actually bioterrorism weapons.
Thus began an Orwellian stream of events in which FBI agents abducted Kurtz without charges, sealed off his entire block, and confiscated his computers, manuscripts, art supplies... and even his wife's body.
Like the case of Brandon Mayfield, the Muslim lawyer from Portland imprisoned for two weeks on the flimsiest of false evidence, Kurtz's case amply demonstrates the dangers posed by the USA PATRIOT Act coupled with government-nurtured terrorism hysteria.
Kurtz's case is ongoing, and, on top of everything else, Kurtz is facing a mountain of legal fees. Donations to his legal defense can be made at http://www.caedefensefund.org/
FEAR RUN AMOK
Steve Kurtz is Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the State University of New York's University at Buffalo, and a member of the internationally-acclaimed Critical Art Ensemble.
Kurtz's wife, Hope Kurtz, died in her sleep of cardiac arrest in the early morning hours of May 11. Police arrived, became suspicious of Kurtz's art supplies and called the FBI.
Within hours, FBI agents had "detained" Kurtz as a suspected bioterrorist and cordoned off the entire block around his house. (Kurtz walked away the next day on the advice of a lawyer, his "detention" having proved to be illegal.) Over the next few days, dozens of agents in hazmat suits, from a number of law enforcement agencies, sifted through Kurtz's work, analyzing it on-site and impounding computers, manuscripts, books, equipment, and even his wife's body for further analysis. Meanwhile, the Buffalo Health Department condemned his house as a health risk.
Kurtz, a member of the Critical Art Ensemble, makes art which addresses the politics of biotechnology. "Free Range Grains," CAE's latest project, included a mobile DNA extraction laboratory for testing food products for possible transgenic contamination. It was this equipment which triggered the Kafkaesque chain of events.
FBI field and laboratory tests have shown that Kurtz's equipment was not used for any illegal purpose. In fact, it is not even _possible_ to use this equipment for the production or weaponization of dangerous germs. Furthermore, any person in the US may legally obtain and possess such equipment.
"Today, there is no legal way to stop huge corporations from putting genetically altered material in our food," said Defense Fund spokeswoman Carla Mendes. "Yet owning the equipment required to test for the presence of 'Frankenfood' will get you accused of 'terrorism.' You can be illegally detained by shadowy government agents, lose access to your home, work, and belongings, and find that your recently deceased spouse's body has been taken away for 'analysis.'"
Though Kurtz has finally been able to return to his home and recover his wife's body, the FBI has still not returned any of his equipment, computers or manuscripts, nor given any indication of when they will. The
case remains open.
With the follow up:
June 8 2004
ARTISTS SUBPOENAED IN USA PATRIOT ACT CASE
Feds STILL unable to distinguish art from bioterrorism
Grand jury to convene June 15
Seven artists have been served subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury that will consider bioterrorism charges against a university professor whose art involves the use of simple biology equipment.
The subpoenas are the latest installment in a bizarre investigation in which members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force have mistaken an art project for a biological weapons laboratory. While most observers have assumed that the Task Force would realize the absurd error of its initial investigation of Steve Kurtz, the subpoenas indicate that the feds have instead chosen to press their "case" against the baffled professor.
Two of the subpoenaed artists--Beatriz da Costa and Steve Barnes--are, like Kurtz, members of the internationally-acclaimed Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), an artists' collective that produces artwork to educate the public about the politics of biotechnology. They were served the subpoenas by federal agents who tailed them to an art show at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. More recently subpoenas have been issued to: Adele Henderson, Chair of the Art Department at UB; Paul Vanouse, Professor of Art at UB; Andrew Johnson, Professor of Art at UB; And founding members of CAE, Dorian Burr and Beverly Schlee.
The artists involved are at a loss to explain the increasingly bizarre case. "I have no idea why they're continuing (to investigate)," said Beatriz da Costa, one of those subpoenaed. "It was shocking that this investigation was ever launched. That it is continuing is positively frightening, and shows how vulnerable the PATRIOT Act has made freedom of speech in this country." Da Costa is an art professor at the University of California at Irvine.
According to the subpoenas, the FBI is seeking charges under Section 175 of the US Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, which has been expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act. As expanded, this law prohibits the possession of "any biological agent, toxin, or delivery system" without the justification of "prophylactic, protective, bona fide research, or other peaceful purpose." (See http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/175.html for the 1989 law and http://www.ehrs.upenn.edu/protocols/patriot/sec817.html for its USA PATRIOT Act expansion.)
Even under the expanded powers of the USA PATRIOT Act, it is difficult to understand how anyone could view CAE's art as anything other than a"peaceful purpose." The equipment seized by the FBI consisted mainly of CAE's most recent project, a mobile DNA extraction laboratory to test store-bought food for possible contamination by genetically modified grains and organisms; such equipment can be found in any university's basic biology lab and even in many high schools (see "Lab Tour" at http://www.critical-art.net/biotech/free/ for more details).
The grand jury in the case is scheduled to convene June 15 in Buffalo, New York. Here, the jury will decide whether or not to indict Steve Kurtz on the charges brought by the FBI. A protest is being planned at 9 a.m. on June 15 outside the courthouse at 138 Delaware Ave. in Buffalo.
May 25, 2004
FBI ABDUCTS ARTIST, SEIZES ART
Feds Unable to Distinguish Art from Bioterrorism
Grieving Artist Denied Access to Deceased Wife's Body
DEFENSE FUND ESTABLISHED - HELP URGENTLY NEEDED
Steve Kurtz was already suffering from one tragedy when he called 911 early in the morning to tell them his wife had suffered a cardiac arrest and died in her sleep. The police arrived and, cranked up on the rhetoric of the "War on Terror," decided Kurtz's art supplies were actually bioterrorism weapons.
Thus began an Orwellian stream of events in which FBI agents abducted Kurtz without charges, sealed off his entire block, and confiscated his computers, manuscripts, art supplies... and even his wife's body.
Like the case of Brandon Mayfield, the Muslim lawyer from Portland imprisoned for two weeks on the flimsiest of false evidence, Kurtz's case amply demonstrates the dangers posed by the USA PATRIOT Act coupled with government-nurtured terrorism hysteria.
Kurtz's case is ongoing, and, on top of everything else, Kurtz is facing a mountain of legal fees. Donations to his legal defense can be made at http://www.caedefensefund.org/
FEAR RUN AMOK
Steve Kurtz is Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the State University of New York's University at Buffalo, and a member of the internationally-acclaimed Critical Art Ensemble.
Kurtz's wife, Hope Kurtz, died in her sleep of cardiac arrest in the early morning hours of May 11. Police arrived, became suspicious of Kurtz's art supplies and called the FBI.
Within hours, FBI agents had "detained" Kurtz as a suspected bioterrorist and cordoned off the entire block around his house. (Kurtz walked away the next day on the advice of a lawyer, his "detention" having proved to be illegal.) Over the next few days, dozens of agents in hazmat suits, from a number of law enforcement agencies, sifted through Kurtz's work, analyzing it on-site and impounding computers, manuscripts, books, equipment, and even his wife's body for further analysis. Meanwhile, the Buffalo Health Department condemned his house as a health risk.
Kurtz, a member of the Critical Art Ensemble, makes art which addresses the politics of biotechnology. "Free Range Grains," CAE's latest project, included a mobile DNA extraction laboratory for testing food products for possible transgenic contamination. It was this equipment which triggered the Kafkaesque chain of events.
FBI field and laboratory tests have shown that Kurtz's equipment was not used for any illegal purpose. In fact, it is not even _possible_ to use this equipment for the production or weaponization of dangerous germs. Furthermore, any person in the US may legally obtain and possess such equipment.
"Today, there is no legal way to stop huge corporations from putting genetically altered material in our food," said Defense Fund spokeswoman Carla Mendes. "Yet owning the equipment required to test for the presence of 'Frankenfood' will get you accused of 'terrorism.' You can be illegally detained by shadowy government agents, lose access to your home, work, and belongings, and find that your recently deceased spouse's body has been taken away for 'analysis.'"
Though Kurtz has finally been able to return to his home and recover his wife's body, the FBI has still not returned any of his equipment, computers or manuscripts, nor given any indication of when they will. The
case remains open.
With the follow up:
June 8 2004
ARTISTS SUBPOENAED IN USA PATRIOT ACT CASE
Feds STILL unable to distinguish art from bioterrorism
Grand jury to convene June 15
Seven artists have been served subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury that will consider bioterrorism charges against a university professor whose art involves the use of simple biology equipment.
The subpoenas are the latest installment in a bizarre investigation in which members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force have mistaken an art project for a biological weapons laboratory. While most observers have assumed that the Task Force would realize the absurd error of its initial investigation of Steve Kurtz, the subpoenas indicate that the feds have instead chosen to press their "case" against the baffled professor.
Two of the subpoenaed artists--Beatriz da Costa and Steve Barnes--are, like Kurtz, members of the internationally-acclaimed Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), an artists' collective that produces artwork to educate the public about the politics of biotechnology. They were served the subpoenas by federal agents who tailed them to an art show at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. More recently subpoenas have been issued to: Adele Henderson, Chair of the Art Department at UB; Paul Vanouse, Professor of Art at UB; Andrew Johnson, Professor of Art at UB; And founding members of CAE, Dorian Burr and Beverly Schlee.
The artists involved are at a loss to explain the increasingly bizarre case. "I have no idea why they're continuing (to investigate)," said Beatriz da Costa, one of those subpoenaed. "It was shocking that this investigation was ever launched. That it is continuing is positively frightening, and shows how vulnerable the PATRIOT Act has made freedom of speech in this country." Da Costa is an art professor at the University of California at Irvine.
According to the subpoenas, the FBI is seeking charges under Section 175 of the US Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, which has been expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act. As expanded, this law prohibits the possession of "any biological agent, toxin, or delivery system" without the justification of "prophylactic, protective, bona fide research, or other peaceful purpose." (See http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/175.html for the 1989 law and http://www.ehrs.upenn.edu/protocols/patriot/sec817.html for its USA PATRIOT Act expansion.)
Even under the expanded powers of the USA PATRIOT Act, it is difficult to understand how anyone could view CAE's art as anything other than a"peaceful purpose." The equipment seized by the FBI consisted mainly of CAE's most recent project, a mobile DNA extraction laboratory to test store-bought food for possible contamination by genetically modified grains and organisms; such equipment can be found in any university's basic biology lab and even in many high schools (see "Lab Tour" at http://www.critical-art.net/biotech/free/ for more details).
The grand jury in the case is scheduled to convene June 15 in Buffalo, New York. Here, the jury will decide whether or not to indict Steve Kurtz on the charges brought by the FBI. A protest is being planned at 9 a.m. on June 15 outside the courthouse at 138 Delaware Ave. in Buffalo.
"Of what use is a philosopher who doesn't hurt anybody's feelings?" -Diogenes
-
cowboyangel
- Posts: 6986
- Joined: Fri May 14, 2004 10:32 pm
-
Simply Joel
- Posts: 3483
- Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 9:08 am
- Location: Land of Lincoln
- Contact:
July 20, 2004
A New Pension Fund for Struggling Artists
By JULIE SALAMON
Simone Shubuck didn't find working in her Lower East Side studio without a bathroom a bit romantic. Actually, she found it weird that visiting dealers and collectors always declared her bohemian deprivation "absolutely charming." As time passed, Ms. Shubuck, now 34, found herself yearning for prosaic luxuries like a toilet, health insurance, a pension plan.
"A 401(k), having taxes taken out, things other people don't have to think about," she said wistfully. "As you get older it's hard to live without that kind of stuff."
SoHo galleries have long since given way to pricey shoe stores. Art has merged with fashion, media and real estate in bottom-line reckoning, and it's hard for artists not to think about money. Now the commodity-trading mentality of the art investment world has produced a scheme intended to assure artists like Ms. Shubuck some long-term financial stability — while making money for investors.
The Artist Pension Trust invites up-and-coming artists to contribute 20 pieces of their work to a tax-protected fund over a 20-year period on the theory that some of the art will appreciate significantly. All the artists will share the profits, even if their initial promise never translates into increased value.
"It's a way of taking advantage of the capitalistic nature of the market and mix in a healthy dose of socialism to create a hybrid form," said David A. Ross, the former director of the Whitney Museum of American Art and then the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, who is the Artist Pension Trust's president. "It will allow artists who do well to profit from those works when they do really well and at the same time allow those artists whose work never gets beyond the $10,000 level to rest more easily knowing that a carefully selected group of peers are pooling resources to present them all with a retirement income."
Socialist inclinations aside, the trust isn't meant to be altruistic. Its founders hope to establish trusts in 10 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Beijing and Tokyo, with 250 artists participating in each. The investors will receive 20 percent of the trust's income, and the rest will be divided among the artists, but not equally. Individual artists will receive half the appreciation in their work; the rest will go to less successful colleagues.
The appeal is obvious in a profession where, despite a booming market, most practitioners are lucky if bartenders will accept drawings for drinks, or the bartenders and other collectors get hold of the early work and the artists discover later that they forgot to invest in themselves.
"There are tons of extremely well-known artists who are practically destitute," said Kiki Smith, 50, an artist who is one of the trust's advisers. "Most artists live with tremendous insecurity about their future in terms of money. It's like being in a free fall their whole lives." She speaks from experience. Her father, Tony Smith, was a leading sculptor in the 1960's yet lived on the margins financially. As a result, she said, "The second I started to make money I put money away for retirement."
Ms. Shubuck, the Lower East Side artist, said she was honored to be asked to be part of the trust. "I haven't had a solo show yet, so for someone to project long-term value on my work was exciting," she said. This has been a milestone year for her. After 10 years of paying the rent in New York by doing the flowers at Babbo and Felidia, she will have her first one-woman show in September, at the LFL Gallery in Chelsea. Recently she moved into a studio with a bathroom. And now, prospects of a pension.
The Artist Pension Trust was conceived by Moti Shniberg, an Israeli entrepreneur in his early 30's who noticed that his artist friends had no money, even when their paintings were selling for $5,000 to $10,000 apiece. He brought the idea of a barter-based pension fund to Dan Galai, a finance professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and an investment banker. Mr. Galai has taught at U.C.L.A.; the University of California, Berkeley; and the University of Chicago but is best known as the creative force of an arcane art form, the Chicago Board Options Exchange's VIX volatility index, which tracks changes in options based on the Standard & Poor's 500 index.
He happens to collect art, too, though Mr. Shniberg didn't know that. "I like many artists, and I could identify with many of the issues he raised," Mr. Galai said. "We did a lot of calculations and made some assumptions. Some of the artists will stop painting and become stockbrokers, some will be very successful and decide not to make contributions after five years." He figures the payout for most participants will be $500,000 to $1.5 million after 20 years.
The plan offers a clinical view of the integral bond between art and money. "It's about identifying talent but also speculating on talent," said Pamela Auchincloss, a former gallery owner and head of an arts management company, who is director of the first Artist Pension Trust, in New York. "Our job is to collect and manage and to take an interest in the career development by facilitating museum loans."
It's a complicated process requiring the flash and dazzle of exhibition and promotion but also the painstaking work of storing and conserving. "Our decision-making process is close to that of a collecting museum but not quite," Mr. Ross said. "We're not making decisions for all time. It's more like getting engaged than getting married."
The selection committee for the New York trust includes prominent art dealers and curators and Mr. Ross, the former museum director.
"We are looking for more than just talent and quality, but also an evaluation that these artists have promise, the long-term ability to sustain their career," he said. Though there are no age limits, he said, the artists will tend to be under 40 so they can fulfill their 20-year obligation.
An initial group of 20 artists has been chosen by the selection committee, but now artists can apply directly through the trust's Web site at www.artistpensiontrust.org.
Zak Smith, a 28-year-old artist whose "Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow" was featured in the 2004 Whitney Biennial, explained why he agreed to participate. "I did this because it's a very small commitment," he said nonchalantly. "You haven't got much to lose, so why not?"
Mr. Smith, who said he earned about $25,000 last year, lives in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn in a four-room railroad flat with a roommate. His paintings usually sell for about $7,000, though the piece shown at the Whitney is priced at $40,000. "I'm not living the glamorous life, and I don't plan to," he said. "That's my real retirement plan. Not to spend all my money."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
A New Pension Fund for Struggling Artists
By JULIE SALAMON
Simone Shubuck didn't find working in her Lower East Side studio without a bathroom a bit romantic. Actually, she found it weird that visiting dealers and collectors always declared her bohemian deprivation "absolutely charming." As time passed, Ms. Shubuck, now 34, found herself yearning for prosaic luxuries like a toilet, health insurance, a pension plan.
"A 401(k), having taxes taken out, things other people don't have to think about," she said wistfully. "As you get older it's hard to live without that kind of stuff."
SoHo galleries have long since given way to pricey shoe stores. Art has merged with fashion, media and real estate in bottom-line reckoning, and it's hard for artists not to think about money. Now the commodity-trading mentality of the art investment world has produced a scheme intended to assure artists like Ms. Shubuck some long-term financial stability — while making money for investors.
The Artist Pension Trust invites up-and-coming artists to contribute 20 pieces of their work to a tax-protected fund over a 20-year period on the theory that some of the art will appreciate significantly. All the artists will share the profits, even if their initial promise never translates into increased value.
"It's a way of taking advantage of the capitalistic nature of the market and mix in a healthy dose of socialism to create a hybrid form," said David A. Ross, the former director of the Whitney Museum of American Art and then the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, who is the Artist Pension Trust's president. "It will allow artists who do well to profit from those works when they do really well and at the same time allow those artists whose work never gets beyond the $10,000 level to rest more easily knowing that a carefully selected group of peers are pooling resources to present them all with a retirement income."
Socialist inclinations aside, the trust isn't meant to be altruistic. Its founders hope to establish trusts in 10 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Beijing and Tokyo, with 250 artists participating in each. The investors will receive 20 percent of the trust's income, and the rest will be divided among the artists, but not equally. Individual artists will receive half the appreciation in their work; the rest will go to less successful colleagues.
The appeal is obvious in a profession where, despite a booming market, most practitioners are lucky if bartenders will accept drawings for drinks, or the bartenders and other collectors get hold of the early work and the artists discover later that they forgot to invest in themselves.
"There are tons of extremely well-known artists who are practically destitute," said Kiki Smith, 50, an artist who is one of the trust's advisers. "Most artists live with tremendous insecurity about their future in terms of money. It's like being in a free fall their whole lives." She speaks from experience. Her father, Tony Smith, was a leading sculptor in the 1960's yet lived on the margins financially. As a result, she said, "The second I started to make money I put money away for retirement."
Ms. Shubuck, the Lower East Side artist, said she was honored to be asked to be part of the trust. "I haven't had a solo show yet, so for someone to project long-term value on my work was exciting," she said. This has been a milestone year for her. After 10 years of paying the rent in New York by doing the flowers at Babbo and Felidia, she will have her first one-woman show in September, at the LFL Gallery in Chelsea. Recently she moved into a studio with a bathroom. And now, prospects of a pension.
The Artist Pension Trust was conceived by Moti Shniberg, an Israeli entrepreneur in his early 30's who noticed that his artist friends had no money, even when their paintings were selling for $5,000 to $10,000 apiece. He brought the idea of a barter-based pension fund to Dan Galai, a finance professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and an investment banker. Mr. Galai has taught at U.C.L.A.; the University of California, Berkeley; and the University of Chicago but is best known as the creative force of an arcane art form, the Chicago Board Options Exchange's VIX volatility index, which tracks changes in options based on the Standard & Poor's 500 index.
He happens to collect art, too, though Mr. Shniberg didn't know that. "I like many artists, and I could identify with many of the issues he raised," Mr. Galai said. "We did a lot of calculations and made some assumptions. Some of the artists will stop painting and become stockbrokers, some will be very successful and decide not to make contributions after five years." He figures the payout for most participants will be $500,000 to $1.5 million after 20 years.
The plan offers a clinical view of the integral bond between art and money. "It's about identifying talent but also speculating on talent," said Pamela Auchincloss, a former gallery owner and head of an arts management company, who is director of the first Artist Pension Trust, in New York. "Our job is to collect and manage and to take an interest in the career development by facilitating museum loans."
It's a complicated process requiring the flash and dazzle of exhibition and promotion but also the painstaking work of storing and conserving. "Our decision-making process is close to that of a collecting museum but not quite," Mr. Ross said. "We're not making decisions for all time. It's more like getting engaged than getting married."
The selection committee for the New York trust includes prominent art dealers and curators and Mr. Ross, the former museum director.
"We are looking for more than just talent and quality, but also an evaluation that these artists have promise, the long-term ability to sustain their career," he said. Though there are no age limits, he said, the artists will tend to be under 40 so they can fulfill their 20-year obligation.
An initial group of 20 artists has been chosen by the selection committee, but now artists can apply directly through the trust's Web site at www.artistpensiontrust.org.
Zak Smith, a 28-year-old artist whose "Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow" was featured in the 2004 Whitney Biennial, explained why he agreed to participate. "I did this because it's a very small commitment," he said nonchalantly. "You haven't got much to lose, so why not?"
Mr. Smith, who said he earned about $25,000 last year, lives in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn in a four-room railroad flat with a roommate. His paintings usually sell for about $7,000, though the piece shown at the Whitney is priced at $40,000. "I'm not living the glamorous life, and I don't plan to," he said. "That's my real retirement plan. Not to spend all my money."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
Democrats... snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, daily!
slap my salmon, baby
slap my salmon, baby
-
DVD Burner
- Posts: 11031
- Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2003 3:09 am
- Burning Since: 1986
- Camp Name: White Trash Camp
- Contact: