Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 00:10:43 -0500
From: Chuck Munson <chuck-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: Domestic Terrorism: Criminalizing Art


http://www.altpr.org/apr16/antliff_art.html
Domestic Terrorism: Criminalizing Art

In the wake of the attacks of September 11th, 2001, the governments of
Canada and the United States have passed sweeping anti-terrorism bills
that
effectively lay the ground work for the criminalization of ideas. One
consequence has been the renewal of an old tradition in Western
governance-the policing of freedom of expression. In Canada, a
post-September 11th exhibit of contemporary Arab-Canadian art at the
National Museum in Ottawa was abruptly cancelled by the organizers to
allow
the curators to "reconsider" the political works on display: the
exhibition
did go ahead as scheduled, but only after a determined public campaign
challenging the museum's actions.  In the United States events have taken
a
more sinister turn.  FBI and Secret Service agents have begun
investigating
"un-American" art on the supposition that it aids and abets terrorism. 
The
intentions are two-fold.  Firstly, the investigations intimidate the
artists, the owners of the art, and the institutions where the art is
exhibited.  Secondly, they assert the right of the state to police
political
expression. The following interview was conducted with James Harithas and
Tex Kersten of the Artcar Museum in Houston, Texas, where one such
"investigation" was conducted in early November, 2001. - Allan Antliff

Allan Antliff: Tell me about the Artcar Museum, its community mandate and
past (politically radical) art exhibits.

ARTCAR: The Art Car Museum is a private institution dedicated to
contemporary art. It is an exhibition forum for local, national, and
international artists. Its emphasis is on art cars, other fine arts, and
artists that are rarely, if ever acknowledged by other cultural
institutions. The museum's goal is to encourage the public's awareness of
the cultural, political, economic, and personal dimensions of art.

The museum was founded in early 1998.  Below is a list of some of our
previous exhibits that could be construed as politically radical.

"Secret Wars" is the exhibition the FBI and Secret Service investigated.
September 2001 - February 2002

Richard Mock, "Hits and Kisses" featured Richard Mock's political linocut
prints.
May through September 2001

"Civil Society" was an exhibition of contemporary political posters from
groups such as PETA, Refuse and Resist, the Coalition to Ban Landmines,
and
many others.
November - December 2000

Ron Hoover, "Mr WTO" featured sinister portraits of the men behind UNOCAL,
MAXXAM, and a host of corporate and military autocrats.
May - December 2000

Antonio Turok, "Quien Es Marcos?" was a survey of his portraits of the
Zapatistas.
March - September 2000

Frank Fajardo, "Politics of Space," featured conceptual art from the 1970s
and 1980s dealing with border issues, Chicano identity, and liberation
theology.
February - June 1999

"Bicycles to Bosnia" featured the photographic documentation of a relief
expedition to Mostar Bosnia that distributed bicycles to Bosnian children
from both opposing camps and brought them together in a cross-city parade.

November 1998 - February 1999

When did the FBI show up? Why did they state they were there? What did
they
do at that time?

An agent from the FBI and an agent from the Secret Service, working
together, (presumably in connection to the joint terrorism task force
which
was convening for a conference in Houston this same day,) visited the
museum
on Wednesday November 7, 2001 at 10:30 in the morning. The museum opens at
11 a.m. They flashed their badges and told Donna Huanca, the museum docent
who was opening the museum, that they had received anonymous complaints of
Anti-American activity that they had come to investigate.

Ms Huanca gave them a guided tour of the show, and attempted to explain
the
works on view and answering their various questions. Some of the questions
were general-they asked about the Museum's funding, its administrative
infrastructure, its methods of advertising, and its average attendance.
Others, however, were less relevant. They asked Ms Huanca personal
questions
such as "Do your parents know you work here?" and "What do you study in
school?" Then, as abruptly as they had entered, they left.

What was the show on display? What specific content was deemed worthy of
investigation by the FBI? On what grounds were they investigating it?

The show they were looking at was Secret Wars. The theme of this
exhibition
is artistic dissent to secret wars, a very open subject, and each of the
18
artists in the show responded very differently to the theme. There is work
on race relations, stalking, vegetarianism, environmental policy, AIDS,
and
family histories. The show was organized in June 2001.

The majority of works in the show had already been selected by August, but
after the events of September 11th a few of the artists created new works
expressing their reactions to the events. Among these was Eric Avery's
wall-size mural of the WTC in the moment after it had been struck by the
first plane, above which an Arabic woman cowers in apprehension of a
retaliatory US airstrike, and also a mural of the WTC collapsing painted
in
the fashion of Guernica by Warren Cullar. Interestingly enough, these
works
hardly registered with the agents.

The agents claimed they were responding to a complaint about a work that
threatened the president. It turned out they were referring to a wall
sculpture called the Empty Trellis Revisited by Houston artist Tim Glover.
This piece consisted of a sculptural trellis, fashioned in the form of an
exfoliated globe with intercrossing leafless vines, behind which he had
drawn President Bush in charcoal. The piece bears an environmental
message,
obviously, but the agents wanted to know what the President was doing
behind
barbwire.

Other works that warranted their attention were Tim Glover's Flag, a floor
mounted sculpture of the US flag in which the stars have been replaced by
jet fighters and the stripes are alternately filled with oil and sand, a
Gulf War diorama by Forrest Prince, which contains the alters a biblical
text to read "Its Easier To Get a Camel Through the Eye of a Needle Than
to
Get an American Into Heaven," and a large painting by Lynn Randolph of an
apocalyptic Houston skyline complete with George Bush Sr's head in the
belly
of a rampaging beast. Curiously, all of these works were completed during
the first Gulf War.

How was the issue resolved?  Or was it?

How they resolved it remains to be seen. We do not know whether they are
continuing their investigation. What we have resolved to do is continue
our
work. We are adding work to the exhibition and extending it through
February
2002. As the story has been circulating on the Internet we have received
an
enormous response from people across the country. People of all stripes
have
written us to describe their concern and occasionally outrage that the
government is engaged in activities tantamount to thought control. The
suppression of artists is an attack on free speech and unconstitutional.

For now, our position on this issue is as follows:

With the anthrax in the mailrooms and the blood in the air comes the death
of ordinary time and the eclipse of freedom. As bombs fall, blood spills,
and the coffers drain, a crosshair looms over our inalienable civil
rights.
Even our language has become a crime scene, with the FBI, Secret Service,
and other police forces hurrying to monitor public discourse and shunt
dissent. Memory, compassion, and clear thinking suffer. Under these
conditions, artists become heroes. Their work alone can hold out against
the
choreographed emotions of wartime.

Your position on freedom of expression reminds me of a statement by the
American anarchist Carl Zigrosser written during World War 1. I cite this
statement in my book, Anarchist Modernism: Art, Politics, and the First
American Avant-Garde.  Let me quote it for you in full:

"I am opposed to all state-waged wars-all warfare organized and conducted
by
national governments.  Such warfare is merely violence on a large scale
instituted and made efficient by the state. It is legalized murder, the
shifting of responsibility from an individual to an abstract and therefore
souless corporation. . . . I am unwilling to give up in any crisis my
privilege of free speech and intelligent criticism. It is only by the most
relentless vigilance and examination that elements of civilization are
refined and progress is ensured. And it is only be an absolute stand
against
the war that the path for abolishing it can be cleared. There are some
things about which there can be no compromise."

Zigrosser regarded freedom of expression as inherently revolutionary. Can
you elaborate on the social role of the Art Car Museum in this regard-as a
forum for freedom of expression?

The government's attempts to force various thoughts, words, into the
category of the unutterable, affirms our belief in the power of
expression.
Over the past several months our government and its hagiographers, has
displayed a preference for a system of total control that is as close to
Josef Stalin as it is to Joseph McCarthy. What they have tried to
construct
is a climate where they can imply treason, threaten artists, revoke
grants,
and bring their weight down against dissenters in all public forums. Real
art begins with the potential for infinite expression and therefore
threatens their control.  That's the kind of art we're looking for.

*******************************
Alternative Press Review - www.altpr.org
Your Guide Beyond the Mainstream
PO Box 4710 - Arlington, VA 22204

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