that space designated for the arts in the new development at Ground Zero?
Apparently, artists (and the organizations who support them) that question our mission in Iraq need not apply.
Artnet News
July, 13, 2005
DRAWING CENTER AT GROUND ZERO -- TIME TO GIVE UP?
Is it time for the Drawing Center to give up on its increasingly quixotic quest to find a new home at Ground Zero? The idea of moving the sophisticated, avant-garde gallery down to a facility adjacent to a highly trafficked, emotionally charged memorial to the nearly 3,000 people who died in the 9/11 attacks struck many art-world insiders as misguided when it was first announced back in early 2004 [see Artnet News, Feb. 24, 2004]. Now, after a month-long assault on the plan led by New York’s right-wing press, the idea has begun to seem entirely unworkable.
Real estate developer Mortimer B. Zuckerman’s New York Daily News kicked off the tabloid frenzy in June, with a front-page article attacking the center for showing "anti-American" political art, a now-typical bit of slander that found editorial echoes everywhere, from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Press and beyond. New York governor George Pataki quickly abetted the crime, announcing that "we will not tolerate anything on the site that denigrates America, denigrates New York or freedom or denigrates the sacrifice and courage that the heroes showed on Sept. 11."
The brouhaha has legs -- last week the New York Post attacked the Drawing Center in passing as part of a news story about New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gifts to New York cultural institutions, and just yesterday the New York Times editorialized against efforts "by a small, vocal group of protestors" to censor exhibitions at Ground Zero. It’s worth noting that the controversy involves a certain amount of displacement -- criticism has all but disappeared of WTC developer Larry Silverstein’s drive to maximize profits by constructing 10 million feet of office space on a site where so many died, to paraphrase WSJ writer Ada Louise Huxtable.
The drawing that upset the censors, A Glimpse of What Life Could Be Like in a Free Country #6 by Amy Wilson, is a relatively direct adaptation of the now notorious photograph of the hooded Abu Ghraib prisoner with electrical wires attached to his hands. In Wilson’s work, the wires extend to spell out the word "Liberty." (Wilson herself says that the battle is clearly about "silencing political speech," and also notes that her work was reproduced out of context -- the image is part of a 14-foot-long drawing containing dozens of figures along with about 2,000 words.)
Click the link above if you want to read the last paragraph of the story, which is about the DC's board and logistics of moving and whatever. I'm most interested in the chilling effect that continues to be applied to anti-status-quo artists and organizations by selective government funding.
Artnet News
July, 13, 2005
DRAWING CENTER AT GROUND ZERO -- TIME TO GIVE UP?
Is it time for the Drawing Center to give up on its increasingly quixotic quest to find a new home at Ground Zero? The idea of moving the sophisticated, avant-garde gallery down to a facility adjacent to a highly trafficked, emotionally charged memorial to the nearly 3,000 people who died in the 9/11 attacks struck many art-world insiders as misguided when it was first announced back in early 2004 [see Artnet News, Feb. 24, 2004]. Now, after a month-long assault on the plan led by New York’s right-wing press, the idea has begun to seem entirely unworkable.
Real estate developer Mortimer B. Zuckerman’s New York Daily News kicked off the tabloid frenzy in June, with a front-page article attacking the center for showing "anti-American" political art, a now-typical bit of slander that found editorial echoes everywhere, from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Press and beyond. New York governor George Pataki quickly abetted the crime, announcing that "we will not tolerate anything on the site that denigrates America, denigrates New York or freedom or denigrates the sacrifice and courage that the heroes showed on Sept. 11."
The brouhaha has legs -- last week the New York Post attacked the Drawing Center in passing as part of a news story about New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gifts to New York cultural institutions, and just yesterday the New York Times editorialized against efforts "by a small, vocal group of protestors" to censor exhibitions at Ground Zero. It’s worth noting that the controversy involves a certain amount of displacement -- criticism has all but disappeared of WTC developer Larry Silverstein’s drive to maximize profits by constructing 10 million feet of office space on a site where so many died, to paraphrase WSJ writer Ada Louise Huxtable.
The drawing that upset the censors, A Glimpse of What Life Could Be Like in a Free Country #6 by Amy Wilson, is a relatively direct adaptation of the now notorious photograph of the hooded Abu Ghraib prisoner with electrical wires attached to his hands. In Wilson’s work, the wires extend to spell out the word "Liberty." (Wilson herself says that the battle is clearly about "silencing political speech," and also notes that her work was reproduced out of context -- the image is part of a 14-foot-long drawing containing dozens of figures along with about 2,000 words.)
Click the link above if you want to read the last paragraph of the story, which is about the DC's board and logistics of moving and whatever. I'm most interested in the chilling effect that continues to be applied to anti-status-quo artists and organizations by selective government funding.