The exhibition, curated by Michael Hernandez de Luna, opened last week at in the Glass Curtain Gallery at Columbia College in Chicago. Called "Axis of Evil: The Secret History of Sin," the show stamps designed by 47 artists addressing issues such as the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal, racism and the war in Iraq.
CarolAnn Brown, the gallery's director said the agents were most interested in Chicago artist Al Brandtner's work titled "Patriot Act."
"We need to ensure, as best we can, that this is nothing more than artwork with a political statement," Secret Service spokesman Tom Mazur said.
AP story via Yahoo!News
Chicago Sun Times
3 comments:
L-boogie, you may want to think about the support for your argument that this was an artistic event.
The First Amendment allows United States citizens speech and press freedoms. This freedom should not be abused when national sensitivity is high and the responsibility and respect of citizens crucial.
People can and will create 'art' that has political messages and sometimes abhorrent disrespect. Please let us not forget that the president is a democratically elected official whose purpose is to protect our freedoms. Whether you agree with his/her policies or not, give the president the respect they are entitled to.
"Please let us not forget that the president is a democratically elected official whose purpose is to protect our freedoms."
Wow--were it so!
Democratically elected?--that's debateable, not just because of yet untried allegations of fraud and voter disenfranchisement in 200 and 2004, but because of the low level of participation.
Do our "democratically-elected" representatives actually represent us?
Protect our freedoms?--or protect the freedoms of the rich at the expense of everyone else?
Freedom supercedes any argument for national security. What for national security without freedom?
Logically, can freedom "be abused"?
I could go on and on...
Hmm, one might say that the artist is entitled to freedom of expression, but what makes the image so subversive is the free press and its ability to transmit the image so broadly. Could the artist have anticipated this amount of attention to the "piece?"
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