First it was Giuliani and his “moral outrage” over a depiction of the Madonna using elephant dung as a medium. Now the Secret Service is visiting art galleries who exhibit “controversial” images and demanding information on the artists. At Columbia University’s opening of “Axis of Evil: The Secret History of Sin”, the Secret Service showed up.
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Columbia Chronicle

Sure, the images are controversial; they’re meant to be. Provocative art is nothing new. Art reflects (or should reflect) the culture it springs from, and political art is intended to shock people, to make them think, to pull them out of their “safe” cocoon and shake them and say “look at this!” Goya’s violent images of the barbarism of war in Los Desastres de la Guerra (or The fatal consequences of bloody war in Spain with Bonaparte and other emphatic caprices in 85 prints…whew! as Goya originally titled them) are shocking and horrific. And they are meant to be.

Ironically, a copy of Picasso’s famous anti-war mural, Guernica, hanging at the entrance to the UN Security Council was covered in 2003 in the US’ run-up to war with Iraq. I’m sure Picasso would have appreciated the irony of politicians standing in front of his shrouded image showing what the horrors of war do to civilians and making their case for war.

Another case of censorship?

I believe art should challenge, and should shock if need be to get the artist’s message across. There are artists I dislike intensely (Warhol, Christo, Kinkade), but that's just my opinion, and I fully support its right to be displayed (though I think Christo is a menace, especially since he finally wound up killing someone in CA with his umbrella exhibition...oh, never mind...). That’s the beauty of art.

Should art be subjected to this kind of government investigation? Is this sort of intimidation a first step toward political/artistic censorship?

Is the availability of challenging, sometimes unpleasant art important?
Since art is supposed to make one feel, I hope I can add a “how does it make you feel” question.

How does the exhibit make you feel and what do you think about it?

How about we add what you so easily left out in your post...

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...rvice_exhibit_5



18 USC Sec. 871



If it was just the Secret Serivce investiagting the art because it was anti-war than it is wrong. But if they believe there is a serious threat to the President of the US...then they are well within their bounds to investigate the matter. It's their job to protect him. There are numerous cases where the Secret Service have quesitoned people because of what they said, wrote, painted, wahtever. It's against the law and is not part of the "free speech/expression" of the 1st Amendment.

I disagree with the art but that doesnt mean i think they shouldnt be allowed to show it. If its threatening someone...then it is wrong...plain and simple.

It was a running joke in my high school that if you made threats against the President (then George H.W. Bush) then the Secret Service would be knocking on your door.

As leder points out, it is the Secret Service's job to investigate threats against the President, whether veiled or overt.

When you post such threats in public (via displaying such artwork) then it becomes the Secret Service's job to investigate the meaning behind the threats.

Had this been the FBI, then you might have had something, Daffy.

Should art be subjected to this kind of government investigation? Is this sort of intimidation a first step toward political/artistic censorship?

If it threatens public figures, it should be investigated. If that is your definition of "intimidation" then you should ask yourself if a high school sophomore should be investigated for posting pictures of his Math teacher in a noose or some other such garbage. Is that just "the culture it springs from" too?

Is this the start of censorship? Did they shut anyone down for displaying this artwork? Have they intimidated future galleries from thinking about displaying such artwork?


Is the availability of challenging, sometimes unpleasant art important?

I suppose it is an outlet for some unpleasant emotions, so that's important.

How does the exhibit make you feel and what do you think about it?

It's pretty much garbage, but then my opinion is entirely politically motivated (as was the artist's I might add...).

I didn't leave anything out intentionally, as you imply. I posted 2 links with pictures of the "offending" art, bigger than...well, big.

The image isn't "threatening" anyone. It's the individual's interpretation of the image. If a painter depicts a murder in a painting, does that mean s/he murdered someone, or saw someone being murdered?

Should art be subjected to this kind of government investigation? Is this sort of intimidation a first step toward political/artistic censorship?
I'm not even going to address the Secret Service - if there is even a rumor of a rumor of a threat or depiction of harm to the President your darn right they should investigate, this being their job and all...

Should art be subjected to this kind of government investigation? Is this sort of intimidation a first step toward political/artistic censorship?

Is the availability of challenging, sometimes unpleasant art important?
Of course! The key word being "art." Goya was an artist. I can photo-shop Bush's head and a pistol on my laptop. None of these "artists" could paint anything that would compare with Los Desastres de la Guerra or Picasso's Guernica, nor any of Diego Rivera or Orozco's politically-oriented murals. You should have to learn the rules before you break them. Unfortunately, that's not emphasized enough in places like Columbia - Note everyone this is Columbia College in Chicago not Columbia U in New York. Honestly, the Bush stamp and the Sears Tower / Steven Segal thing sound pretty Beavis and Butthead to me.
How does the exhibit make you feel and what do you think about it?
In Chicago we have a rich history of this type of thing - After Mayor Washington died, there were rumors that he was found in women's undergarments. A student artist displayed a painting depicting him this way, and some of our aldermen physically broke in and took the painting off the wall...

Shocking pictures that lampoon our leaders in the most simplistic, childish way is a lot easier than creating original art. You want some art, go look at the real galleries, there is plenty around.

edited to add...

No - slightly off topic, but there is a fascinating book with this as the premise. Paintings of "sleeping" women who looked suspiciously dead. It's called "Dead Sleep" by Greg Iles and is a great read.

Let's not digress into the question of whether the art in question was good art or bad art. That's utterly irrelevent. The law in question requires the Secret Service to investigate any threat to the life of the President. That's good. After examining the image of the postal stamp, they should have concluded that there was no threat to the life of the President, and dropped the matter. Is there any person in this group who considers the image in question to constitute in any way a threat to the life of the President? The fact that these agents were unable to discern the absence of any threat indicates the extremely poor judgment that government agents are capable of exercising, which is why we need so many protections against them.

I wasn't digressing. I was answering the question.
How does the exhibit make you feel and what do you think about it? What evidence do you have that the Secret Service were unable to discern the absence of threat?

The fact that they continued the investigation by making inquiries into the identities of the artists. I would expect a reasonable Secret Service agent to respond to the initial report by going to the exhibit and looking at the art, laughing, and then going home. The fact that these guys evaluated the art as serious enough to warrant further investigation demonstrates the kind of overzealousness that, in the hands of those granted exceptional powers by society, can become dangerous to society.

I am thinking that if you were a public figure and there was a piece of art depicting a gun pointed at your head that you might have some concern.

People do have the right to display crap. This does not rise to the level of screaming fire in a theatre. If it had been the FBI investigating I would be concerned. The SS was simply doing there job.

Well, some good has come from this. Between the Columbia story and the T-shirts at Café Press suggesting that Tom DeLay should commit suicide, I now see the following, where the "Kill Bush" shirts used to be. (these were in the style of the "kill bill" movie, complete with blood gashes)

Hugo, I disagree. The President of the United States is a symbol of power, and people who are unhappy with the ways things are will express their resentment at that symbol. Metaphor is the heart and soul of artistic expression. I myself find the use of violent metaphor to be neanderthal, but I don't make the mistake of equating neanderthal thinking with criminal intent. I would prefer a statement such as "I find President Bush's optimism with regard to the ease of nurturing democracy in Iraq to be be ill-informed by historical experience." Another person might say, "Bush doesn't know what he's talking about". A third might say, "Bush is full of ****." A fourth might say, "**** Bush!" and so on. Millions of people do this kind of thing without any criminal intent whatever.

Look at this this way: right now, millions of kids are playing violent videogames in which they stab, hack, shoot, and blow up many more millions of virtual monsters and people. They're not just pointing the guns, they're pulling the triggers! Is this cause to believe that millions of these kids will turn into mass murderers? Would you have the Secret Service investigate every kid who plays videogames?

Perhaps the kids, having honed their expert marksmanship, could take aim at these posters, which the peace-loving liberals have been fly-posting in NYC as a form of political protest.

edit - site doesn't permit direct image linking... correct link here brain-terminal

You and your source are confusing "liberals" with "militant leftists." I know it's tempting to group everyone left of Giuliani a "liberal" but it simply isn't true. The left spectrum is a pastiche of militants, pacifists, socialists, and capitalists. The people making this artwork are not the same people that are waving peace signs in the streets. They may be holding hands with those people, but they are not the SAME people.

Both your cited example and the topic are examples of militant artwork. Art can be fuel for political expression and in both of these cases they are. Many artists believe that if their artwork isn't aggravating someone off, they aren't making good artwork. Not unlike to the way the AFA believes that if they haven't enraged everyone left of the christian-Right with their latest press release, they aren't doing their jobs.

If you're still having trouble comprehending the dichotomy of the left, think of it this way. Rage Against the Machine believes "Anger is a gift." Joan Baez thinks love is the answer. Both are left, and both are opposed to war. RATM, however, is opposed to a PARTICULAR type of war, but believes just-war (such as in their eyes, the Zapitista fighting in Chiapas). Baez (who I'm using here as a representative of pacifists for some weird reason), believes all war and killing is bad.

On-topic, I think the SS was doing it's job, as long as this doesn't go anywhere else. I'm pretty anti-slippery slope logic, so that's where it ends with me.

Edited: --Caught by the language filter--

More like intimindating and threatening. Daffygirl from that same Chicago Sun article there is this quote:



So not only did Mr. Hernandez de Luna screw with the US Postal Service, he also did it during a crisis when people had died because of the terrorists attacks via mail. His work assisted the terrorists goals of fear, confusion, and its disturbing he didnt realize that. Now he's facing the consequences - higher surveillance.

Its very interesting that Mr. Hernandez has actually shown restraint of his work before. He pulled a pornographic picture of Mickey Mouse for fear of reprisal from Disney. link

Yet he didnt think that putting a gun to the President's head in an art exhibit would be received as a threatening gesture of intimidation? Hmmm. I think he knew exactly what kind of respose he'd get, as the Disney example shows.

Shame on Mr. Hernandez, imho. There are plenty of other ways to express disagreement with President Bush besides threatening his person with terrorist-like tactics.

The anthrax thing comes much closer to unprotected speech than conveying one's political views in a crude manner.

And the question is not whether he should expect to be investigated, it is whether it is perfectly legal for him to do that, and whether he needs to be investigated for it. The answer to both those questions is no. I don't think any rational person would think him any more likely to be plotting an assassination attempt than the next guy. The only reason anyone would investigate him is for intimidation purposes. Remember "he was asking for it" has never been a valid legal defense.

I don't think that their inquiring about the artist's name and contact information shows anything other then them following proper procedure.

A possible threat against the president was reported. To properly investigate this they have to:

A> view the art in question and see if it does in fact depict violence against the President. Since it did, it is only logical that they them:

B> determine who the artist or artists are and do a basic investigation to determine if they have a history of threats against leaders, mental instability, violence, etc. Assuming that the artist does not then they then would have to go on to:

C> write a report about the incident and enter the artists name into the database so that if future threats similar to this, or involving this individual arise they can cross reference the current incident.

Consider this:

If the Secret Service did not conduct a basic investigation and merely assumed that the whole thing was silly, and then the artist in question did happen to be mentally unbalanced and did decide one day to make an attempt on the Presidents life everyone would be calling for the Secret Services head for not following up on the "obvious warning signs"?

As a real life example:

If anyone has access to the FBI database they could pull up my Mother in reference to the IRA. She was never a member, she was never politically involved with them (though she did hate the English "occupation" of Ireland), but she did donate a relatively large sum to a Irish Children's fund that was promoted as a charity to help the children of war-torn Ireland with medicine, education, etc. In reality, this particular charity turned out to be a front for IRA fundraising. When this was discovered the FBI did an investigation and my mother was contacted and briefly interviewed.

Nothing ever came of it and she never heard from them again. But I would put money on it, that if you looked her up in the FBI data base you would find her, with a reference to a possible link with the IRA (from 30 years ago) and a notation on the location of the interview/investigation file.

That is the job of investigators, to gather information and catalog it. I do not think that anything beyond that can be determined by the Secret Service inquiring about the artist.

I think we have to ask: Why are government agents investigating things matters? If it is to ascertain whether or not it is a threat to a public official, well and good. If it is to frighten people into giving up free speech, if it is harassment and a warning to the opposition, this is not good.

I believe at least some of these instances are the latter because of Brett Bursey:




And these protestors:




And this:




And the Democratic Party's 'Free Speech' Cages at the 2004 Convention, too. And the arrests in New York at the GOP Convention:





These matters have nothing to do with responsible precautions. This is censorship and intimidation. And that is where the balance tilts away from protecting officials and to the side of protecting citizens. Our freedoms are more important than any official's safety, once a pattern of intimidation and/or harassment has been established. I believe the pattern is established, and the Courts should start bringing mass actions. Or the citizens should bring actions themselves.

I don't even see this as a threat in any sense. A threat, IMO, is a verbal or written statement of intent to kill or harm. A picture of a gun pointed at someone's head simply doesn't qualify.


Furthermore, I think the Secret Service routinely outsteps their bounds and wastes taxpayer funds investigating those who will obviously never attack a public official. I do not think every threat against a President or other politician should be investigated, because the vast majority of these threats are simply one guy saying to another "I sure would like to kill George Bush." Nobody's ever proven to me that people making statements like this any any more likely to kill the President than someone who doesn't, so unless there's some sort of evidence beyond that I see no reason the Secret Service should be involved at all.

If you discovered someone had drawn a picture of you with a gun pointed at your head and you knew nothing about this person you would be concerned at all?




How are we supposed to know that this person will obviously never attack a public official without an investigation. When the press picked up this story, they were able to show the the artist did not appear to be threat because they investigated him on a basic level.



The reason is not them overstepping their bounds the reason is they have a job to do, and part of that job is to investigate any threat made against the president. It is likely that 99% of the treats made will not actually lead to an assassination attempt. However, there is no way for the secret service to know what is a credible threat and what is not without investigating it.

Consider this. When the World Trade Center was hit, and the stories came out about the FBI not following up on reports of people making strange requests of flight instructors and the like everyone was up in arms because of their failure to investigate these suspicious activities. If the world trade center had not been hit, and the FBI had investigated those strange activities, but nothing developed to show their was a credible threat It is likely that people would be saying the FBI was wasting tax dollars investigating such things.

An Investigation in cases like threat agains the president, do nothing more the determine if the threat is credible. this is part the job the primary job of the secret service to determine what credible threats are out there and act accordingly.

Why rights were violated here? Someone did something someone thought was a possible threat to the President and reported it. The Secret Service followed up by conducting an investigation that, as far as I can tell included looking at the art in question and interviewing the artist. That was the end of it. It seems quite reasonable to me.

Yes, of course, I'd be a little concerned. I'd wonder why this person had singled me out for such a picture, considering that as far as I know my picture has never been released in the mass media. It would seem quite strange. However, if I was a public figure, and someone drew a picture of me with a gun to my head and put it in a public exhibition, I don't think I'd be that scared, or even care that much.



How often to murderers hold public exhibitions attacking their future victims, or compose artwork showing guns pointed at the heads of their intended targets? I'm sure it's happened, but most likely very rarely. Most people planning to attack the President are probably doing it in secret, because they know there's going to be scrutiny if they do it in public. I'm not saying we should never investigate threats -- just ignore the ones that don't initially seem to have any basis. If you were to overhear someone saying "Bush's motorcade will be driving past the hotel today; let's rent a room and snipe him down" in a manner that seems totally serious, then by all means investigate. However, assassins rarely tell the general public of their plans.




Sure, fine.

Look, people make threats to commit criminal acts every day. They don't send the Secret Service, or any other law enforcement agency, to investigate every threat to beat someone up, smoke weed or steal from the supermarket. They don't even investigate every threat of murder. I don't see why a threat against the President should be taken any more seriously. Is the life of the President any more valuble than yours or mine? Is a person who makes a threat against the President any more likely to care it out than if it was made against a regular private citizen? If anything, I bet Bush is one of the most-threatened people in this country, yet not once has anyone tried to assassinate him.


I am fairly sure that it is perfectly possible to protect the President without sending men in black to investigate everyone who says/writes/paints anything that might be considered threatening to him. America is just so obsessed with danger today. I'm sure there are people out there planning to attack America today -- and they're not putting their plans in public exhibitions.