Auction raises $$ and spirits as persecution
of CAE continues (Wednesday 27 April 2005)
compiled by Elaine Cronin
Last Thursday an art auction in aid of the
Critical Art Ensemble legal defense team took place at the Paula
Cooper Gallery in New York City, raising almost $168,000. There
were over fifty supporting artists featured at the auction including
some big names like Sol LeWitt, Cindy Sherman and Kiki Smith,
who all donated work. The money will go toward funding the legal
fees of Steve Kurtz, a founding member of Critical Art Ensemble
(CAE) and Professor of Art at the University of Buffalo, and
Robert Ferrell, a Professor of Human Genetics at the University
of Pittsburgh.
Both have been accused of bioterrorism in
a case taken against them by the FBI last June as a direct result
of members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force mistaking an art
project destined for an upcoming exhibition at the Massachusetts
Museum of Contemporary Art for a biological weapons laboratory
(see our earlier reports starting here).
The Joint Terrorism Task Force was called upon originally following
a 911 call which Kurtz himself made on finding his wife dead
due to cardiac arrest. Ridiculous as it may seem, this mistake
resulted in the entire block around Kurtz's apartment being
sealed off, his apartment deemed by the Buffalo Health Authority
as unsafe, his wife's body being held for further testing and
all of his equipment, computers, notebooks and work being compounded
by the FBI. Several weeks afterwards he was allowed to return
to his home, had his wife's body returned to him and the charge
was rejected by a Federal Grand Jury and instead dropped down
to indictments of two counts each of 'mail fraud' and 'wire
fraud', which carry the same sentence to that of bioterrorism
- up to twenty years. These charges of mail and wire fraud are
usually used against those involved in fraudulent telemarketing
schemes and the like; however, in this case the charges concern
technicalities of how Ferrell helped Kurtz to obtain $256 worth
of harmless bacteria for one of Kurtz's art projects. The harmless
bacteria was part of an ongoing series of projects undertaken
by Kurtz which address the politics of biotechnology, and is
freely and legally available to members of the public, often
being used in schools and universities across the States.
For the past seven years, Critical
Art Ensemble has focused on biotechnology, its colonising effects
and ideological layering, and the bio revolution in global capitalism.
As the public's access to the processes of biotechnology is
limited and as it is only the resultant product that appears
as a commodity, CAE believes this widely results in misleading
speculation, fear, disinformation and communicative disorder.
The case against Kurtz and Ferrell has
been widely deemed as a face-saving scheme by the FBI and is
another example of how the USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening
America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept
and Obstruct Terrorism ) and FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act) is being used inappropriately and in direct breach of the
Constitution, in domestic situations. The USA PATRIOT act, which
was forced through in 2001, gives provisions that noncitizens
can be locked up indefinitely on mere suspicion of terrorism,
without a conviction or trial, and can be subject to secret
searches and surveillance - which in turn deprives the Courts
of meaningful judicial oversight. There is also a provision
in the Act which allows more freedom to the FBI in carrying
out taps and searches on ordinary citizens. Further to this,
even though both Kurtz and Ferrell have been acquitted of the
charge of bioterrorism, the FBI continue to label them as such,
and carry on stating that the bacteria involved was hazardous.
The knock-on effects of this trial in
the US are astounding - what, in effect, Kurtz and Ferrell are
been accused of is the crime of thought. If this trial is to
result in conviction, it lays down a path for future trials
wherein actual evidence of a crime being committed will be irrelevant
to the prosecution as long as there is evidence of the means
or opportunity to commit the crime.
Sources: Critical
Art Ensemble; CAE
Defense Fund; CAE
Auction
CIRCA 112, Summer 2005 will contain an
extended essay by Gregory Sholette on Steve Kurtz and CAE.
Most recent news items:
• Doran wins AIB Prize (Friday 22 April 2005)
• Culture Ireland allocations point to difference on Northern Ireland (Wednesday 20 April 2005)
• Godbold runs foul of political masters, already (Friday 15 April 2005)
• April exhibition to mark temporary re-opening of Hugh Lane (Thursday 24 March #2)
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