CAE: bullied into submission / room at the inn / Russia still po-face on art (Monday 22 October 2007)
compiled by Marthe Leach
Exhaused scientist forced to plead guilty
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| Janet Galore / Deborah F. Lawrence: poster for CAE defense-fund benefit; courtesy the artists; from Circa article on the CAE affair by Gregory Sholette held here. |
On 11 October, 2007, part of the Kurtz/ Ferrell trial came to a close. Under enormous pressure from both a prelonged trial and his failing health, Dr. Robert Ferrell pleaded guilty in a Federal District Court to mail fraud and wire fraud, the lesser charges from the trumped-up allegations of him engaging in bioterrorism. This is a signifigcant marker in the disturbingly ridiculous persecution of Ferrell and Steven Kurtz - a founding member of the Critical Art Ensemble—that began in 2004 (covered here).
Ferrell is the scientist tied to the Kurtz case. Back in 2004, Kurtz, finding his wife, Hope, dead of a heart attack, called 911. When the police responded, they found not only the body of his wife and a greiving husband, but also the supplies for an art piece that Kurtz was working on with CAE, which included three strains of harmless bacteria. The police then contacted the FBI which lead to Kurtz and Ferrell - the scientist who had ordered the bacteria - to be brought up against a grand jury under charge of bioterrorism. Of course, the grand jury refused to uphold these charges, so in a fishing expedition, the charges were dropped down to mail fraud and wire fraud - which, thanks to the Patriot Act, have the same twenty-year maximum sentence as bioterrorism.
Ferrell has been struggling with his health for some time. He is a survivor of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, two minor strokes and one major stroke, and two autologous stem-cell transplants. In his current condition, Ferrell was simply unable to endure the trial any longer. His daughter, Gentry Chandler Ferrell, stated, “I remain unable to wrap my mind around the absurdity of the government's pursuit of this case and I am saddened that it has been dragged out to the point where my dad opted to settle from pure exhaustion.” Many others echo her sentiment and continue to fight for Kurtz, whoes case has not yet been settled.
The arts community has been up in arms about this case for some time. Lynn Hershman directed a film about the case, Strange culture, featuring well-respected actors such as Tilda Swinton, Thomas Jay Ryan, and Peter Coyote. It has won critical praise and has been shown in over a dozen of US cities. Special screenings of this film have helped to collect funds for the defendents' legal fees. CAE is still collecting funds for legal fees through many different outlets (covered here and here). Check the CAE's website for more information.
Dreams of wheat fields
Dominique-Charles Janssens has a dream. It all started in 1985 when he was injured in a car crash in front of a small inn, Auberge Ravoux, in Auvers-Sur-Oise, France. As he was healing from the accident, a friend gave him a book of Van Gogh's letters. The inn he had crashed in front of was a historical site already. Van Gogh spent his last months on earth in the attic room, and Cézanne, Corot and Pissarro had also spent time in there. Inspired by the letters, Janssesns decided that it was his fate to purchase and restore the inn. It took six years to achieve, but Janssens was able to buy the inn and renovate it to how it might have been during Van Gogh's stay.
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| The inn where Van Gogh died and the painting is to be hung. Image held here |
But now, Janssens has his heart set on something more. He wants a real Van Gogh painting to hang on the wall where the painter once lived and died. He has already begun preperations, installing a bullet-proof glass box in which the painting will go in the attic room where Van Gogh died two days after shooting himself in the stomach while painting in the fields. Janssens has even selected the painting to go in the space - a work entitled The Fields, or sometimes Wheat Fields, which is one of the dozen or so Van Gogh did of the Auvers wheat fields. And the time is right for Janssens to purchase it; Sothebys in New York will auction the painting off on 7 November.
There is just one flaw in this idealistic plan: Janssens does not have the $28 to $35 million that Sothebys estimates the painting to sell for, but where there's a dream, there's a way. Janssens has set up the website vangoghsdream.org in order to raise funds to have one of the artist's last paintings returned to where it came from. He will not say how much has been collected so far, but even if the money is not raised in time for the auction, Janssens can legally continue collecting for another three years. Perhaps one day The Fields will return to the town that it was inspired by.
Kissing policemen called too raunchy for Paris
While the days of the USSR may be over, the Russian government is maintaining a strict control over what is appropriate or not appropriate. Sixteen works of art have been banned by the Russian Cultural Minister, Alexander Sokolov, and will not be shown in the Paris exhibition at the Maison Rouge hall they were intended to be in. Among these banned works are two pieces by the group Blue Noses, one of which depicts George Bush, Vladamir Putin, and Osama Bin Laden in their underwear on a double bed (see our previous news item on the subject here, where you can judge how threatening the image for yourself). Another of Blue Noses' banned pieces is a photograph that pays homage to the Banksy painting of two policemen kissing in a forest.
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| Blue Noses' Kissing policemen (an epoch of clemency). Image held here |
Sokolov argues, "If this exhibition appears [in Paris] it will bring shame on Russia. In this case, all of us will bear full responsibility...It is inadmissible...to take all this pornography, kissing policemen and erotic pictures to Paris." However, the Blue Noses' pieces have been exibited in Russia this past year without any sort of backlash.
Most recent news items:
• Beating up photographs / some unlikely geriatrics in cyberspace (Tuesday 16 October 2007)
• Conor Fallon passes / OBG Director sought / snaps (Tuesday 9 October 2007)
• Graffiti and crime / somewhere to park their trolleys (Friday 5 October 2007)
• Keeping what Hopper saw / paintings track dimming (Thursday 4 October 2007)
For a full list of news items, click here.
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