[News] Secret Service visits art show at Columbia

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Secret Service visits art show at Columbia

file:home2

April 12, 2005

BY <mailto:nkorecki at suntimes.com>NATASHA KORECKI Federal Courts Reporter
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-axis12.html

Organizers of a politically charged art exhibit at Columbia College's Glass 
Curtain Gallery thought their show might draw controversy.

But they didn't expect two U.S. Secret Service agents would be among the 
show's first visitors.

The agents turned up Thursday evening, just before the public opening of 
"Axis of Evil, the Secret History of Sin," and took pictures of some of the 
art pieces -- including "Patriot Act," showing President Bush on a mock 
37-cent stamp with a revolver pointed at his head.

The agents asked what the artists meant by their work and wanted museum 
director CarolAnn Brown to turn over the names and phone numbers of all the 
artists. They wanted to hear from the exhibit's curator, Michael Hernandez 
deLuna, within 24 hours, she said.

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Curator in previous controversy

"They just want to make sure it isn't something more than a statement," 
Brown said.

This isn't the first time Hernandez has had a brush with the feds over a 
fake stamp. In 2001, authorities said they suspected he was behind a bogus 
stamp that bore a black skull and crossbones and the word "Anthrax." It was 
sent through the mail during the height of the anthrax scare.

The Columbia exhibit features 47 artists from 11 countries and depicts 
powerful religious and political leaders worldwide on mock postage stamps. 
One, called "Citizen John Ashcroft," shows Ashcroft's face fashioned from 
images of naked bodies at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Another piece -- "I 
saw it in a movie starring Steven Segal" -- shows a series of images of an 
airplane nearing, then crashing into the Sears Tower, and ends with the 
Chicago skyline without the skyscraper.

A Secret Service agent called the gallery again Friday, asking for contact 
information for Al Brandtner, a Chicago artist who created the Bush piece, 
Brown said. Brandtner could not be reached for comment.

'Just doing some looking into it'

The gallery didn't have the information because the show is made up of 
independent artists not tied to the college -- including Hernandez, a 
Chicago artist who not only organized the show but has works featured in 
it. Brown said she referred the agent to attorneys representing the artists.

Secret Service spokesman Brandon Bridgeforth said he couldn't go into 
specifics about last week's visit.

"We are doing some inquiries into the art exhibit. We're just doing some 
looking into it," Bridgeforth said.

Columbia College spokeswoman Micki Leventhal said agents were responding to 
citizen complaints about the artwork, which received some pre-show 
publicity in Chicago media.

Leventhal said news of the Secret Service visit was surprising and 
unprecedented for any art show. She said the exhibit had opened in 
Philadelphia with no complaints. Columbia agreed to the exhibit because of 
its "high artistic standards" and supports it even though the artists are 
not affiliated with the college, she said.

"We're an art school. Our position has always been and remains: We support 
freedom of speech, freedom of artistic expression and academic freedom," 
Leventhal said.

Hernandez said any government involvement could come close to trampling 
First Amendment rights.

"It frightens me ... as an artist and curator. Now we're being watched," 
Hernandez said. "It's a new world. It's a Big Brother world. I think it's 
frightening for any artist who wants to do edgy art."

Hernandez said he hopes the public sees the exhibit as a whole -- and not 
just about one man or even one country. Some works Hernandez thought would 
be more controversial challenge Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Church. 
Others look at Nazi Germany and the killing fields in Cambodia.

He refused to talk about the 2001 incident, when he was suspected of being 
involved in a fake anthrax stamp that shut down an area of Chicago's main 
post office. Hernandez and another Chicago artist routinely sent fake 
stamps through the mail, then sold them for thousands of dollars.

The exhibit at Glass Curtain Gallery, 1104 S. Wabash, runs through May 11 
and is dedicated to Chicago artist Ed Paschke, who died Nov. 25.


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