SELECTION "ETC." from heartland in dialogue magazine
According to Chicago Artists’ News, after record-keeping negligence in the 1970s and early 1980s, Chicago’s Public Art Program is undertaking the exhausting project of cataloging every artwork and making its history available for download. Cracks in the bookkeeping of that period allowed for $20 million worth of artwork to be “lost” in the school system alone. Other alleged oversights include Chicago Rising, an immense bronze sculpture by Milton Horne that went M.I.A. for five years, and Harlem Station, a painting by Alex Katz valued at $500,000, which was used as a storage rack at O’Hare Airport. As of press time, Chicago art dealer Paul Klein distributed an email announcement in support of Chicago’s Dept. of Cultural Affairs and the Public Art Program, and was participating in a local television broadcast to discuss the program…
New York City’s morality superhero/Mayor Rudolph Giuliani had begun appointments to his “Decency Panel.” Though no appointments of prominent world art leaders have been reported, the panel does include a pastor, a rabbi, an imam, and Giuliani’s divorce attorney. The Decency Panel apparently was not alerted when Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi spoke out against the lack of decency at New York’s JFK airport. After winning the Freedom of Expression Award for his film The Circle, Panahi refused to be fingerprinted and photographed because of his nationality and was chained to a dirty bench for 10 hours with other foreign travelers, including a young boy from Sri Lanka who continually cried out for his mother and was repeatedly ignored by officials…
Across the globe, China would probably value Giuliani’s advice in dealing with “bloody, violent and erotic” performance art that has been emerging since the mid-1980s. Such works have been banned, and jail sentences of up to three years are recommended for violators. Many artists have spoken out against the ordinance, including Yu Ji, who once spent a day naked in a glass box filled with live chickens, and Sheng Qi, who, wanting to stay rooted to China when traveling to Rome after Tian’anmen Square, severed his left pinky finger and buried it in a flowerpot.
News compiled by Jennifer Sadler, managing editor of dialogue, and Joanie Solsman, editorial intern.
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last updated: 4.12.03
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