Oct. 13, 2005 – A discussion on speech and freedom in the age of the "war on terror" is growing in Wisconsin following a decision last month by University of Wisconsin at Green Bay officials to pull an installation from a politically themed campus art exhibit. Secret Service agents visited a Chicago college gallery hosting the exhibit this past spring in order to investigate the piece pulled from the Wisconsin show.
Part of a traveling art exhibit titled "Axis of Evil: The Secret History of Sin," the artwork that university Chancellor Bruce Shepard ordered removed from the school-owned gallery depicts a sheet of stamps, each portraying a revolver pointing to President Bush’s head over an American flag background. The piece, by artist Al Brandtner, is titled "Patriot Act."
Faculty members complained and students reportedly protested the decision by Shepard to pull the artwork from the exhibit. On the opening night of the show, around 30 people went to the gallery to speak out against the censorship, all wearing t-shirts bearing the banned artwork.
Art professors have been circulating a letter challenging the chancellor’s decision as a missed "valuable opportunity to educate our donors as well as our student body about the role of visual art in a liberal arts education and its representation of diverse viewpoints and opinions," Inside Higher Ed reported.
The gallery’s curator joined in the criticism, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Stating that the entire exhibit – and specifically the banned piece – is "about power and the power of the Patriot Act that has a gun to all our heads," curator Stephen E. Perkins considered closing the entire show before settling on placing an empty frame and a book depicting the piece in place of the original item, the paper said.
Shepard reportedly discussed concerns about "Patriot Act" with university lawyers and the president of the state university system before ordering the item pulled. In an e-mail to faculty and staff he defended the move, stating: "It is not a question of being too provocative. It is a question of whether this campus will use publicly provided resources for what, very reasonably and by many, will be construed as advocacy of a most violent and unlawful act.".
The chancellor’s actions differ markedly from those of officials at Columbia College in Chicago this spring. After Secret Service agents visited the gallery hosting "Axis of Evil," inquired about the Brandtner art and asked for the names of all participating artists, the gallery curator and college refused.
