Gun violence, art & protest

Details are a little hard to piece together right now, but there’s a protest happening tonight over an art show at the Art Institute. Art Students decided to put together a show featuring six artists on the theme of gun violence. Apparently, the President of the school decided to shroud one of the pieces, an installation by Steven Earl Weber, with a black curtain.

In an email I just received from David Kessler, another artist in the show, apparently the rest of the artists will shroud their work in the same way, to express their opposition to censorship.

I haven’t found any photos of Weber’s piece on-line, but you can see other examples of his work at the link above. Dealing with gun-violence is nothing new in his work.

Here’s David Kessler’s letter to the University president:

Dear Dr. Larkin,

I am one of the artists in the current Art Institute student curated exhibition ‘Killing Time’. I am writing to you to address your decision to censor fellow artist, Steven Earl Weber’s work from the show.

Sir, censorship of any sort is offensive and abhorrent and at an art school it is doubly so. The fact that artwork should be censored in an institution of higher learning in a major US city is disgusting and backwards.

Your judgment regarding Weber’s work specifically was especially misguided and wrong. Steven’s work often addresses issues in society that cause division, forcing people to choose philosophical or sometimes fundamental positions in their lives, whether that is religion or science or in this case the role of handguns. The piece entitled Glorification was intended to spark discussion and to call attention to the glorification of guns, the plague of urban violence and gun laws from any perspective. It was a metaphor. The positioning of the piece, in a window in Center City, away from the majority of gun violence and therefore easier to forget about, made it all that more relevant. But you sir, took it upon yourself to close down any communication at a time when it is most crucial.

This was a student curated show. What do you think this tells the students at your school about art and the importance of their own voices?

Not only did you force Steven to remove the work, you refused to even discuss the matter with him or address the students that curated the show and worked for months on it. This shows a staggering lack of character and integrity on your part. You need to at least have to courage to defend your position.

The Philadelphia art world is a growing and closely-knit community. The artists here and people like Weber, who runs a gallery of his own, are working tirelessly to make Philadelphia a place where artists want to come live and work, where their voices will be heard. This type of censorship will not go unnoticed and will surely have a negative effect on you and how your school is viewed.

I’m calling you to publicly defend your position or to allow Steven to reinstall his work.

Sincerely,

David S Kessler

Also covered at artblog.

Ironically, it might be impossible to see any of the art at one of the most interesting art shows of the year, and that’s probably why it will be so interesting.

If you want to come and show your support for artists against censorship come out to The Art Institute Gallery tonight, from 4:30 PM to 7:30 PM, 1622 Chestnut Street.