Petition against altering Emily Jacir's art installation

[noamnety]

(copied from another forum)

Emily Jacir is scheduled to show her piece "Where We Come From" at the Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art in Wichita, Kansas on January 20th. For this piece she asked exiled Palestinians, "If I could do anything for you, anywhere in Palestine, what would it be?" Taking advantage of her American passport, she carried out their requests, which ranged from playing soccer with a boy in Haifa to visiting a mother's grave.

The Museum itself has no problem with her work, however, The Jewish Federation of Kansas has put pressure on the University and the Museum and have been granted permission to place brochures and a sign in the gallery expressing their views concerning the politics of the Middle East.

The University and Museum have no idea what text is contained in the brochures and what the posters are but have given them permission to alter her installation.

It is an infringement on Jacir's freedom of speech and also an insult to her as an artist to allow anyone to modify her installation. It is an outrage that the museum would do this without Jacir's permission especially without knowing what the content is.

We are writing to the Director of the Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art in Wichita to convince him to omit the sign and brochures from her exhibit.

You can sign the petition as well as see links to Emily Jacir's work here: http://www.adoptanamerican.com/jacir/

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Oh, man, that's crap

At first I thought, "Hey - nothing wrong with letting them have brochures and things" but then I read it again and realized that the posters will be IN the gallery!

That's bullshit - the artist's space is sacred space, and should not be violated with political (even if the artist's work is political) or critical postings.

Anything criticizing the artwork needs to be outside the gallery, and NOT included in the gallery with the artist's works.


(and as an aside, my first thought, when I read the title of the show and that it was in Kansas, was that people were protesting that an artist had done evolution-based artwork on the history of homo sapiens ;-) )

[Lithos]

2. Locking per I/P guidelines

Not based on a recent news or op-ed article.

Lithos
I/P Moderator
Democratic Undergroun