Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Today in Performance Art Legal News (UPDATE)

Ann Althouse has the rundown:

First:

Performance artist Yazmany Arboleda set up a show called "The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama" in a storefront across the street from the New York Times offices in Midtown. He says: "It’s art. It’s not supposed to be harmful. It’s about character assassination — about how Obama and Hillary have been portrayed by the media. ... It’s about the media." The police and Secret Service promptly shut it down. The Times's Sewell Chan has the story here.

Second:

Steven Kurtz, "cleared of fraud charges after a four-year battle with the government," is planning a new exhibition "based on works and items removed from his home by law enforcement agents." The show opens Saturday and will "not only display Kurtz's art, but trash left at his home by investigators who converged there amid worries the bacteria represented a bioterror threat." Story here.

UPDATE: On the first story, it turns out it may not be accurate to say the exhibition was "shut down." See here.