| home | navigation | links | gallery | exhibitions | guest book |
Some of the new work has been added to this site
in Robert Sievert's section.
U S SENATE CENSORS NYC ARTIST
I have the great honor of announcing that one of ETAOIN's
artists, Laura Ferguson, has been censored by a committee of
the U.S. Senate. It's true the writ doesn't run very far --
the compass of Russell rotunda -- but one guesses they're
doing what they can. Here's the story:
Some time ago, Laura Ferguson was invited to participate in
an art exhibition, actual and virtual, sponsored by the American
Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Laura is affected by scoliosis;
art is one of the ways she deals with her predicament. As she
says in a statement published on ETAOIN,
We experience the world through our bodies, and the singularity
of each life experience gives its story, its meaning, but also
threatens to trap us in the isolation of self. I became
interested in the visual imagery of the body's interior because
of my own physical differentness, caused by scoliosis, a
deformity of the spine and rib cage. My body's asymmetry
creates the need for a subtle effort of balancing, in my
physical relationship to gravity and space, and in my psychic
sense of centeredness and wholeness. The conscious awareness
of bodily processes that usually unfold by themselves has made
me finely attuned to my bones and muscles, nerves and senses,
like a dancer. With a brush or pencil or crayon as an extension
of my hand, I have sought to find a voice, a process, through
which my body could express this awareness in visual form.
( fersta.htm )
Or, as another participant in the show, Allison Berman,
remarked, "When I paint, I am no longer controlled by my pain
or disability." In Laura's case, as we can see, the pain and
disability have become not only a problem to overcome but a
mode of knowedge many of us do not experience, not just
a transcendence but an assumption, an encompassing, a
going-beyond that takes the way along with it.
Laura and Laura's part of the exhibition can be seen at
http://emotionpictures.aaos.org/ferguson2.html .
Many people who have seen this exhibition have been profoundly
moved by it. Most importantly, it has given courage and hope
to others who are similarly afflicted, especially children.
One mother who took her daughter, also a sufferer from scoliosis,
to the exhibition wrote to Laura to tell her that her daughter,
hitherto somewhat discouraged, had been electrified by Laura's
work and was planning to become an artist herself.
After being seen in San Francisco, the exhibition was to travel
to Washington, where it was going to be installed in the
Senate's Russell office building. But as the _Washington
Post's_ Lloyd Grove
reports (in part),
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons has pulled a scheduled
art exhibit from the Russell Senate Office Building after the Senate
Rules Committee censored paintings of naked women and their skeletal
systems. The paintings, by scoliosis-suffering artist Laura Ferguson,
were among around 40 works in "eMotion Pictures: An Exhibition of
Orthopaedics in Art," which had been set for display April 23-27 in
the Russell rotunda.
...
Tamara Somerville, staff director for Senate Rules Committee Chairman
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), told us that staffers rejected Ferguson's art
because it featured nudity. "We make no bones about it, we do censor,"
Somerville said. "We are not an art museum. Nobody's entitled to
display anything."
Rather than remove Ferguson's paintings from the exhibit, the
organization opted to move it to Southwest Washington's Millennium
Arts Center, where 100 pieces will be on display April 23 to May 26.
Svetlana Mintcheva, arts advocacy project coordinator for the National
Coalition Against Censorship, decried the Senate's act: "We are not
even talking frontal nudity or a desire to provoke. What next? Put
Michelangelo's 'David' in the closet, shame Venus into a frock?"
[Washington Post]
Actually, it was apparently quite an accomplishment for Mr. Grove to get a straight answer out of the Senate Rules Committee staff; unlike the Taliban, they were quite coy about their dislike of images of the human body and it was very difficult to get any sort of explanation out of them. But now that they've owned up to the C-word, we can proceed. As Laura told reporter Grove, "It just seems a shame. ... There's a discomfort that people have with someone who has a less than perfect body being sensual. Disabled people, if they want to be accepted, have to be saintly and cheery." This, I think, is probably the heart of the Senate Rules Committee staff's objection to these particular pictures. Part of the oppression of the disabled is that many people do not wish them to be visible, or, if they are visible at all, they are not to be sensual, sexy, attractive, beautiful. The precise conjunction of potential eroticism (implicit in every human body) together with an abnormality, a disability which had been challenged, overcome, even built upon, was too much for them, no doubt especially those who are looking over their shoulders in fear of reactionary constituencies. To the extent they could, then, they deprived people like the young woman mentioned above of a chance to live more fully -- maybe even to live at all. And so we see, more clearly than usual, the death-dealing nature of the repressive mentality and its politics -- comfortable with war, money and prisons, frightened away by the common truth of flesh and bone. But regardless of the U.S. Senate, you can see Laura's work now on the ETAOIN website at
fer0.htm
and on the AAOS's website at
http://emotionpictures.aaos.org
Four pictures by Laura Ferguson are featured in
"eMotion Pictures: An Exhibition of Orthopaedics in Art,"
sponsored by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons,
at the Herbst Exhibition Center in San Francisco in March,
2001. Her piece
"Crouching figure with visible skeleton
(2000)" was commissioned by the Academy and used on the
"Call for Entries" and on posters and publicity materials for
the show.
The Knickerbocker Gallery
121½ Division Street
New York, NY 10002
212-406-0187
hours: Tues-Sun 12-6; closed Mondays
Reception: Tues., Sept. 5, 6-8 p.m.
There will be a reception, on Sunday, September 19th,
Dates: April 21 - May 3, 1998; opening reception Saturday,
Place: Chuck Levitan Gallery
The paintings to be shown are viewable
here.
Also on view are works (painting and sculpture) by Rick Krieger,
Now through August 31st.
Art Lab Gallery
These will include:
June 6 - June 18, 2000
in The Contemporary Artists' Guild group show at
The Broome Street Gallery
498 Broome Street (near West Broadway)
New York, NY 10013
212-226-6085
hours: Tues-Sun 11-6; closed Mondays
Reception: Wed., June 7, 6-8 p.m.
February 4, 2000
January 24, 2000
in a group show at
The New York Mercantile Exchange
Feburary 7 - Mar. 31, 2000
1 North End Avenue, World Financial Center
New York, NY (212-299-2278)
Reception 5:30 - 7:00 p.m. Feb. 17
Other participants include Erin Butler, Robert Grant,
Patricia McLaughlin, and Hedy O'Beil-Gersten. The show
is sponsored by the Organization of Independent Artists,
19 Hudson Street Rm. 402, New York, NY 10013. (212-219-9213)
December 6, 1999
October 2, 1999
September 5, 1999
all of them in
the show
mentioned below. An icon indicating
inclusion in the show has been added to the catalog pages.
August 23, 1999
site, are now appearing in a show at the Dance Theater Workshop
gallery, 219 West 19th St. (between 7th and 8th Aves.), from
August 24 until October 9, 1999. Gallery hours: M-F 10-6,
Sat 12-6, Sun 11-6.
from 6-8 pm.
August 14, 1999
May 16, 1999
April 15, 1999
March 28, 1999
have been added to the
Exhibitions page.
February 15, 1999
February 15, 1999
January 10, 1999
December 31, 1998
December 27, 1998
December 3, 1998
November 28, 1998
November 5, 1998
October 11, 1998
pictures from the exhibition are now on line.
October 8, 1998
been updated.
October 4, 1998
September 16, 1998
September 10, 1998
August 30, 1998
April 20, 1998
April 17, 1998
show at Chuck Levitan Gallery. The show also includes
Mary Abbott, Amy Banker, Anne Brody, Paula Holland, Mollyne
Karnofsky, Hedy O'Beil-Gersten, Vry Roussin, and Judith Uehling.
The show will be curated by Hedy O'Beil-Gersten.
April 25, 4 - 7 p.m. On Saturday, May 2, at 7:30 p.m., there will
be a performance by Mollyne Karnofsky & Co. "Collide: A Scope."
42 Grand Street (corner West Broadway)
New York, NY 10013. Hours Tues.-Sun. 12-8.
Telephone: 212-966-2792.
February 22, 1998
There will be a Memorial Exhibition opening March 15th
at Newhouse Gallery,
Snug Harbor, Staten Island, New York
December 31, 1997
and some Far Eastern influence (according to us.)
from a burned-out rock club.
WHAT's NEW as of October 8, 1997
in the ENCLOSED CULTURES show at
MMC Gallery
October 21 - November 15, 1997
Marymount Manhattan College
221 East 71st Street
New York, New York 10021
(212) 517-0634
Open Reception Thursday, October 23, 6-8 pm
Gallery hours Monday - Sunday 9am - 9pm
September 23, 1997
information. On a catalog page, click on the question mark ([?])
next to the image to see it.
August 2, 1997
the Art Lab Gallery in Staten Island's Snug Harbor
Cultural Center. Take a look at these small but powerful
works on the web site, then see the real thing at the gallery.
(Note: six images have been added to the ETAOIN exhibition.)
Mark Kuhn, Lynn Rosenfeld, and Miguel Velandres. The show is
curated by Marc Zimetbaum, who is also represented on this web
site. (ZE Art)
Open reception Sunday, August 10, from 2-4 pm.
Snug Harbor Cultural Center / Bldg. H, 2d floor
1000 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island.
(718) 447-8667.
May 31, 1997
May 13, 1997
March 28, 1997
March 13, 1997
March 6, 1997
This page, for one thing. Every time the site is updated, we
will post the changes here.
There's a new front page for the Exhibitions,
a page about commerce, and a page called
"None of the Above" with new
material for your delectation.
Check in regularly -- more will be here soon.
)|( Art Gallery Entrance )|( Exhibitions )|(
