UWGB students answer chancellor’s stamp act: T-shirt protest staged after art is pulled from school exhibit

Press-Gazette
Sep. 18, 2005

A decision to pull a piece of art from a University of Wisconsin-Green Bay exhibit has spurred activism on the part of students and discussion about First Amendment issues across the campus and in the community.

The art in question is a sheet of mock postage stamps by artist Al Brandtner showing President Bush with a gun pointed at his head, captioned “Patriot Act.”

Some say it advocates assassination. Others say it’s free expression.

UWGB Chancellor Bruce Shepard says it’s not appropriate for the school’s gallery.

Shepard consulted with other chancellors in the UW System, the school’s legal counsel and System President Kevin Reilly before stopping the piece from being hung in the exhibit “Axis of Evil: The Secret History of Sin” in the Lawton Gallery.

“This is an exhibit that UWGB sponsors, and it’s done with taxpayers’ money. When we do this, we get to decide what we show and what types of messages we want to send out,” Shepard said. “I don’t want the reputation of UWGB to represent advocacy of assassination.”

When the item was featured in an exhibit at Columbia College in Chicago, Secret Service agents attended the opening in early April to inspect Brandtner’s work.

Students rally

About 30 students, rallied by art and photography major Erica Millspaugh, protested outside the gallery during an opening reception Thursday night.

“For us to not do anything … would just be completely apathetic and not right, and we want people to know that we do care,” said Millstaugh, a Green Bay Southwest High School graduate who transferred to UWGB from UW-Stout last year. “We want people to know that we’re disappointed and we’re upset about it.”

The decision raises free speech issues, said Millstaugh, who obtained permission from Brandtner to use the image and prepared T-shirts and brochures for Thursday’s protest of the school’s decision.

“(Thursday), ironically, is National Constitution Day, so we as art students feel that it’s irrelevant whether we support the actual image or the idea behind it. … We just feel that any art is valid and the Constitution and the First Amendment of the Constitution give us the freedom of speech and freedom of expression.”

Shepard said the decision was not a form of censorship.

“It would be censorship if we told students that they couldn’t wear T-shirts with this picture on it. But because it’s in the gallery and paid for with taxpayers’ money, we can decide what hangs there,” he said. “The piece won’t be hung up. Any reference to the piece that’s in the gallery is left up to the gallery director.”

And that’s a good compromise, said UWGB art curator Stephen Perkins, who arranged to bring “Axis of Evil” to the Lawton Gallery.

About two weeks ago, Perkins met with the chancellor and legal counsel and was told the artwork would not be in the show.

“My response at the time was that I wouldn’t condone censorship and we’d have an empty gallery,” Perkins said. Eventually he changed his mind. Because Shepard already had approved displaying an accompanying book on the exhibit, the image of Patriot Act in the book would be displayed in lieu of the framed piece.

“We get to show the work and get beyond this one fixation and concentrate on the rest of the show,” Perkins said. “It’s a win-win for the Lawton Gallery. The chancellor’s action actually is encouraging discussion.”

Perkins, who has been at UWGB five years, said no previous exhibits were ever this controversial.

Exhibit opens

Close to 30 of those students filed silently into the hallway in front of Lawton Gallery as the first exhibit spectators began filtering in shortly after 4 p.m. Thursday. Each wore a T-shirt depicting the controversial stamp.

Inside the gallery, spectators slowly filed past images that included white-hooded Ku Klux Klan members gathered around a burning cross, a smiling priest with horns and the word “pappy” at the bottom of the picture and a stamp with the flaming World Trade Center towers and the words “blame God.”

UWGB senior Stephanie Pasyak, 25, saw little difference between the banned image and some of the other potentially offensive pieces, she said.

She said she didn’t think Shepard’s decision was fair. “If you’re going to have that (happen), why not ban something with a cuss word in it?”

The decision to pull the image from gallery walls isn’t one Pasyak agrees with, she said, despite the fact that she’s a Bush supporter.

“I’m a fan of George Bush,” she said. “(But) I don’t think it’s offensive. It’s someone’s take on the political world today. … Everyone has their own ideas of art.”

University sophomore Margarita Alvarado didn’t understand why the piece was pulled, she said.

“There’s some pretty strong images,” she said. “(But) it’s just a stamp. … I don’t see how it could incite violence.”

After standing outside the gallery doors for about half an hour, the group of protesters filed inside to stand behind speakers Perkins, Michael Hernandez de Luna and Brandtner as they addressed the packed gallery.

To an extent, Brandtner said, he was glad Shepard had pulled the piece, because the action has generated so much dialogue and debate. But he wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of attention that this and other gallery showings have created, he said.

“All of the sudden, I was receiving e-mails and phone calls from all over the country,” Brandtner said, referring to a previous showing. “It’s been an amazing kind of ride. I’m still completely flabbergasted. … I thank (Hernandez de Luna) for bringing me into this mayhem.”

The resulting interest stirred by the chancellor’s decision could prove to be a boon for this gallery showing.

“Nothing before has quite touched buttons like this,” Perkins said. Thursday’s reception was expected to set attendance records, he said. Normally about 300 to 400 people turn out for a reception. He expected double that amount.

Eric Ugland, an attorney and assistant professor of media law at Marquette University, said the Bush artwork does not represent a direct threat on the president’s life and is protected under the First Amendment as free speech.

“It’s one thing for someone to say they’re going to kill the president. It’s another thing for someone to say killing the president would be a good idea,” Ugland said.

“Anybody who sees this as an incitement to assassinate the president is clearly reading too much into it. It (the artwork) is a statement along the lines of burning an effigy of the president,” Ugland said. “It’s in the great American tradition of criticizing our American leaders.”

According to Ugland, the chancellor is probably within his rights in yanking the controversial artwork, because the facility is owned and operated by the university. But Ugland said that doesn’t make the chancellor’s decision correct.

“In my opinion it’s just a horrible precedent (removing the artwork),” Ugland said.

— Kelly McBride, Paul Brinkmann, Mike Hoeft, Cynthia Hodnett