joy garnett
Since the beginning
Works in United States of America

ARTBASE (1)
BIO
Joy Garnett is a painter based in New York. She appropriates news images from the Internet and re-invents them as paintings. Her subject is the apocalyptic-sublime landscape, as well as the digital image itself as cultural artifact in an increasingly technologized world. Her image research has resulted in online documentation projects, most notably The Bomb Project.

Notable past exhibitions include her recent solo shows at Winkleman Gallery, New York and at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC; group exhibitions organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, P.S.1/MoMA Contemporary Art Center, Artists Space, White Columns (New York), Kettle's Yard, Cambridge (UK), and De Witte Zaal, Ghent (Belgium). She shows with aeroplastics contemporary, Brussels, Belgium.

extended network >

homepage:
http://joygarnett.com

The Bomb Project
http://www.thebombproject.org

First Pulse Projects
http://firstpulseprojects.net

NEWSgrist - where spin is art
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/

Discussions (685) Opportunities (5) Events (8) Jobs (0)
DISCUSSION

Re: more on Steve Kurtz


re: letters of support (see below)

this will be the last cross-post from me for a while -- by a bizarre quirk
of fate I am spending the weekend in...Buffalo.

best,
jg

///////////////
posted on nettime June 4, 2004

CAE - request to sign open letter of protest
Eric Kluitenberg <epk@xs4all.nl>
Letter of support for Steve Kurtz
Rana Dasgupta <eye@ranadasgupta.com>

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Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 16:33:11 +0200
From: Eric Kluitenberg <epk@xs4all.nl>
Subject: CAE - request to sign open letter of protest

Helsinki / Amsterdam, June 4, 2004

Dear friends and colleagues,

We are sure that many of you have been following the deeply worrying
events around the subpoenas that have been serfed to members of the
US-based arts collective Critical Art Ensemble. We, Amanda McDonald
Crowley and Eric Kluitenberg, have taken the initiative to write an
open letter of protest asking for an immediate cesation of legal
proceedings against our esteemed and distinguished colleagues. We
think that this case signals a most worrysome trend in public
political life in the United States and cannot be left unaddressed.

We ask all of you who have worked with the Critical Art Ensemble in
recent years, and others who feel offended by this unacceptable
infringement on artistic freedom, to contact us to sign this letter
of protest as members of a deeply concerned professional community.

Please find the letter below. if you wish to sign send us an e-mail
stating your name, your profession, your institutional affiliation
(if you have one) and possibly a url that best represents your work
or professional activity.

Thank you.

Amanda McDonald Crowley
amc@va.com.au

Eric Kluitenberg
erick@balie.nl

----------------

To whom it may concern,

We, the undersigned artists, curators, critics, cultural producers,
theorists and writers who have worked with or followed the work of
the collective known as Critical Art Ensemble, are writing to express
our serious concern over legal proceedings brought against members of
this highly respected artists group.

Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) is a collective of internationally
recognised artists who work within pedagogic frameworks and art
contexts to raise awareness of a range of social issues. Most
recently their work has been directed towards providing the general
public with awareness and understanding of issues to do with
biological research. Their work is not alarmist but rather provides
knowledge.

CAEs work is always undertaken in a safe and considered way, using
materials which are commonly available in scientific education and
research practices. Their main motivation is to provide the public
with the tools needed to make informed choices.

It has come to our attention that there was a recent seizure of a
substantial amount of the artists work and research material. The
international art scene was shocked and surprised to learn that the
US Federal Bureau of Investigation, following an analysis of the
materials by the Commissioner of Public Health for New York State
which returned the result that the material seized posed no public
safety risk, have continued with their investigation and are now
seeking to charge members of the collective under the US Biological
Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act as expanded by the USA Patriot Act.

Whilst it is perhaps understandable in the current international
political climate that such research might raise alarm bells with
American authorities, it would have also been clear, upon
investigation, that the aims of CAE are not a terrorist act, but an
awareness raising action undertaken with cultural, artistic and
educational agendas. Indeed CAEs work is quite in keeping with
mainstream art practices, which have, throughout history, had
pedagogical aims.

Having worked with CAE in various settings throughout the world we
have found CAEs approach has always been to understand and to know
the topicthat they are presenting. It comes as no surprise, given
the current focusof their work, that the research tools included
biological material.However, those of us in the art world who have
worked with this artistsgroup also know that their work is
undertaken with thorough research, incontinuous consultation with
members of the scientific community, in orderto ensure that the
artworks they produce are safe, but also real, in termsof the
investigations they pursue. The work of CAE is
internationally recognised as thorough, investigative, educative and
safe.

This matter is one that raises serious concerns internationally that
the actions of the American government undermine the freedom of
artistic expression, a fundamental democratic right, which is one of
the cornerstones of the liberal democracies.

As the materials have been tested and been shown to pose no public
health threat, we demand that the American Government immediately
cease legal action against members of the Critical Art Ensemble
collective.

The good reputation of Critical Art Ensemble must be immediately restored.

Yours faithfully,

Amanda McDonald Crowley,
cultural worker/ curator, currently executive producer ISEA2004
(International Symposium of Electronic Art 2004),
Australia/Finland
http://www.isea2004.net

Eric Kluitenberg
Head of the Media Program
De Balie - Centre for Culture and Politics
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
http://www.debalie.nl

Signatories:

name/profession/position/country/url

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Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2004 13:14:56 +0530
From: Rana Dasgupta <eye@ranadasgupta.com>
Subject: Letter of support for Steve Kurtz

D-383 Defence Colony
New Delhi 110 024
India

June 3rd 2004

To Whom It May Concern

*Re: Protest against charges against Steve Kurtz, Ph.D., Assistant
Professor, Department of Art, University of Buffalo*

As a writer and independent scholar who has had frequent reason to draw
on the work of Steve Kurtz and the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), I would
like to attest to its seriousness and importance, and to protest against
the absurd and shameful charges brought against Mr Kurtz by the FBI.
I would request that these charges be dropped immediately and that the
FBI make a formal apology for their wrongful intervention in Mr Kurtzs
life.
A major element of Mr Kurtzs work has been to consider in a serious way
the ethical questions raised by new biotechnologies - an undertaking
acknowledged by all public figures (including President George W. Bush
and Pope John-Paul II) to be crucial for a sane future.

This work has taken as its starting-point the notion that ethical
standards cannot be developed in private by "experts", but that they
must be developed through genuinely public dialogue and debate. For
this reason, it has always been conducted with great attention to
openness and transparency. If the FBI were to consult the groups
publications, public presentations and exhibitions, and online
documents, it would discover that their ideas and activities have been
conducted entirely in the public domain. Moreover, since public safety
is precisely the question at stake in their work, this issue has always
taken prime importance, and they have always addressed it in
consultation with eminent scientists from leading U.S. institutions.
There is nothing covert, suspicious, or irresponsible about their work.

I have never met Steve Kurtz. However, I have followed closely the
publications and art works of the Critical Art Ensemble for several
years, and I have also had occasion to see public presentations by
Beatriz da Costa, in which she answered extensive questions about the
nature and guiding principles of the groups work. I can say on the
basis of this engagement, not only that Steve Kurtz and the CAE are
honest in their exploration of these pressing issues, but that their
work is among the most important contributions to public debate in this
arena.

The attempt to denigrate this valuable work by throwing ignorant and
melodramatic names at it is absurd and shameful, and highly embarassing
for those doing the throwing.

The suspicions of the FBI are based on little more than the observation
that Steve had laboratory equipment in his house. This equipment is
easily obtained, there is nothing illegal about possessing it, and the
most cursory of Internet searches would have revealed exactly why it was
there. To subject him to this treatment on such a basis of so trivial
an observation represents a serious breach of the principles of freedom
of expression and the presumption of innocence.

In the /Washington Post/s coverage of this story, Lt. Jake Ulewski,
spokesman for the Buffalo police, is quoted as saying about Mr. Kurtz,
"Hes making cultures? Thats a little off the wall."

Is it now possible to detain someone and subject them to criminal
charges just because some ignorant observer thinks what they do with
their time appears "a little off the wall"?

The society of homogeneity and conformity that is implied by such a
scenario is one in which no one takes responsibility for asking or
answering its more difficult questions. Steve Kurtz and the CAE have
always been open about their commitment to doing just that. In an open,
forward-thinking and just society, such an honourable enterprise would
invite praise, not censure.

Yours Faithfully

Rana Dasgupta
Writer and independent scholar
www.ranadasgupta.com

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DISCUSSION

Re: more on Steve Kurtz


Here are some contrasting reactions to the Kurtz case...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2004 13:26:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: bruces@well.com
Subject: Re: disturbing story

*I heard it. That sure is one top-notch Scandal
in Bohemia. I don't know the guy. Do you know him?

*What if he poisoned his spouse? That's not exactly
unheard-of activity, in the art world or anywhere else.
In fact, whenever a woman's found dead, the cops
generally make a beeline for the husband or boyfriend.
The charge is pretty weird, but the suspicion isn't.

Bruce S

/////////

thread: nettime date: 2004-06-03
from: animas999@yahoo.com time: 09:42:38
subject: <nettime> TACTICAL OUTRAGE

There has been a staggering amount of email exchange
about the Steve Kurtz case on a wide variety of
list-serves in the past two weeks and it is highly
unlikely that anyone in the artistic communities
receiving these messages agrees with the FBI.
Letters from individuals denouncing the FBI moves
would best be
directed at public officials, law enforcement and the
media, rather than continuing to preach to the
converted.

It is a bit surprising that so many seem to
believe that the FBI really thinks CAE broke a law -
the history of repression of 60s "radicals"
demonstrates that law enforcement can and does work to
concoct illegality when a climate of fear and the
criminalization of dissent is the ultimate goal. The
demonizing of biotech artists in the present is the
equivalent of the crackdown on white student radicals
of the late 60s. The FBI then like now worked with
other branches of government, from the CIA to the IRS,
generate wide reaching campaigns against leftists
WITHOUT THEIR HAVING DONE ANYTHING WRONG. That is why
it is strategically more effective to look at the big
picture rather than treating Kurtz like a single
martyr.

Several people have already raised the important point
that the Kurtz case is only one of many many instances
of unwarranted and excessive repression by law
enforcement targetting intellectuals, artists,
activists and journalists. I join them in expressing
hope that all the artists who are concerned about
CAEs current travails demonstrate equal concern for
the other "cultural interventionists" in the US and
abroad who have suffered even greater and more
systematic repression and who do not have the same
degree of access to the media, famous lawyers or
supporters with money to contribute to their defense.
I hope I never have to post another story on nettime
about artists and activists in Latin America, for
example, who are getting shot at, arrested, jailed
without trial,or otherwise mistreated ALL THE TIME
only to have those reports garner no other response
than a dry comment on how multinational corporations
are more violent that right wing populist regimes or
what have you.

Numerous other stories have been circulating about the
recent arrest of Animal Rights activists in New Jersey
on terrorism charges, about the arrest and torture of
anti-globalization activists in Guadalajara, about the
brutal treatment of Arab journalists working for NBC
in Iraq at the hands of US soldiers, and about
the unprompted arrival of undercover cops in yellow
cabs to the "Majority Whipped" opening at White Box
Gallery in NYC last month to shut down an event
designed as a warm up for the Republican National
Convention. "Art veterans" of battles with the US
government during the culture wars of the early 90s
will recall that the fetishizing of Mapplethorpe and
Serrano turned out to be a very stupid move -- because
it left the rest of the arts community completely
vulnerable to the repercussions of those highly
publicized skirmishes. As a result of those
individualistically oriented tactics, we now live in
an artworld that has completely introjected and
naturalized the conservative cultural views of the
backlash against institutional critique, civil rights
inspired interrogations of gender,class and race, and
all forms of art that addresses the social.

Learn from the past so as not to repeat it.

Coco Fusco

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/

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DISCUSSION

Re: more on Steve Kurtz


Complete updates, including exact nature of charges, explanation of a
Grand Jury, who was subpoenaed, an official letter of support and more
recent press from the LA Weekly here:

http://caedefensefund.org/
or:
http://flatearth.media.mit.edu/cae_defense/index.html

DISCUSSION

Re: more on steve kurtz


a letter of support sounds easy; in the meantime it seems like the majors
are finally picking up on this:

/////////////////////

The FBI's Art Attack
Offbeat Materials at Professor's Home Set Off Bioterror Alarm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8278-2004Jun1.html

The Washington Post, June 2, 2004
By Lynne Duke
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 2, 2004; Page C01

NEW YORK -- "A forensic investigation of FBI trash." On the telephone,
Beatriz da Costa says it wryly. Her humor sounds bitter. She's talking
about the detritus of a terror probe at the Buffalo home of her good
friends, the Kurtzes.

She's talking about the pizza boxes, Gatorade jugs, the gloves, the gas
mask filters, the biohazard suits: the stuff left by police, FBI, hazmat
and health investigators after they descended on the Kurtz home and
quarantined the place.

The garbage tells a story of personal tragedy, a death in the Kurtz
household, that sparked suspicions (later proved unfounded) of a biohazard
in the neighborhood. And it tells a story of the times in which we live,
with almost daily warnings about terror, and with law enforcement primed
to pounce.

Steve Kurtz, a Buffalo art professor, discovered on the morning of May 11
that his wife of 20 years, Hope Kurtz, had stopped breathing. He called
911. Police and emergency personnel responded, and what they saw in the
Kurtz home has triggered a full-blown probe -- into the vials and
bacterial cultures and strange contraptions and laboratory equipment.

The FBI is investigating. A federal grand jury has been impaneled.
Witnesses have been subpoenaed, including da Costa.

Kurtz and his late wife were founders of the Critical Art Ensemble, an
internationally renowned collective of "tactical media" protest and
performance artists. Steve Kurtz, 48, has focused on the problems of the
emergence of biotechnology, such as genetically modified food. He and the
art ensemble, which also includes da Costa, have authored several books
including "Digital Resistance: Explorations in Tactical Media" and
"Electronic Civil Disobedience and Other Unpopular Ideas," both published
by Autonomedia/Semiotext(e).

The day of his wife's death, Kurtz told the authorities who he is and what
he does.

"He explained to them that he uses [the equipment] in connection with his
art, and the next thing you know they call the FBI and a full hazmat team
is deposited there from Quantico -- that's what they told me," says Paul
Cambria, the lawyer who is representing Kurtz. "And they all showed up in
their suits and they're hosing each other down and closing the street off,
and all the news cameras were there and the head of the [Buffalo] FBI is
granting interviews. It was a complete circus."

Cambria, the bicoastal Buffalo and Los Angeles lawyer best known for
representing pornographer Larry Flynt, calls the Kurtz episode a "colossal
overreaction."

FBI agents put Kurtz in a hotel, where they continued to question him.
Cambria says Kurtz felt like a detainee over the two days he was at the
hotel. Paul Moskal, spokesman for the Buffalo office of the FBI, says the
bureau put Kurtz in a hotel because his home had been declared off limits.
The probe, Moskal says, was a by-the-books affair from the very beginning.

"Post-9/11 protocol is such that first-responders have all been given
training about unusual things and unusual situations," Moskal says.

And obviously, says Lt. Jake Ulewski, spokesman for the Buffalo police,
what the cops eyeballed raised some alarms. "He's making cultures? That's
a little off the wall."

Erie County health officials declared the Kurtz home a potential health
risk and sealed it for two days while a state lab examined the bacterial
cultures found inside. Officials won't divulge what precisely was
examined, but it turned out not to be a danger to public health. And the
house was reopened for use.

Still, federal authorities think something in that house might have been
illegal, Cambria surmises. But Cambria denies there was anything illegal
in the house. William Hochul Jr., chief of the anti-terrorism unit for the
U.S. attorney's office in the Western District of New York, would not
comment on the investigation.

Kurtz, on Cambria's advice, isn't speaking to the press either.

Da Costa, a professor at the University of California at Irvine who has
flown to Buffalo to help out, says Kurtz is "depressed" and dealing with
the loss of his wife, who died of a heart attack. Today the Buffalo arts
community will memorialize her.

Adele Henderson, chair of the art department of the State University of
New York at Buffalo, where Kurtz has tenure, is among the people who've
been questioned by the FBI.

On May 21, she says, the FBI asked her about Kurtz's art, his writings,
his books; why his organization (the art ensemble) is listed as a
collective rather than by its individual members; how it is funded.

"They asked me if I'd be surprised if I found out he was found to be
involved in bioterrorism," she says.

Her response? "I am absolutely certain that Steve would not be involved."

They also asked about "his personal life," Henderson says, but she would
not describe the questions or her responses.

The investigation, she says, will have no bearing on Kurtz's standing at
the university, where he is an associate professor. (Prior to Buffalo, he
taught at Carnegie Mellon University.)

"This is a free speech issue, and some people at the university remember a
time during the McCarthy period when some university professors were
harassed quite badly," she says.

Nonetheless, considering the kind of art Kurtz practices and the kind of
supplies he uses, "I could see how they would think it was really
strange."

For instance: the mobile DNA extracting machine used for testing food
products for genetic contamination. Such a machine was in Kurtz's home.
His focus, in recent years, has been on projects that highlight the
trouble with genetically modified seeds.

In November 2002, in an installation called "Molecular Invasion," Kurtz
grew genetically modified seeds in small pots beneath growth lamps at the
Corcoran Gallery of Art, then engineered them in reverse with herbicide,
meaning he killed them.

"We thought it was very important to have Critical Art Ensemble here
because we try to have our visiting artist's program present work that
takes our curriculum to the next step," says Denise Mullen, vice dean of
the Corcoran College of Art and Design, whose Hemicycle Gallery hosted
Kurtz's molecular exhibit.

Beyond the cutting edge of art, she says, "we want work that is really
bleeding edge."

In Buffalo, in the aftermath of the bioterror probe that has found no
terror, activist artists have scooped up the refuse from the Kurtz front
yard and taken it away, perhaps, says da Costa, to create an art
installation.
+
-

DISCUSSION

IMAGINE Festival + the Republican Natl Convention in NYC...


From:"Patrick Kowalczyk" <patrick@mkpr.com>
To:underbelly@newsgrist.com
Subject: Imagine Festival Unveiled
Date:Wed, 2 Jun 2004 11:10:48 -0400

For Immediate Release
Contact: Patrick Kowalczyk, Patrick@mkpr.com
Michael Kaminer Public Relations, 212.627.8098

IMAGINE FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES CITYWIDE ARTS FESTIVAL

IN RESPONSE TO REPUBLICAN CONVENTION IN NEW YORK;

NEW YORK ARTS COMMUNITY FOCUSES ON ISSUES NOT POLITICS

www.nyamerica.org

New York (May 26, 2004) Using art, not politics or protest, to
confront the critical issues facing the nation, a stunningly
diverse coalition of New York City arts organizations today
unveiled plans for a major citywide festival with more than 100
events the week of Republican National Convention.

Led by a group of New Yorks most innovative and accomplished
artists, the Imagine Festival of Arts, Issues and Ideas will be
"a powerful reminder of how the arts can bring people together
to explore ideas, challenge beliefs, and open minds. This is
what the arts do best," according to Whitney Museum
producer Boo Froebel, the festivals co-executive producer.

The festival boasts a stellar and diverse roster of artists
from all disciplines ranging from film director John Sayles,
musician Marc Anthony Thompson of Chocolate Genius Inc., and
comedian Margaret Cho to Def Poetry Jam co-founder Danny Simmons,
author E.L. Doctorow, and Urban Bush Women choreographer Jawole
Willa Jo Zollar.

"We see the Republican National Convention as an incredible
opportunity," said Chris Wangro, co-executive producer of Imagine
Festival, whose credits as a producer include the Popes 1995
Mass in Central Park. "A half million people, including 15,000
journalists, are coming to New York City for the convention."

Dozens of venues throughout the city - from the hippest clubs and
performance spaces to the citys most prestigious cultural
institutions - will present events during the festival including
Joes Pub, The Point, Symphony Space, Dance Theater Workshop,
Galapagos Art Space and The Apollo.

Kicking off two days prior to the Republican National Convention
on August 28th, the six-day festival will showcase concerts,
performances, cabaret, poetry slams, screenings, exhibits, panel
discussions and large-scale street theater. Each day of the
festival will explore a specific issue, beginning on
August 28th with Freedom, followed by Community, Democracy,
Justice, Prosperity, and concluding on September 2nd with Future.

(more)

"The streets will come alive during the Republican National
Convention." according to Wangro. "Opinions will be voiced at
fever pitch. Both parties will issue highly manicured public
statements. We need a third space to counter the spin from both
these extremes. The Imagine Festival is thatthird space."

"People are disillusioned by the sound bites and disheartened by the
cynicism coming from both political parties," said Wangro. "We can do
better. The Imagine Festival pulls together this countrys brightest
and most creative. By uniting these voices, this festival will make
a positive statement and ignite the publics imagination."

"After all," added Froebel, "New York City is home to the worlds most
vibrant and passionate arts community - a community that has a long
history of using art and performance to instigate, entertain, and
inspire."

Imagine Festival highlights include:

Comedian Margaret Cho will kick off the festival on August 28th with
the world premiere of her State of Emergency World Tour at the Apollo
Theatre.

Hosted by Def Poetry Jam co-founder Danny Simmons, Dance Theater
Workshop presents an evening of young poets from Urban Word NYCs Teen
Poetry Slam.

The Thalia Follies, a political satire featuring original sketches by
E.L.Doctorow, Roy Blount, Jr., and Mary Gordon among others, runs every
night of the festival at Symphony Space. After each performance, a
simulcast of the convention will be presented in the Leonard Nimoy Thalia
Theater.

Stand Up For Choice, an all-star evening of music and comedy
dedicated to women's health, will be presented in partnership with
Planned Parenthood at The Beacon Theater.

Hosted by Andy Borowitz at The Bitter End, The Moth storytelling
collective presents Listen Up: Stories of Squeaky Wheels.

Joes Pub will present several artists, among them Tammy Faye
Starlite, the lovechild of Loretta Lynn and Lenny Bruce, a
gospel-country-musicionary who happily skewers one and all.

A staged reading of Sophocles Electra with Marisa Tomei and Kathleen
Chalfant and directed by Lawrence Sacharow at the New York Public
Library of Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B Cullman Center at Lincoln
Center.

Asia Society presents The Forgiveness Project, composed by Eve
Beglarian and based on a classic Chinese opera about a warrior's revenge.

Musician Marc Anthony Thompson of Chocolate Genius Inc. will serve as
musical director for an all-star evening at The Apollo Theater on
September 2nd.

Please see attached document for a more complete listing of festival
programming.

The Imagine Festival of Arts, Issues & Ideas is produced by NY,
America, a non-profit organization of artists and producers committed
to engaging the public in civic discourse through events that unite
the arts, sciences, and humanities.

Patrick Kowalczyk
Michael Kaminer PR | 212.627.8098
1123 Broadway Suite 805 | New York, NY 10010
www.mkpr.com

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