"Secret Wars" exhibit attracts FBI
MichaelP
houstonpress.com | originally published: November 15, 2001
http://www.houston-press.com/issues/2001-11-15/news.html/1/index.html
BY JENNIFER MATHIEU
In this time of hyper-patriotism, is a charcoal drawing of George
W. Bush trapped behind a metal trellis really enough to send out
the feds?
Apparently somebody thinks so -- and complained loudly enough to
get two agents dispatched to sniff out supposed anti-American
activity at the tiny Art Car Museum last week.
The hot-button exhibit? The museum's "Secret Wars" show, which
comments on everything from meat eating to the Persian Gulf War.
While it might not be for typical Monet-loving museum patrons, the
four-year-old art car institution has never tried to pass itself
off as a typical stuffy gallery -- or a lair of bin Laden, either.
"It's made for the community, to provoke feeling and emotion, and
that's what it's all about," says museum docent Donna Huanca, 21.
She was working alone when two federal agents arrived about a
half-hour before the museum opened on November 7.
When Huanca told them they needed to wait until the doors opened
at 11 a.m., they flashed FBI and Secret Service badges. Huanca
wondered if it was an art crowd prank, but they told her they were
following up on complaints they received about anti-American activity
at the museum.
"I said, 'There's really nothing anti-American about self-expression,
right?' " and the agents replied with a "kind of smirk," she says.
Huanca got business cards identifying them as Houston special agents
Terrence Donahue of the FBI and Steven Smith of the Secret Service.
"They wrote my name down; they asked me where I went to school and
why I worked there," says Huanca, an art and women's studies student
at the University of Houston. "And they asked me if my parents knew
I worked in a place like this."
Huanca says she offered to give the agents a guided tour and explain
all the artwork, but both men gravitated toward a few key pieces
in the "Secret Wars" exhibit, conceived this summer by museum
director James Harithas and curated by Tex Kerschen. Many of the
works are jarring commentaries on American culture and politics,
although it's not as if employees were mixing up anthrax in the
back room. It's about "that core of struggle in everybody," says
Kerschen.
The G-men were particularly interested in It's Easier to Get a
Camel Through the Eye of a Needle Than to Get an American into
Heaven, by Houston artist Forrest Prince. The 1991 work is a small
wooden shadowbox holding a plastic army soldier pulling a missile,
with a painted backdrop of camels and fire.
Huanca says the agents seemed puzzled and asked her, "What's that
supposed to mean?" Huanca says she tried to explain that the piece
represents anger over the purpose of the Persian Gulf War, but that
the agents still seemed confused. Later, agents noticed a mock
surveillance camera that was part of an installation. They asked
if they were being filmed.
"I said, 'Aren't we all undersurveillance?' " says Huanca. "And
they were like, 'What?' "
The agents also seemed troubled by Tim Glover's Empty Trellis
(revisited), a charcoal sketch of George W. Bush behind a steel
trellis, with small gold leaves on the ground. Kerschen says the
pre-September 11 piece is a commentary on America's environmental
policy.
Houston artist Lynn Randolph's Millennial Children really got the
agents scratching their skulls. The apocalyptic painting shows a
Houston-like skyline burning out of control. In the foreground, a
seated woman and a small girl clutch each other in terror. Beside
them is a dancing devil with a drawing of former president George
Bush's face on its stomach.
According to the docent, about 400 people have visited the free
exhibit since it opened September 21. It runs through the end of
the year.
"Some of the pieces could and did offend people, but those are the
people who spend a longer amount of time parking their car instead
of walking around the museum," says Huanca, adding that others have
been so moved that they have left in tears.
Two artists later contributed pieces made specifically in response
to the terrorists' attacks on the United States -- neither one
seeming all that anti-American. Galveston artist Eric Avery created
a wall hanging that shows the World Trade Center towers on fire
and a woman crouching over a child under a hail of missiles. And
Warren Cullar, a marine veteran, added an acrylic painting of city
chaos called New York 911. Part of the explanatory text says, "Now
I stand behind the 90 percent of Americans who want to do whatever
is necessary to wipe out any terrorist threat."
Not exactly the most subversive stuff.
Huanca says the agents asked where the museum advertised and how
many visitors it attracted. After spending about an hour touring
and taking notes, the agents helped themselves to free museum
literature and said good-bye. Huanca says the experience freaked
her out.
"After they left I was thinking, 'Are they going to go to my house,
are they going to dig up things on people, are they going to
discredit us?' "
says Huanca. She was so scared she says she even checked under her
car that evening.
Houston FBI spokesman Bob Doguim says the visit was no witch-hunt
but rather a response to Attorney General John Ashcroft's request
that Americans be especially vigilant of suspicious behavior. The
museum complaint was among thousands of calls received by the
Houston office since September 11. Doguim says the Secret Service
agent went along because the complaining caller said the Empty
Trellis work had a "threatening message to our president."
The FBI is committed to checking out any reports of things deemed
"un-American or a concern or a threat," Doguim says. "We will leave
no stone unturned." He explains the museum inspection by saying
that what is not disturbing to one person can terrify another.
"Where do you draw the line? I don't want to be the one to draw
the line, I can tell you that," he says.
Apparently Huanca and the Art Car Museum won't be showing up on
the Most Wanted Terrorists list anytime soon. Doguim says the agents
concluded that the exhibit requires no further investigation. But
he acknowledges, "It may not have been their cup of tea."
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