I get a bang out of art...
Rich Maxson
Art Dealer Is Arrested for Exhibition of Live Ammunition
By Andy Newman
A prominent Manhattan art dealer was arrested on Wednesday night at her
Fifth Avenue gallery, where an exhibition included a vase full of live
9-millimeter cartridges for visitors to take home as souvenirs, the police
said. The dealer, Mary Boone, was charged with unlawful distribution of
ammunition and with resisting arrest, said Detective Joseph Pentangelo, a
police spokesman.
She was also charged with possession of unlawful weapons and possession of
stolen property for another piece in the one-man show by the sculptor Tom
Sachs, which featured homemade guns, Detective Pentangelo said. Ms. Boone
was being held at the Midtown North precinct house early this morning and
was expected to be taken to Manhattan Central Booking to spend the night in
jail, the detective said. All of the charges are misdemeanors.
The arrest of Ms. Boone, 48, a flamboyant, sharply dressed art-world
celebrity who came to prominence in the 1980's, comes in the midst of Mayor
Rudolph W. Giuliani's battle with the Brooklyn Museum of Art over a painting
of the Virgin Mary partly obscured by pieces of elephant dung.
The Police Department's chief spokeswoman, Marilyn Mode, said that the two
events were unrelated.
"It is irresponsible, at the very least, to be distributing live ammunition
to the public," Ms. Mode said. "This has nothing to do with the Brooklyn
Museum." Joseph J. Lhota, a deputy mayor, declined to comment on Ms. Boone's
arrest, saying he did not know enough about the case.
Sachs, whose work deals with consumer culture, packaging and violence,
placed the cartridges in an Alvar Aalto glass vase on the reception desk of
the gallery at 745 Fifth Avenue, just north of 58th Street. Visitors were
invited to take the cartridges home in orange air-sickness bags that were
decorated to look like bags from Hermès.
Ms. Mode said the police had received a complaint about the show, which
opened on Sept. 10, on Wednesday and had gone to the fourth-floor gallery
around 5 P.M.
"We were told that this ammunition was available for anyone to pick up at
this art gallery and we just looked into it," she said. "We wanted to see if
it was bullets or foil-wrapped chocolates, and they're definitely not
chocolate bullets."
While detectives were waiting to speak to Ms. Boone, they wandered into the
main part of the gallery and noticed a cabinet on the wall holding homemade
guns -- Sachs's signature object -- and what appeared to be more live
cartridges, Ms. Mode said.
They decided to take all the suspect objects, as well as an unwilling Ms.
Boone, into custody until they could determine which things were potentially
explosive and which were works of art, Ms. Mode said.
After technicians from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
determined that the bullets were live, Ms. Boone was charged with unlawful
possession and disposal of ammunition.
Later in the evening, when Sachs's homemade guns were deemed functional, the
police added charges of criminal possession of a weapon and criminal
possession of a shotgun, Detective Pentangelo said. The stolen-property
charge was added because the container that the guns were in was made of
stolen materials, the detective said, but would not give details.
Ms. Boone's lawyer, Ted Poretz, who was at the station house with her,
declined to comment for the record.
Norman Siegel, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union,
said that Ms. Boone had a potential claim under the free-speech clause of
the First Amendment if the exhibit was reasonably understood as artistic
expression. Unlike a bank robbery, which the bank robber cannot
retroactively define as performance art, the exhibit in Ms. Boone's gallery
would probably meet this standard, he said.
But, Siegel added: "There is a second legal standard, known as a
countervailing interest, that would appear to be a problem. The argument
would be that people shouldn't be handing out live bullets."
Ms. Mode said that claims to artistic expression were meaningless in the
face of actions that posed a threat to public safety.
"If this were simply someone handing bullets out on the street, you would
criticize us greatly for not doing something about it," she said. "This is
an unsupervised exhibit with a glass vase filled with bullets, live
ammunition."
Ms. Boone, who was called the "Queen of the Art World" on the cover of New
York magazine in the 1980's, made her name putting on the first one-man
shows by the Neo-Expressionist painters Julian Schnabel and David Salle. Her
artists today include Barbara Kruger, Brice Marden and Eric Fischl.
After she moved the gallery uptown from SoHo in the early 90's, she seemed
to move from center stage, but in the last year or so has started to put on
shows by more provocative artists, like Sachs, whose "Hello Kitty Nativity
Scene" was removed from display in the store window at Barney's after
complaints from religious groups.
Sachs's show at Ms. Boone's gallery also features a working airplane
lavatory made of construction foam.
A review of the show in The Village Voice this week praised Sachs for his
clever constructions, but added, "None of this, however, saves Sachs's work
from shallowness."
EGO2DAY
>A prominent Manhattan art dealer was arrested on Wednesday night at her
>Fifth Avenue gallery, where an exhibition included a vase full of live
>9-millimeter cartridges for visitors to take home as souvenirs, the police
>said. The dealer, Mary Boone, was charged with unlawful distribution of
>ammunition and with resisting arrest,
Couldn't happen to a nicer individual. Probably, a Brady Bill backer gone awry.
>She was also charged with possession of unlawful weapons and possession of
>stolen property for another piece in the one-man show by the sculptor Tom
>Sachs, which featured homemade guns,
Who me? "Its only art!" Ever heard of zip guns?
>Later in the evening, when Sachs's homemade guns were deemed functional, the
>police added charges of criminal possession of a weapon and criminal
>possession of a shotgun, Detective Pentangelo said. The stolen-property
>charge was added because the container that the guns were in was made of
>stolen materials, the detective said, but would not give details.
If I had purchased her art I would also have my butt in the slammer. Good call
by NYPD!
>Norman Siegel, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union,
>said that Ms. Boone had a potential claim under the free-speech clause of
>the First Amendment if the exhibit was reasonably understood as artistic
>expression.
So does a mugger when he is displaying his work of art and telling you that it
is yours for the price of what is in your wallet.
All in all, it will make good news if she is released. The NRA will have a
field day debating all the issues involved
plus the Brady Backers crying the old sh*t house blues.
John Day
Art or Freedom? Neither!