Told You

Look! Another article about my school!

Outrage from the family of beheaded hostage Eugene "Jack" Armstrong prompted Watkins College of Art & Design yesterday to remove a video presentation that includes footage of the beheading from a student exhibit.

"We're so angry right now that we're about ready to jump in a car and come down there," said Cyndi Armstrong, the slain engineer's cousin by marriage, from her office in Hillsdale, Mich.

"How dare this school do that! I mean, these people are not artists. This is not art. And then the story you wrote in today's paper about how they're emotionally distressed, or exhausted? Well, we'll discuss 'emotionally exhausted' with them. We've had six weeks of hell. And they've had one day of people saying that what they did is wrong, because it is wrong."

Okay, first off, who are they to say what is and is not art? She may be a member of the public, but Cyndi does not have the absolute say as to what is and isn't art. The only thing that has an absolute say in that answer is time and change. Picasso didn't sell much of anything while he was a young artist, probably as young as Elvan. Now his paintings are worth a small fortune! I bet you anything that eventually, this student work will be just as valuable as anything produced by any modern artist.

The artists said Thursday that they were considering pulling the work themselves from the 2004 Brownlee O. Currey Student Art Exhibition. Fearful Symmetry had not yet gone on view in the show, which briefly opened Monday, but word of its contents, coupled with a controversial photograph already on display, caused school officials to close the video exhibit.

Penny and Phelps said they didn't wish to harm the school with negative publicity that they believe their Best of Show winner created. But yesterday they changed their minds, issuing this statement: "We don't want to pull the video. We stand behind the work. But if the college pulls it, we're not going to fight their decision."

They declined to comment further.

These guys didn't seem like the kind that would roll over and die when I first met them. In fact, they looked like they could fight the world if they wanted to. The fact that they said they are not going to fight the college for removing their first-place-winning piece of art disappoints me.

Watkins President Jim Brooks said that sensitivity to the wishes of the families of Armstrong and beheading victim Jack Hensley - whose widow in Georgia had sent word to the school of her concerns - helped guide his decision.

Bullshit. He was worried about a law suit, and we all know how much money us gallery artists and non-studio-contracted film makers make.

Armstrong charged that Penny and Phelps were "almost as inhuman as those people who did what they did to Jack."

What?! These guys almost as inhuman as the people that beheaded a person simply because he was an American sent over by the government to a country that doesn't even like Americans? Someone explain this to me before I consider this family a bunch of morons! If anyone is more inhuman than these two film students, it's the people that put Jack's beheading up on the internet. Those are the sick bastards you should be going after.

The rest of the Watkins show is scheduled to reopen Monday. The other controversial work, Penny's photograph of a man masturbating, was originally to be draped in the main gallery, with a warning sign posted. The latest word is that it will not be draped. Instead, it will be placed away from the show in an administrative area that's off limits to the public. Visitors will have to ask to see it.

And probably pay admission.

Told of the school's decision to pull Fearful Symmetry, Armstrong said, "Thank God." She said that would resolve the matter "at least for now."

"But it's still the whole idea that they won first place," she said. "I don't understand it, I guess. I'm not artistic. The judges thought it was the best thing out of 140 entries? They think this was the top entry? I think they owe our families an apology. The judges, these two artists, they owe us an apology."

And by apology, she means...

Armstrong said the family had contacted a lawyer and wasn't ruling out legal action.

Brooks, for his part, said he'd been assured that there was no legal exposure for the school, and that his decision was not motivated by fear of litigation.

Yeah, right, sure your decision wasn't motivated by fear of litigation. You're suppose to defend the school! Not roll over and die when people threaten to sue a bunch of artists over expressing their ideas! We live in a time where the church no longer controls the art we see and more people, I hope, are educated enough to look at things in a different way outside of their everyday comfort zone. I guess what you told me, Mr. Brooks, was nothing more but a mere lie as far as what my mission is as an artist.

"We really thought we were done with the media, with everything, and we were putting our lives back together again and making things work again and this has brought everything up.

"We had just finally got to where we were functioning again."

And I'm suppose to feel sorry for you why again?

Cyndi Armstrong said she did not agree that Armstrong's fate provided an appropriate example of the violence Penny and Phelps wished to draw attention to.

"It's only a very small part of what's going on over there. This is just a group of people in Iraq who are sick."

Who did you want them to use? Daniel Pearl from the New York Times? And weren't you just reported earlier in saying that the group of people in Iraq are just as sick as the artist that made this piece of art? Why is it all of a sudden you sound like you are defending the people that chopped off Jack's head?

People get so emotionally confused, much how I am right now. Quite honestly, I believe that one thing will always happen.

People will kill people over things they do not like. Suing people is just more civilized than man slaughter, but just as bad and ill-intended.