After
displaying a painting of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners, a San
Francisco gallery owner bears a painful reminder of the nation's unresolved
anguish over the incidents at Abu Ghraib -- a black eye and bloodied brow
delivered by an unknown assailant who apparently objected to the art work. The
attack was only the latest in a string of verbal and physical attacks
that have been directed at owner Lori Haigh since the painting, titled
"Abuse," was installed there on May 16.Painted
by Berkeley artist Guy Colwell, "Abuse," the painting at the
center of the controversy, depicts three U.S. soldiers leering at a group
of naked men in hoods with wires connected to their bodies. The one in
the foreground has a blood-spattered American flag patch on his uniform.
In the background, a soldier in sunglasses guards a blindfolded woman.
. . .Two
days after the painting went up in a front window, someone threw eggs
and dumped trash on the doorstep. Haigh said she didn't think to connect
it to the black-and-white interpretation of the events at Baghdad's notorious
prison until people started leaving nasty messages and threats on her
business answering machine."I
think you need to get your gallery out of this neighborhood before you
get hurt," one caller said.Even
after she removed the painting from the window, the criticism continued
thanks to news coverage about the gallery's troubles. The answering machine
recorded new calls from people accusing her of being a coward for taking
the picture down. Last weekend, a man walked into the gallery, pretended
to scrutinize the art work for a moment, then marched up to Haigh's desk
and spat directly in her face.On
Thursday, someone knocked on the door of the gallery, then punched Haigh
in the face when she stepped outside. . . .In
closing the gallery, Haigh was forced to cancel an upcoming show featuring
counterculture artist Winston Smith. She covered the windows of the gallery
with old newspapers from Sept. 11, 2003 that included stories about the
war, a statement she insists was coincidental. . . .The
irony of the attacks hasn't been lost on Lori Haigh. Among the expressions
of support she's received since shuttering the gallery, her favorite is
an e-mail whose writer said, "I'm sure that a few and dangerous minds
don't understand that they have only mimicked the same perversity this
painting had expressed." . . .Outside
the gallery on Friday, someone had left a bouquet of flowers along with
a note reading, "The woman who ran this gallery is a brave and honorable
woman. ... She is a true American and a real patriot." --
SF Gate
-----------
Abuse
by Guy Colwell
This painting has stirred the emotions of a few people to the point where
they attacked the San Francisco gallery that displayed this painting and
Lori Haigh the gallery owner.
Ironically the attackers against the gallery mimicked a similar kind of
hate and violence that the painting attempts to illustrate. In spite of
the attackers intentions to censor the gallery, their crime has spurred
the interests of the press, and has caused a worldwide exposure of the
painting. No doubt, not only the value of the painting will dramatically
increase, but people will remember it for ages to come (emotional artistic
expression, regardless of how good or bad, has this effect on art). This
painting will live in history.
Yes this painting depicts a very dark period of the United States, but
it does not reflect the feelings of most Americans. It does, however,
depict the actions of some Americans. The behavior of the abusers of the
Abu Ghraib prison stem from the illegal actions coming from the Bush administration.
So if any American objects to this painting as dishonoring and besmirching
the United States, consider the source of the dishonor.
Here is Hirschman's
poem he read at the rally.
:Defiant
For the Capobianco GalleryNot just elsewhere
But right here
In North Beach
The power of painting
To provoke and endureHas called out
The old hatreds:
Death threats, spittle,
A physical attack on a
Gallery owner byDetestable little
Worms from the fascist can of abuse
That's been thrown wide open.
Enough!
When the people
Gather, what's been terrifyingTurns to dust.
And brush strokes
Turn into the proverbial
Thumbs in the eyes of
Censoring war thugs,Because the freedom
To create a work of art
Is of the deepest affirmation
Of the human heart
And its very deathlessnessIs why no violence
can
Ever long prevent the beauty
Of its truth of liberty from being
Triumphant in its struggle
Against the lie of the living dead."The enemy cannot
be triumphant in this kind of situation," Hirschman says. "The
gallery has to open again."--Matthew Rothschild
-----------------------------
S.F.
Art Gallery Owner Beaten Up for Showing Anti-Torture Painting
Lori Haigh runs an art gallery in San Francisco. Well, she used to.
On May 16, according to AP, she installed a piece of artwork by Guy Colwell
entitled "Abuse." The painting (which you can see at www.nobeliefs.com/abuse.htm)
is an elaboration of the torture that went on at Abu Ghraib prison in
Iraq. In the foreground of Colwell's painting are two grinning U.S. soldiers,
one man and one woman, with American flags on their sleeves. The man is
holding a cattle prod, and the woman, a cigarette dangling from her mouth,
is holding electrical wires. Those wires are attached to the fingers of
three naked male Iraqi detainees, who are standing on cylinder blocks.
The prisoners are hooded. In the background, two other American soldiers
in sunglasses are leading a shackled and blindfolded woman into the room.
Haigh placed the painting in the front window of her gallery. Two days
later, "someone threw eggs and dumped trash on the doorstep,"
AP reported, and "people started leaving nasty messages and threats
on her business answering machine." She told AP that she received
"about 200 angry voicemails, e-mails, and death threats.".
One day, someone walked into the gallery and spit in her face.
And then on May 27, someone "knocked on the door of the gallery,
then punched Haigh in the face, knocking her out, breaking her nose, and
causing a concussion," AP said. Two days later, she still had a bad
black right eye, with purple on the cheek next to the eye, one bandage
over the nose, and another over her right eyebrow.
The abuse was too much for her--she has two young kids--so she has closed
her gallery down. If you go to capogallerysf.com, you will see a picture
of the gallery's front door, with yellow caution tape across the front.
"The Capobianco Gallery is closed," the site says.
"This isn't art-politics central here at all," Haigh told AP.
"I'm not here to make a stand. I never set out to be a crusader or
a political activist."
On Saturday, May 29, artists, poets, and other defenders of the First
Amendment rallied in support of Haigh, her gallery, Colwell, and free
expression.
"In effect, the attackers, instead of writing 'Jew' on the window,
wrote 'Artist' on the window," poet Jack Hirschman, who spoke at
the rally, tells me. "The attack was really something out of the
Brown Shirts."
Hirschman says more than 100 people attended.
|
Attacked
for art, S.F. gallery to close
Backers rally after violent responses to painting of tortured Iraqis
Ryan
Kim, Chronicle Staff Writer
Dozens of art lovers and First Amendment defenders turned out Saturday
outside a San Francisco gallery to bolster the flagging spirits of owner
Lori Haigh, who has been under siege for the past two weeks for displaying
a controversial painting depicting the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American
soldiers. The supporters
had hoped to persuade Haigh, 39, to reconsider her decision to close the
Capobianco Gallery, which came after she was threatened, spat upon and,
most recently, punched in the face for showing Guy Colwell's painting
of torture. Gathered on the sidewalk outside the small studio, her supporters
talked of vigils, petitions and even providing volunteer security to help
keep the gallery going. "The
people came out in support of Lori and in support of freedom of expression
because that's what is really being attacked here," said North Beach
poet Jack Hirschman. "The attack is not only on the gallery but on
art. If they close, it's not just (one artist) that is censored but all
artists." Visibly
moved by the show of support, Haigh said Saturday she is weighing her
options. "This
is all too scary for me," said Haigh, who spent most of the time
hidden in her gallery. "I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm going
to try and absorb this." The furor
began on May 16, when Colwell, an East Bay artist, made an addition to
his monthlong showing at Haigh's gallery on Powell Street. Angered by
the pictures he saw of Iraqi prisoners being abused, he created a black-and-
white painting depicting three hooded and naked men undergoing electric
shock torture by American soldiers. Colwell, who took down his paintings
Saturday, declined to comment. Two days
after the painting went up, Haigh arrived at her gallery to find broken
glass, eggs and trash strewn outside her storefront. Haigh also began
receiving the first of about 200 angry voice mails, e-mails and death
threats. A week
ago, a man walked into the gallery and spat in Haigh's face. On Tuesday,
Haigh decided to temporarily close the gallery and began to consider giving
up on her dream of owning an art gallery. Just two days later, another
man knocked on the door of the gallery and then punched Haigh in the face,
knocking her out, breaking her nose and causing a concussion. It's
more than Haigh ever imagined. She opened the studio 1 1/2 years ago,
hoping to display the works of important and possibly controversial modern
artists. "I
enjoyed listening to people's different opinions on what they saw,"
said Haigh, a mother of two. "That was part of the joy of having
a gallery." On Saturday,
Haigh's supporters tried to remind her of the joy in owning a gallery
in North Beach, long a haunt for counterculture poets and artists. "When
this can happen in the middle of North Beach in San Francisco, where people
always expressed themselves, it means Iraq is not the only place being
occupied," said Daniel Macchiarini, a North Beach gallery owner
himself. "But this is an act of desperation. The people who attack
like this, their ideas have failed." But despite
the support, Haigh said she's still not certain what she will do. "I'm
disheartened and disappointed," said Haigh. "I don't want to
have a gallery if I can't show artists like Guy Colwell. Their art reflects
the world around them, and if I have to resort to showing Thomas Kinkade
the rest of my life, I'm not interested in doing that
--------------------------------
San
Francisco galleryowner attacked by right-wing thugs
By Richard Phillips
In a
serious assault on freedom of expression and democratic rights, Lori Haigh,
the owner of Capobianco Gallery in North Beach, San Francisco, was spat
on and knocked unconscious last week for exhibiting an artwork highlighting
the torture of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. The assault came
after two weeks of escalating threats by extreme right-wing elements.Created
by Guy Colwell, the monotone painting, which is entitled The Abuse, features
two grinning American soldiers standing next to three naked Iraqi prisoners.
The detainees are hooded and have electric wires attached to their bodies.
Another US soldier is leading a veiled Muslim woman out of a torture chamber.
The only color in the monotone painting is the red, white and blue of
the US flag on one of the soldier’s sleeves and blood dripping from
an Iraqi prisoner’s neck.Colwell,
whose picture was a late addition to a month-long exhibit of his work
at the gallery, is well known for his social realist style, comic books,
and antiwar activism in the San Francisco area. He was jailed for two
years in 1968 for opposing the Vietnam War. Inner City Romance (1972),
his first comic book, is a biting depiction of political repression and
ghetto and prison life.“Apparently,
some people are quite shocked by my painting,” he told a local reporter.
“I don’t know why they’re not equally or more shocked
by the pictures they are seeing on television of the actual torture taking
place.”Haigh
began receiving threatening phone calls soon after she displayed Colwell’s
painting in the front window of her gallery on May 16. A few days later
garbage was strewn outside the building, which was also splattered with
eggs.Although
Haigh removed the picture from the front window the harassment continued,
with about 200 hostile voicemail and email messages, including six death
threats, during the next week. “I think you need to get your gallery
out of this neighborhood before you get hurt,” one menacing phone
caller said. Other messages accused her of being a coward and anti-American.Last
week a man wearing a fisherman’s cap and a fatigue jacket walked
into the gallery, pretended to look at the pictures and then suddenly
walked up to Haigh and spat in her face. Two days later another man knocked
on the front door of building and then punched her in the face, knocking
her out and breaking her nose. Haigh has filed reports with local police
but no charges have been laid as yet.Last
Saturday local artists and writers staged a protest outside the gallery.
North Beach poet Jack Hirschman told the crowd that Haigh’s injuries
and the threats against the gallery were an assault on freedom of expression.
“The attack is not only on the gallery but on art. If they close
it’s not just (one artist) that is censored but all artists,”
he said.Haigh,
who is a single parent, has decided to close the gallery indefinitely
because she is afraid for the safety of her two young children. The 39-year-old
gallery owner told the local media she was not trying to make an antiwar
protest: “I’m disheartened and disappointed. I don’t
want to have a gallery if I can’t show artists like Guy Colwell.
Their art reflects the world around them.”Artists,
writers and all working people must condemn the assault on Haigh and her
gallery. The attack is a clear attempt to terrorize and silence any artist
or intellectual opposed to the ongoing US-led invasion of Iraq. Indeed
the denunciations, death threats and physical assault on Haigh are entirely
consistent with the techniques employed by those guilty of torturing Iraqi
men and women.
Gallery owner Lori Haigh, assaulted and
terrorized
First
eggs were thrown at the building and trash dumped on the doorstep... then
came the obscene calls and death threats left on the gallery's answering
machine. One such caller said, "I think you need to get your gallery
out of this neighborhood before you get hurt."
Haigh
removed Colwell's painting from the gallery window but the harassment
continued with new death threats recorded on her phone machine. Then one
day a man entered the gallery, stepped up to Haigh at her desk... and
spat forcefully in her face. But the worst came a few days later when
another unidentified man threw a hard punch at Haigh's face when she answered
a knock at the gallery door, leaving her with cuts and bruises and a terrible
black eye.
Feeling vulnerable and isolated,
and out of security concerns for her two children (ages 14 and 4), Haigh
decided to close her gallery.
This shocking assault upon our first amendment rights carries with it
profound implications, not just for the arts community... but for all
Americans. Will galleries, curators, artists, and museums rally to defend
the Capobianco Gallery, or will silence and indifference encourage attacks
upon others? Will artists be cowed and coerced into producing "safe"
artistic statements, or will they rise to the occasion to become honest
and fearless social critics? The time for fence sitting has long since
past.
The San
Francisco Examiner interviewed Guy Colwell, who had this to say about
the attacks: "I was very upset about the revelation of abuses and
torture happening in Iraq -- so upset that I almost immediately sat down
and began painting a picture, which I happen to consider to be a form
of protest. Apparently, people are quite shocked by my painting, I don't
know why they are not equally or more shocked by the pictures they are
seeing on television of the actual torture taking place. I have worked
for peace and justice most of my life. I think that is a very American
thing to do. I am not anti-American, I'm anti-torture. I'm anti-cruelty.
I'm anti-hypocrisy. I don't want to be lied to any more by our government,
and I stand by my work."
Fortunately there's
some counter-energy in the form of concerned artists who fear fascism
at home more than randomly-striking terrorists. In this sense Guy Colwell
is a sort of anti-Mumford, referring here to Steve Mumford's rapidly-dating
"Parisian flaneur in Iraq" sketchbook drawings of American soldiers
at work and rest in an exotic foreign land. Those bland, tastefully smeared,
courtroom style drawings, purporting to be some kind of art vérité,
managed to hide the hatefulness and essential wrongness of the US invasion
of a country that never threatened us except with words--a classic colonial
adventure fused with misdirected payback. Mumford even got interviewed
by CNN, the official voice and supporter of the war. Colwell's art is
simplistic, not tasteful in the least, but it cuts right to the subjugating
core of the BushCo enterprise. Not that a punch in the face validates
art or is anything other than repugnant, but no one will ever be punched
over Mumford's drawings.
The people who assaulted Colwell's dealer are still in whipped
up "war mode"--which is hard to come down from after all the
Fox News and New York Times/Judith Miller propaganda. The dark side of
America is an ugly beast and with blood in the air, it's not so easy to
calm. When the Japanese attack you, you put all your energy into attacking
the Japanese; when an "invisible network of terror cells" attacks
you, it's hard to know where the energy's supposed to go. So you hit "sitting
duck" countries. And art dealers. |
Last
straw for art gallery
Threats and attacks over Iraq painting force owner out.
By
J.K. Dineen | Staff Writer
A North
Beach art gallery owner who has been attacked and threatened for showing
a controversial painting of American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners
has decided to call it quits. After
having her life repeatedly threatened, her business egged and her face
spat upon, Lori Haigh papered up the windows of her Powell Street gallery,
Capobianco, on Tuesday."I'm
totally disheartened by this -- this was my dream," Haigh said. "I
felt like this was a legacy I could leave my children; that we had a gallery
in North Beach."The painting,
titled "The Abuse" by East Bay artist Guy Colwell, shows Pfc.
Lynndie England and another soldier smiling gleefully as they look upon
a trio of naked, hooded Iraqi prisoners who are hooked up to electrical
wires. In the background, a third American soldier is escorting a Muslim
woman in a dress into the torture chamber.The painting
is black and white, except for American flag patches on the soldiers'
uniforms, which appear to be splattered with blood.A week
ago, Haigh realized the nerve the painting had struck when she arrived
at work to find the place egged and heaps of trash dumped at the gallery
entrance. On her computer and voice mail were stinging messages calling
her anti-American for showing the artwork.Even
after she took the painting out of the front window, she received six
threats against her life. The last straw was when a man spat at her ."He
came walking in with a fisherman's cap and a fatigue jacket on and slowly
made his way along the wall, looking at the pictures," she said.
"Then he put his fists on my desk, put his face close to mine and
spat. It was a real big loogie spit -- it was not a tiny spit."As Haigh
ran to the back of the gallery for some napkins, the man fled. Haigh has
filed a police report on the incident.Among
the messages left on the gallery answering machine were, "You f---ing
coward, you're dead" and "I think you need to get your gallery out of this neighborhood before you get hurt."She said
she felt like a "a sitting duck.""I
feel like my gallery had finally reached a level where I represent important
Bay Area figures like Winton Smith and Guy Colwell," she said. "If
I can't do that, then I don't want to have a gallery. This is a labor
of love -- galleries don't make a lot of money."On Saturday,
Colwell will bring a U-haul to the gallery to retrieve his artwork, and
a number of the artist's supporters are expected to turn out. The next
show scheduled by famous punk rock and counterculture artist Winston Smith
has been cancelled.Smith,
a North Beach resident, who was himself denounced in the 1980s when he
was the album cover artist for punk rock band The Dead Kennedys, said
it was "too bad" that the gallery was closing."It
is a good location, and [Haigh] is a sincere person who is a hard worker
and was going out of her way to feature local talent," Smith said.Smith
said he didn't understand why those outraged by the graphic depictions
of torture in the Iraqi prison would have such a strong reaction to a
painting depicting one artist's vision of the abuse."They
must be anti-American if they despise freedom of speech so much, which
is the essence of American freedom," he said.Smith
said Haigh was respectful of artists and didn't approach her gallery with
a political agenda."If
someone wanted to show a flag-waving solider in Iraq, she would say, 'You're
the artists, do whatever you want,'" he said. City
Lights Bookstore co-owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti, stopped by the gallery
to offer his support.Book
publisher Ron Turner, whose company Last Gasp published Colwell's art,
was sympathetic."She
got threats," he said. "She is a single woman with two kids
trying to be a business woman and there are crazies threatening to roast
her children."Neighborhood
activist Marc Bruno said he "felt terrible" when he heard what
was going on at the gallery.
"I
brought flowers there," he said. "I felt bad for her."
----------------------
Abuse
painting in City Hall?
Supe wants to show support for gallery.
By J.K. Dineen
The controversial painting depicting Iraqi prisoner abuse which drove
a harassed North Beach gallery owner to shut her doors last week, may
soon adorn a much more prominent building: City Hall.District
3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin plans to introduce a resolution June 8 condemning
the vandalism and attacks at the Capobianco gallery on Powell Street and
calling for the oil painting -- which shows American soldiers torturing
naked Iraqi prisoners -- to be hung in the hallowed halls of City Hall.Peskin
said moving the painting into the center of city government would send
a strong message that The City condemned the attacks against the Capobianco
Art Gallery and its owner, Lori Haigh."I'm
not talking about the Board's chambers, but somewhere in City Hall where
art is usually shown, like the art gallery," said Peskin.Haigh's
troubles started on May 16 when she displayed Guy Colwell's painting "The
Abuse" in her window before closing down for a few days. When she
returned, she found her gallery egged and trashed and her e-mail and voice-mail
boxes full of angry messages accusing her of anti-Americanism.After
May 20, when The Examiner published the first of a series of articles
on the controversy, supporters started to rally to Haigh's defense --
but the disturbing attacks increased. Strangers threatened the gallery owner's life, and she was spat on and punched, knocking her unconscious.On Saturday,
about 100 gallery supporters and free-speech advocates -- along with a
pack of television and newspaper reporters -- rallied on the sidewalk
as Colwell and Haigh stood in the gallery.Prominent
Republican Mike DeNunzio called Peskin's plan "a shame.""I
would have thought better of Aaron Peskin," he said. "There
is no need for something like that -- obviously he has some need to preserve
publicity."DeNunzio
said he would "have more respect for Peskin's conduct" if the
supervisor were willing to decorate City Hall with images showing the
other side of the story."Would
he also like to put a photograph of the young man whose head was sawed
off by terrorists?" asked DeNunzio. "Would he also like to put
up photograph of the thousands of men and women who were murdered by Saddam
Hussein?"Richard
Newirth, director of Cultural Affairs for the San Francisco Arts Commission,
said the painting could be hung in the basement of City Hall, where the
commission runs a gallery, or the supervisors could choose to give it
a more central showing."I
assume they would want to put it in a more prominent location," he
said. "They could put it in one of the light courts or outside the
supervisors' chambers. It would be it up to them to decide. They would
only have to coordinate with the building manager of City Hall. according to Brown.He praised
Peskin for agreeing to hang the painting in City Hall."I
think it's kind of him to posit that possibility, but I would be surprised
if the board and the mayor allowed it," he said. "I would enjoy
seeing it hanging in City Hall, or my gallery for that matter." Guy Colwell
is a Bay Area underground comix artist turned mural painter who recently
went back to explicit political work, to disastrous effect. As described
in this Steve
Gillliard post (and original story), Colwell tackled the Abu Ghraib
prison torture story and his painting was so effective it got his art
dealer literally punched in the face, and spat on, by angry yahoos. The
gallery--in the bohemian North Beach area of San Francisco, of all places--was
also vandalized, and the dealer closed her business yesterday. The painting
is explicit, illustrational agitprop in the Sue Coe tradition, depicting
subhuman GIs with American flag patches on their uniforms, screaming in
rage at a row of naked figures, hooded, wired up and standing on buckets.
All the emotions are right up on the surface, and this is a time when
emotions matter.
|
"I'm so sorry you got punched in the face, I would have used a flat
nose shovel or crowbar myself... so God bless america" 
