The Secret Service sent agents to investigate a college art gallery exhibit of mock postage stamps, one depicting President Bush with a gun pointed at his head, to guarantee “this is nothing more than artwork with a political statement,” a spokesman said Tuesday.
The exhibit, called “Axis of Evil: The Secret History of Sin,” opened last week at Columbia College’s Glass Curtain Gallery.
The 47 artists designed fake postage stamps addressing issues such as the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, racism and the war in Iraq. None of the artists is tied to the college.
Secret Service spokesman Tom Mazur said Tuesday that the inquiry started after a call from a city resident.
Mazur would not say whether the inquiry had been completed or with whom the Secret Service had spoken, but he said no artwork had been confiscated.
“We need to ensure, as best we can, that this is nothing more than artwork with a political statement,” Mazur said.
The two federal agents arrived at the exhibit’s opening night Thursday, took photos of some of the works and asked for the artists’ contact information, said CarolAnn Brown, the gallery’s director.
Brown said the agents were most interested in Chicago artist Al Brandtner’s “Patriot Act,” a sheet of mock 37 cent red, white and blue stamps showing a revolver pointed at President Bush’s head.
Brandtner did not return a call to his design studio Tuesday.
Brown said she referred the agents to the exhibit’s curator, Michael Hernandez de Luna, who organized the show and also has several works in the exhibit, including a series of stamps depicting a plane crashing into the Sears Tower.
Walking through the gallery Tuesday, Hernandez de Luna said that he thinks the agents were just following protocol. But “it frightens me,” he said, “because it starts questioning all rights, not only my rights or the artists’ rights in this room, but questioning the rights of any artist who creates–any writer, any visual artist, any performance artist. It seems like we’re being watched.”
