A lot of folks in the blogosphere, and even the ACLU, are up in arms over the case of Edward Stross, a Roseville, MI artist who depicted a variation on Michelangelo's "Creation of Man" on his building eight years ago; unlike the clever parody currently making the blogospheric rounds showing Bush & co. reaching out to a nude Guckert, Stross' version had a bare-breasted Eve apparently being chased by an American flag conjured up by the finger of God and, inexplicably, the word "Love" somewhere about. (You can sort-of see the mural here, although I can't find the word "Love" at all. You can only see the God part in this PDF file, and in b&w no less, which does no good if you want to figure out what the fuss is about.) Stross faces a month in jail and a $500 fine for violating city ordinances prohibiting nudity and regulating signage.
I think a lot of the free speech advocates are missing the point here. This case has nothing to do with prudery (except insofar as, one can argue, regards the ordinance restricting nudity in the first place) or even with free speech. The fact is that Roseville's Zoning Board of Appeals originally agreed to let Stross paint the outside, public wall of his studio as long as he didn't paint letters or nudity, and as long as he maintained the work. That was the condition to which he agreed, and he violated it; flaunted it, even. I think it's telling that the jury took about 20 minutes to convict him. If you ask for permission to do something (and bear in mind, the variance he received in 1997 from the zoning board noted the mural was six times larger than zoning usually allows, so he was pushing it in the first place), and the people from whom you need permission give you conditions, and you say okay, you are obligated to stick to your half of the bargain, or face the consequences - period.
To me this whole thing smacks of "look how clever I am." It's no different from the comic book artists who insist on sticking "Easter eggs" in their art. Yeah, it might be fun for readers to spot the out-of-place pop-culture character lurking in the background of page 3, panel 4, but in 99% of the cases it utterly detracts from the storytelling that's supposed to be what the artist is getting paid to do. But hey, it gets the artist noticed, doesn't it? In Stross' case, if he wanted to depict "woman under attack by restrictive government" (just a guess; after all, it was the Clinton era when the atmosphere hadn't yet reached a fever pitch of hysteria), why on earth was she partially unclothed? So it could be "sex object under attack" or something? And what's "Love" got to do with it? That doesn't correspond to anything in Michelangelo's original. To me it says, again, "hey, look at me, I'm rebelling against Society's Rules by painting a mural six times bigger than allowed, and I'm putting in unneeded naughty bits even after I agreed not to so it'll get noticed because I don't give a shit if it happens to bother parents when they pass it on the street with their kids and can't do anything about it 'cause it's public, and oh yeah I'm thumbing my nose at the no-lettering restriction I said I'd follow because they'll all look silly when they protest the word 'love,' won't they, those love-haters?"
I have absolutely no sympathy for this guy. Five hundred smackers and a month in a local jail cell (if that even goes through now) after eight years of getting away with knowingly breaking his promise seems a fairly small price to pay for one's art, and should be more than offset anyway by all this free publicity he's getting (and all the work his studio is sure to receive as a result of all this in-my-opinion misplaced sympathy). If my blog weren't so relatively insignificant I'd apologize for adding to that publicity.
I think a lot of the free speech advocates are missing the point here. This case has nothing to do with prudery (except insofar as, one can argue, regards the ordinance restricting nudity in the first place) or even with free speech. The fact is that Roseville's Zoning Board of Appeals originally agreed to let Stross paint the outside, public wall of his studio as long as he didn't paint letters or nudity, and as long as he maintained the work. That was the condition to which he agreed, and he violated it; flaunted it, even. I think it's telling that the jury took about 20 minutes to convict him. If you ask for permission to do something (and bear in mind, the variance he received in 1997 from the zoning board noted the mural was six times larger than zoning usually allows, so he was pushing it in the first place), and the people from whom you need permission give you conditions, and you say okay, you are obligated to stick to your half of the bargain, or face the consequences - period.
To me this whole thing smacks of "look how clever I am." It's no different from the comic book artists who insist on sticking "Easter eggs" in their art. Yeah, it might be fun for readers to spot the out-of-place pop-culture character lurking in the background of page 3, panel 4, but in 99% of the cases it utterly detracts from the storytelling that's supposed to be what the artist is getting paid to do. But hey, it gets the artist noticed, doesn't it? In Stross' case, if he wanted to depict "woman under attack by restrictive government" (just a guess; after all, it was the Clinton era when the atmosphere hadn't yet reached a fever pitch of hysteria), why on earth was she partially unclothed? So it could be "sex object under attack" or something? And what's "Love" got to do with it? That doesn't correspond to anything in Michelangelo's original. To me it says, again, "hey, look at me, I'm rebelling against Society's Rules by painting a mural six times bigger than allowed, and I'm putting in unneeded naughty bits even after I agreed not to so it'll get noticed because I don't give a shit if it happens to bother parents when they pass it on the street with their kids and can't do anything about it 'cause it's public, and oh yeah I'm thumbing my nose at the no-lettering restriction I said I'd follow because they'll all look silly when they protest the word 'love,' won't they, those love-haters?"
I have absolutely no sympathy for this guy. Five hundred smackers and a month in a local jail cell (if that even goes through now) after eight years of getting away with knowingly breaking his promise seems a fairly small price to pay for one's art, and should be more than offset anyway by all this free publicity he's getting (and all the work his studio is sure to receive as a result of all this in-my-opinion misplaced sympathy). If my blog weren't so relatively insignificant I'd apologize for adding to that publicity.
3 comments:
The Apealette court of Michigan has thrown the case out, the artist was wrongfully prosecuted. Your facts are wrong, it never said no nudity, it said no genitilia, and breast are not genitilia. The artist did follow the instructions very closely, and the work is loved by the vast majority of the local people. The reason the city went after the artist is because he supports new candidates other then the ones that came after him. The city now will get sued for the harrasment. There are always two sides of a story, you should get all the facts before you rush to judgement.
And I might, Edward, were you not clearly the artist and thus quite biased. Not to mention a bit arrogant, referring to yourself in the third person and all.
And I might, Edward, were you not clearly the artist and thus quite biased. Not to mention a bit arrogant, referring to yourself in the third person and all.
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