Steve Kurtz is a professor of art at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, former professor of art history at Carnegie Mellon University and a founding member of the performance art group, Critical Art Ensemble. He is known for his work in Bio-art, and Electronic Civil Disobedience, and because of his arrest by the FBI in May 2004. His work often deals with social criticism.
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Life and work
Steve Kurtz is a founding member of the award-winning art and theater collective, Critical Art Ensemble (CAE). Since its formation in 1987, CAE has been frequently invited to exhibit and perform projects examining issues surrounding information, communications and bio-technologies by museums and other cultural institutions. [1] These include The Whitney Museum and The New Museum in NYC; The Corcoran Museum in Washington D.C.; The ICA, London; The MCA, Chicago; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; and The London Museum of Natural History.[2] The collective has written 6 books, and its writings have been translated into 18 languages. Its work has been covered by art journals, including Artforum, Kunstforum, and The Drama Review. [3] Critical Art Ensemble is the recipient of awards, including the 2007 Andy Warhol Foundation Wynn Kramarsky Freedom of Artistic Expression Grant [4], the 2004 John Lansdown Award for Multimedia [5], and the 2004 Leonardo New Horizons Award for Innovation. [6]
Arrest
In May 2004, Kurtz called 911 to report the death of his wife, Hope Kurtz, by congenital heart failure. [7] In order to create their art installations the Kurtzes sometimes worked with biological equipment and had a small home lab and petri dishes containing biological specimens. At the time of Hope Kurtz's death they were working on an exhibit about genetically modified agriculture for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Buffalo police deemed these materials suspicious and notified the FBI, who detained Kurtz for 22 hours without charge on suspicion of "bioterrorism." Meanwhile, dozens of federal agents in hazardous material suits suits raided the Kurtz home, seizing books, computers, manuscripts, and art materials, and removing Hope Kurtz's body from the county coroner for further analysis. [8] Kurtz was allowed to return to his home one week later, after the Commissioner of Public Health for New York State had determined that nothing in the home posed any sort of public or environmental health or safety threat, and that Hope Kurtz had died of natural causes.[9] In July 2004 a grand jury refused to bring any "bioterrorism" charges, but did indict Kurtz on federal criminal mail fraud and wire fraud charges. Also indicted was Dr. Robert Ferrell, Professor of Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, who served as a scientific consultant on Critical Art Ensemble's projects. The charges concern the way Kurtz and Ferrell allegedly ordered and mailed the non-pathogenic bacteria used in several museum installations. Under the USA PATRIOT Act the maximum possible sentence for these charges has increased from five to twenty years in prison. [10] In October 2007, Ferrell pleaded "guilty" to misdemeanor charges. Ferrell's wife and daughter subsequently issued public statements saying the plea deal was due to the stress of the case and severe illness (Ferrell is a 27 year survivor of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and suffered a series of strokes following his indictment in 2004). [11] Kurtz has received much of his legal representation from Paul Cambria, a Buffalo-based attorney who specializes in First Amendment issues.
Film
The story of Kurtz is told in the film Strange Culture by film maker Lynn Hershman Leeson. The film was simultaneously screened and webcast to the Second Life game on January 22nd 2007. It focuses on Kurtz' art, character and interaction with law enforcement.
See also
External links
- CAE Defense Fund - Organization raising money for Kurtz's legal defense. Has additional information about the background of the Steve Kurtz case with extensive documentation
- Washington Post Article on the Arrest
- Biotech Projects
- Designer Bodies
- Netscape News article on the film about the case
- Navigating the gray zone Interview with Steve, Arts Hub, April 21, 2006.
- The Political Problem of Luck Interview with Steve Kurtz by Julia Bryan-Wilson, Plazm magazine, issue 28, Summer, 2006.
- Art or Bioterrorism - Who Cares, By RU Sirius, 10 Zen Monkeys, September 26th,2007. Steve Kurtz interview with video trailer
- Justice Department's Bio-terror Mistake, Slashdot, September 26, 2007.
