MAY 2005 - "Los Angeles' Transport Gallery has featured some in-your-face work...but those exhibitions didn't rouse the
Los Angeles Police Department the way a one-night showing on April 23rd did. With six patrol cars, they shut down the exhibition
MARK OF THE BEAST, forcing some 1,000 attendees into the streets, on grounds that it was 'offensive and aggressive in nature.'

The offending works? CULTURE-JAMMED CORPORATE LOGOS.

The LAPD's reaction to MARK OF THE BEAST was spurred by a single phonecall of complaint, according to gallery director
Mike Russek, and Transport was shuttered by officers who never set foot in the gallery to see the work for themselves.
It's yet another example of the clamp-down on free expression in the United States following September 11, 2001.

Even though the show at Transport was merely cut short by the LAPD, the case still represents a clear violation of First
Amendment rights, and will no doubt contribute fuel to the ongoing debate about American values today. Are some issues
like critiques of corporate hegemony, too taboo for even art? Has free expression, so important it's first on the list of
constitutional amendments, become a right too risky in a post-9/11 world? A week before the opening of MARK OF THE BEAST,
an emailer told curator Brandy Flower the work was "un-American." Is it? Or is it just the opposite, an act of patriotism
that illustrates the vitality of dissent, the diversity of viewpoints, and the range of expression celebrated here?
Apparently for some, that's going a step too far."

- Paul Schmelzer / Adbusters.org





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