Posted on 05/29/2004 5:51:06 PM PDT by zencat
After displaying a painting of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners, a San Francisco gallery owner bears a painful reminder of the nations 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 assault outside the Capobianco gallery in the citys North Beach district Thursday night was the worst, but only the latest in a string of verbal and physical attacks that have directed at owner Lori Haigh since the painting, titled "Abuse," was installed there on May 16.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Man, are the kooks gonna have a field day with the way that this thread is going.
"This isnt art-politics central here at all," Haigh said. "I'm not here to make a stand. I never set out to be a crusader or a political activist."
Oh please. That explains why the offensive painting is in the front window and not mixed in with the rest of the paintings in the exhibit.
As to Mr. Colwell, this gal is either lying through her teeth or breathtakingly ignorant.
Here's a bio of Guy Colwell (anybody could have Googled this, including her, but she probably knew him already):
http://www.lambiek.net/colwell_guy.htm
Guy Colwell was born in Oakland, California in 1945. He studied two years at the California College of Arts and Crafts and worked as a toy sculptor for Mattel in 1966. In 1968, he was imprisoned for draft resistance and spent two years in jail. He started working on his first comic book in 1972, 'Inner City Romance, in which he depicted tales of political repression, violence and ghetto and prison life.
For Guy Colwell comics happened in two distinct eras: in the political, communal 1970s he worked on underground comix with social consciousness, doing strips and illustrations for the San Francisco Good Times, working on his 'Inner City Romance' comics and being in the middle of a vibrant comic artist community (Last Gasp) that partied and worked closely together. In the more commercial 1980s he moved to Auburn, California where he worked on 'Doll' and other adult comics for Rip Off Press and being isolated from the comic scene he knew before.
Colwell left the comic scene in 1990 to return to his life's work of painting. He completed a 700-square-foot rainforest wall at the Oakland zoo, a large canvas based on Minoan Crete for Café Mediterranean in Berkeley, and is presently working on a series of wildlife murals for the Placer Nature Center in Auburn.
Non-political my a**. A quick look at other links from Googling show that this guy is a hardcore lifetime radical and borderline pervert.
I believe that painting was put there to elicit a response. If I'm right, she expected threatening calls and perhpas broken windows, but someone got physical with her. Shouldn't have happened, but despite her professed ignorance, I believe she deliberately set out to provoke a violent response.
Anyway, someone took the bait and now she can play victim (which is a very good publicity move for her gallery, doncha think?).
No doubt in that particular part of San Francisco there are more than anyone's fair share of homosexuals who DO NOT appreciate having homosexual/homoerotic behavior and events being put in a bad light, or, maybe it's just an irate sado-masochist this time!
Geez you call yourself bfree, if you cannot be free to speak our views without getting attacked then what the hell are those soldiers doing over there. Looks like the terrorists
won because you people have up on our freedoms.
If you can stand it, a full photo of this work of "art" is at the top of this link:
http://www.capogallerysf.com/colwell.htm
A picture is also at the bottom of the site's home page.
This is the gallery's web site. FWIW, I see no indication of an intent to close or suspend operations.
Any wittness to the alleged assault?
No, your thinking of the "cock-in-bull"...
Me too. This doesn't pass the smell test. She claims there's no political statement in the art and that the newspapers she covered the window with just coincidentally show stories on Abu Ghraib. This is not believable and, for me, it casts doubt on the rest of her story.
Homo-erotic art?
Damn right!!! This "let's take the high road" sh*t has got to go. Maybe she'll think a bit harder next time when she tries to brow-beat OUR military to her little "san fran" POS buddies!
I LOVE THIS PIC! It looks like she SHOULD be saying "guess i'm a real dipshit, huh?"
That was my first reaction too.
We've seen leftists do just that several times over recent years -- the latest at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California just a few months ago. Loopy left-wing female professor vandalized her own car, but cracked under pressure when the FBI was called in to investigate it as a 'hate crime'.
How soon we forget.
I'll be content to watch what becomes of this story though.
This seems to be a misunderstanding with artistic interpretation.
This is simply one art lover (as in martial art) showing their artistic appreciation to another art lover.
She should be flattered that another art lover was so moved by her gallery.
It's easy when you have an "unknown assailant." I bet they never catch the guy.
And later, she says she hopes her gallery is one day famous enough to attract big-name artists. Well, sounds like she's taking that first step.
Sounds like the neighbors exercised their right of free speech also. Tolerance of anti american crap is past. I have no desire to become muslim and I will not tolerate this crap, that, by the way, is my right.
Looks like this "person" didn't like what happened when she pulled the wrong tail.
Whoever did this should have gone after the artist instead.
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