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'Violated ... again'

Kin slap art center's 9/11 pieces

By DOUGLAS FEIDEN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Several pieces of artwork that have been displayed at Drawing Center have drawn protests from relatives of 9/11 victims, including 'A Glimpse of What Life in a Free Country Can Be Like #6' and 'Homeland Security'.

A museum that is set to rise above the hallowed soil of Ground Zero has showcased art that the families of 9/11 victims are denouncing as offensive, anti-American - and a slap in the face of nearly 3,000 dead innocents.

The Drawing Center, a little-known cultural group in SoHo, has mounted works linking President Bush to Osama Bin Laden and showing a hooded victim of U.S. abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.

The storefront museum currently features a "pseudo-didactic PowerPoint presentation on the Axis of Evil" that appears to mock Bush's famous description of Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

Previous exhibits include a drawing of four airplanes swooping menacingly out of the sky - one of which is flying directly at a naked woman lying on her back, legs spread-eagled. The acrylic image is titled "Homeland Security."

"It's truly the most vulgar thing I have ever seen in my entire life," said Jennie Farrell, whose brother James, 26, an electrician, died on the 105th floor of the south tower.

"To call it art is reprehensible, and to place it at Ground Zero is committing a second criminal act against our dead," she added.

"It's offensive, it's America-bashing, it's a despicable insult to the families of people defending us in Iraq, and I'm sick and tired of it," said Jack Lynch, who helped carry the body of his firefighter son Michael, 30, out of the rubble.

"On 9/11, the families were violated by terrorists. Now we're being violated all over again, and it brings 9/11 right back home to each of us."

The center, founded in 1977, has displayed more than 10,000 works in 28 years, and supporters say only a tiny number have been overtly political.

Asked if the museum would display different kinds of works when it moves from SoHo to Ground Zero, spokeswoman Rebecca Herman said only, "Our mission is not changing."

But Lynn Rasic, a spokeswoman for Gov. Pataki, said: "The governor's first priority at the World Trade Center site is to build a lasting memorial that honors those we lost. That priority cannot be compromised."

And Joanna Rose, a Lower Manhattan Development Corp. spokeswoman, said: "We expect that the cultural institutions in the memorial area will be respectful of this hallowed ground."

Pataki controls the LMDC, which has ultimate authority over the cultural complex at Ground Zero.

The Drawing Center was largely unknown until it was tapped in 2004 as one of four cultural institutions for the World Trade Center site, out of 113 that had originally expressed interest.

It will vacate its cramped, 10,000-square-foot space at 35 Wooster St. to share a showcase Greenwich St. building with the WTC Memorial Visitor's Center and the controversial International Freedom Center. Groundbreaking is set for 2007, completion in 2009.

The IFC has sparked a firestorm of protests from victims' families who fear it will focus on U.S. wrongdoing throughout history, like the treatment of American Indians.

By contrast, the low-profile Drawing Center, which will occupy 36,000 square feet, has attracted scant attention.

But a News review of dozens of its catalogues since Sept. 11, 2001, revealed numerous politically charged works.

Among those recently featured:

# "A Glimpse of What Life in a Free Country Can Be Like," by Amy Wilson, was displayed in fall 2004.

A hood on his head and electrodes bearing the word "Liberty" connected to his arms, the iconic image of Abu Ghraib stands above a field peopled with dancing skeletons.

# "Global Networks: George W. Bush, Harken Energy and Jackson Stephens," by the late Mark Lombardi, was displayed in fall 2003.

A favorite of conspiracy theorists, this line drawing uses arrows and circles to link politicians, oil tycoons and international terrorists. Then-Texas Gov. George Bush and ex-President George H.W. Bush are linked to Bin Laden, indirectly, via another Saudi sheik and a business baron.

"There's more than 100 people in a 10-foot-long drawing, and it's a simplification to pick out two people and connect them like that," said Herman, the center's spokeswoman.