Drawing Center move to WTC site in doubt

As a result of what many art world observers are calling censorship, the Drawing Center's planned relocation from 35 Wooster Street to the World Trade Center site seems increasingly uncertain. A non-profit formed in 1977 to showcase works on paper, the center was selected in June 2004 by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) to be one of four cultural institutions situated in the redesigned WTC complex [see "Artworld," Sept. '04]. The projected move would more than triple the capacity of the Drawing Center from its current 10,000 square feet.

But on June 24, the New York Daily News ran a cover story and editorial calling attention to certain "politically charged" artworks previously exhibited at the venue. The paper decried the drawings of Amy Wilson, Mark Lombardi and "numerous" others, prominently reproducing an image by Wilson that featured the iconic hooded Abu Ghraib prisoner. It also described a Lombardi schematic that, in tracing the convoluted linkages between government and business, indirectly connected George W. Bush to Osama bin Laden.

According to the New York Times, on June 25 Gov. George Pataki demanded "an absolute guarantee" that cultural institutions under consideration for the site would not mount exhibitions that might offend 9/11 families or the larger public: "We will not tolerate anything on that site that denigrates America." He pledged that cultural groups not willing to hew to that line I would be excluded from the plan "to the extent that I have the ability to do that." Moreover, a spokesman for the governor, David Catalfamo, was quoted in the same article as saying that "the Drawing Center is only tentatively selected, and they don't have any contractual rights."

Tom Healy, president of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), called any preemptive censorship "extremely inappropriate and wrong" and "anti-American." For her part, Catherine de Zegher, Drawing Center director, told Crain's New York Business, "The LMDC knows that we would never be able to accept censorship. Now they have to come to us with their decision."

In March it was reported that the Drawing Center and the three other cultural groups--the Joyce Theater, the Signature Center (an Off Broadway company) and the new International Freedom Center--were still only prospective tenants, contingent on results of feasibility studies. (In early June, preliminary programming under discussion for the Freedom Center had already drawn protests by relatives of victims of the terrorist attack.) In fact, the future of the entire cultural complex is highly uncertain; with projected costs rising, the LMDC has not specified how much it will contribute and has not released its evaluation of the feasibility studies.

Meanwhile, on July 23 the Times noted that the Drawing Center and the LMDC have begun to consider other downtown sites. Drawing Center president George Negroponte allowed that pressures over programming led in part to this development, which does not bode well for freedom of speech anywhere near the Freedom Center.

COPYRIGHT 2005 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group