The Art Threat Level Today is Orange
September 26th, 2007 by FineArtRegistry
Remain on Alert, and Report Suspicious Activity
In early 2007, Turner Broadcasting hired a third-party advertising company to run a guerilla marketing campaign promoting a late-night cartoon show. Sean Stevens and Peter Berdovsky were two of many college students employed by the ad firm to mount the lit sign boards – about the size of a placemat, with little light bulbs protruding from them akin to the Hasbro child’s toy LiteBrite – in publicly visible locations around Boston. Similar campaigns went on in nine other cities around the U.S.
There was virtually no public reaction in the nine other cities, but a Boston citizen called to report that, given that the items had D-cell batteries and wires on them, they could be bombs. Boston city officials closed highways and bridges and shut off maritime traffic on the rivers that bisect the city. They dispatched bomb squads to remove the devices from public and privately owned locations. And Stevens and Berdovsky were placed under arrest, charged with felony placement of a hoax bomb, as well as misdemeanor disorderly conduct.
Obviously the light-board images of a cartoon character flipping the bird at passing traffic provoked response, evoked emotion, and inspired thought and conversation – the very essence of public art. But was it terrorism? Or First Amendment protected artistic expression?
The Boston cartoon light board incident was only one of many events in recent years where public art has run up against assertions of terrorism. In this article, attorney and Fine Art Registry legal analyst Cindy Hill summarizes several of these events, from “Fear” boxes installed in a New York subway while the city was still reeling from the September 11th attacks, to an internet-supported global effort to place boxes with question marks on them in public places to inspire conversations about public art. Learn when public “guerilla” art is protected by the First Amendment, and when does it constitute an illegal threat that can be sanctioned under criminal and civil laws.
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