EMAIL I JUST RECEIVED.

anyone care to respond???

Dear Ann:

Hey there – I’m writing a news column about the upcoming performance at PS1 and the controversy surrounding the “Brooklyn is Burning” event. Basically, a number of people have contacted me with the complaint that the voice of the other artist involved in the dispute, Georgia Sagri, has been completely left out of the coverage. It is actually quite baffling that Claudia La Rocco has written at least twice about the “Brooklyn is Burning” performance, both times interviewing you, but not attempted to interview Sagri.

So, I’m putting together a news piece that involves Georgia’s account, and I wanted to get your response to some of the things that she, and others, say about the debate that has grown out of it:

1) One complaint is that your account has consistently exaggerated and sensationalized the charge of “censorship.” Since the performance was deliberately about created an unpredictable situation, and no one was informed in advance about what was going to occur, it really seems that PS1 simply had no idea what was going on. Doesn’t it cheapen the notion of “censorship” to claim that an un-premeditated freak-out in a potentially volatile situation that literally involved splashing blood and urine is “censorship”?

2) The other complaint, of course, has to do with your treatment of the other artist. Do you feel any responsibility to Georgia Sagri? It really does seem that her voice has been lost in the sensation provoked by your piece, which, after all, is inseparable from publicly insulting and ridiculing her art, in the context of a supposedly safe space. Here are some samples of what people have written to me along these lines:

“Between consenting adults, anything is permissible, but in this particular case it wasn't fair play, Georgia hadn't been warned, she was cornered and made vulnerable in a public situation.”

And

“To insult a fellow artist who's unaware of your intention as a way to levy an attack against an institution is a cowardly strategy and furthermore has nothing to do with institutional critique. It doesn't really directly attack the person or institution in power does it? To then take that attack after the fact and create a body of work out of it is just exploitative.”

Finally, a question about the upcoming Steiner performance. Sagri forwarded me the invitation you had sent her – which she was actually quite mad about in itself. The fact that you are offering that she participate in an event moderated by the “persona” that attacked her seems like a provocation, and also rather insensitive to the damage that the negative press surrounding the “Brooklyn is Burning” event might have to done her career. How can it be taken as anything other than an invitation to be once again ridiculed in public?

Thanks for any thoughts!

Ben Davis

Associate Editor

Artnet Magazine ^®