The furor over what had been, the day before, an obscure entry in a private student art exhibit grew Thursday into a political and constitutional conflict involving charges of racism and fascism.
As the latest scenes from Chicago`s political theater played out across the city:
– The Art Institute of Chicago agreed to officially apologize for the one-day exhibit of a mocking painting of the late Mayor Harold Washington;
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– The American Civil Liberties Union vowed to file a suit on behalf of the artist seeking monetary damages against the Chicago police officers who removed the offending work;
– David K. Nelson, a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, was promised that he would get his picture back.
Thursday started the same way as Wednesday had ended, with irate aldermen showing up at the doors of the School of the Art Institute to protest the display-in a private, juried student contest-of an unflattering portrait of the late mayor, frowning, holding a pencil and wearing filmy lingerie.
The controversy moved to City Hall when Mayor Eugene Sawyer summoned both sides in the dispute-officials of the Art Institute and its school along with the angry aldermen-to his office to try to iron out the dispute.
The aldermen, who had been among a delegation of about 10 who had forcibly removed the painting from the school`s main lobby Wednesday night, pressed a lengthy series of demands on the Art Institute during a 3 1/2-hour session at City Hall, all relating to their charges that racism was the basic issue behind the controversy over the painting.
By the end of the session, Art Institute officials agreed to ”apologize to city residents for the inflammatory nature of the painting,” agreed not to display the painting in the future and to ”reaffirm” the commitment of the institute and its school to improve minority hiring and student recruitment.
In addition, Art Institute officials agreed to report back to the city by June 12 on their progress in increasing minority participation in the school and to implement activities after consulting with aldermen and community representatives.
Some students, who had mingled outside the Art Institute entrance at Columbus and Jackson Drives since the handful of aldermen reappeared at 8 a.m. Thursday, were upset when informed at a late afternoon rally that school officials had acceded to at least some of the aldermanic demands.
”How is an artist supposed to create?” asked Kerry Brown, 24, the student union president-elect. ”The way to fight something you don`t like is not to steal it or refuse to show it, but to paint a picture that shows the other side.”
But the picture that the protesting aldermen and their supporters from sympathetic community groups painted Thursday was larger than the canvass that rested most of the day under ”protective custody” in the office of the commander of the Central Police District, 11 E. 11th St., since the attack on it Wednesday.
Ald. Bobby Rush (2d), who emerged as one of the chief spokesmen for the aldermen, linked the controversy to last week`s flap about the firing of mayoral aide Steve Cokely. Cokely was dismissed by Sawyer after revelations that he had made anti-Semitic remarks and other racial and religious slurs in public speeches.
”This shows there is a dual standard,” Rush told reporters outside the mayor`s office Thursday. ”This is what`s floating around the black community. Steve Cokely was forced to be fired and no outcry of 1st Amendment rights prevailed at that time.
”Now, with this painting, because the subject of the portrait is a black, there`s a hue and cry for 1st Amendment rights. There is a duality here.”
Meanwhile, the artist maintained a selective low profile, speaking in a telephone interview in the morning and in a live radio interview in the afternoon with WLUP radio personalities Jonathon Brandmeier, Steve Dahl and Garry Meier, but ducking attempts by other media reporters to talk to him.
His views generally were expressed by Harvey Grossman, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, who said his organization had contacted Nelson when the turmoil erupted Wednesday, the first day of a three-day student exhibit in the school.
Grossman called City Corporation Counsel Judson Miner and asked that the painting be returned to its owner. Miner promptly agreed to the demand, and refused to discuss the specific details on why the work was confiscated by police Wednesday on the grounds that its continued display would ”incite a riot.”
Grossman said later that Nelson would not press to have the painting returned to the exhibit by about 250 student artists on Friday, saying that Nelson had fulfilled his intention of drawing attention to his
”iconoclastic” work.
”The artist`s intention was to pursue a theme of iconoclasm, and he has carried that theme out in other works,” Grossman said.
But, Grossman said the ACLU intends to file a civil suit against the Chicago Police Department soon, charging that the police violated Nelson`s rights of freedom of speech and protection from illegal search and seizure.
Before calling the meeting in his office, Sawyer was vigorously questioned by reporters at various public appearances on his schedule and he quickly condemned the painting of his predecessor.
”It`s terrible. I hated it,” Sawyer said of the painting. ”I think that this abuse of the 1st Amendment was wrong.”
He also criticized the Art Institute leadership, saying, ”I suggest the school should be more sensitive in not allowing people to abuse this freedom of expression.”
By the end of the marathon meeting in the mayor`s office, institute officials, including Marshall Field, president of the board of trustees of the Art Institute, was echoing Sawyer`s earlier remarks.
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”We understand students have 1st Amendment rights, but we do not condone or support the use of the 1st Amendment to disparage the memory of an important leader like Harold Washington,” Field said.
Although he said the board will work to protect student freedom of expression, he said it was a ”very sensitive situation.”
Asked if he thought the display of the painting was wrong, he said:
”Personally, I think it was, because I think it causes problems that don`t need to be caused. In retrospect, it may have been insensitive, in spite of freedom of expression.”
Sharon Gist Gilliam, Sawyer`s chief operating officer who officiated over much of the afternoon meeting, conceded that although not everyone involved was happy, ”everyone is satisfied.”
But Rush and other aldermen, when told that the final written agreement from the Art Institute officials did not include some of their demands, such as the placing of full page advertisements in Chicago newspapers apologizing for the painting`s display, said, ”They had better not be backing down.”
Gilliam then summarized Chicago`s response to those who might wonder about the propriety of politics creeping into the world of art:
”Everything is politics, and politics is everything.”