Steve Kurtz
Encyclopedia
Steve Kurtz is a professor of art at the SUNY Buffalo, former professor of art history at Carnegie Mellon University
and a founding member of the performance art
group, Critical Art Ensemble
. He is known for his work in BioArt
, and Electronic Civil Disobedience, and because of his arrest by the FBI in May 2004. His work often deals with social criticism
.
(CAE). Since its formation in 1987 in Tallahassee
, Florida
, CAE has been frequently invited to exhibit and perform projects examining issues surrounding information, communications and bio-technologies by museums and other cultural institutions. These include The Whitney Museum and The New Museum in NYC; The Corcoran Museum in Washington D.C.; The ICA, London; The MCA, Chicago; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; and The London Museum of Natural History; and the Kunsthalle Luzern.
The collective has written six books, and its writings have been translated into 18 languages. Its work has been covered by art journals, including Artforum, Kunstforum, and The Drama Review.
Critical Art Ensemble is the recipient of awards, including the 2007 Andy Warhol Foundation Wynn Kramarsky Freedom of Artistic Expression Grant, the 2004 John Lansdown Award for Multimedia, and the 2004 Leonardo New Horizons Award for Innovation.
to report the death of his wife, Hope Kurtz, by congenital heart failure. In order to create their art installations the Kurtzes sometimes worked with biological equipment and had a small home lab and petri dish
es containing biological specimens. At the time of Hope Kurtz's death they were working on an exhibit about genetically modified agriculture for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
. Buffalo police deemed these materials suspicious and notified the FBI
, who detained Kurtz for 22 hours without charge on suspicion of "bioterrorism
." Meanwhile, dozens of federal agents in hazardous material suits
raided the Kurtz home, seizing books, computers, manuscripts, and art materials, and removing Hope Kurtz's body from the county coroner for further analysis.
Kurtz was allowed to return to his home one week later, after the Commissioner of Public Health for New York State had determined that nothing in the home posed any sort of public or environmental health or safety threat, and that Hope Kurtz had died of natural causes.
charges. Also indicted was Dr. Robert Ferrell, Professor of Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh
Graduate School of Public Health, who served as a scientific consultant on Critical Art Ensemble's projects. The charges concern the way Kurtz and Ferrell allegedly ordered and mailed the non-pathogenic bacteria used in several museum installations. Under the USA PATRIOT Act
the maximum possible sentence for these charges has increased from five to twenty years in prison. The charges related to how Ferrell allegedly helped Kurtz obtain $256 worth of harmless bacteria. "This is the first time in the history of the federal courts that the U.S. Department of Justice is intervening in the alleged breach of a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) of nonhazardous materials in order to redefine it as a criminal offense."
In October 2007, Ferrell pleaded "guilty" to misdemeanor charges. Ferrell's wife and daughter subsequently issued public statements saying the plea deal was due to the stress of the case and severe illness (Ferrell is a 27 year survivor of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and suffered a series of strokes following his indictment in 2004). Ferrell was later sentenced to a year of unsupervised release and fined $500.
Kurtz has received much of his legal representation from Paul Cambria
, a Buffalo-based attorney who specializes in First Amendment
issues.
by filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson
. The film was simultaneously screened and webcast to the Second Life
game on January 22, 2007. It focuses on Kurtz' art, character, and interaction with law enforcement. Strange Culture
premiered at the Sundance International Film Festival in 2007.
Information about Steve Kurtz & Critical Art Ensemble:
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
and a founding member of the performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
group, Critical Art Ensemble
Critical Art Ensemble
Critical Art Ensemble is an award-winning collective of five tactical media practitioners of various specializations including computer graphics and web design, film/video, photography, text art, book art, and performance. For CAE, tactical media is situational, ephemeral, and self-terminating...
. He is known for his work in BioArt
BioArt
BioArt is an art practice where humans work with live tissues, bacteria, living organisms, and life processes. Using scientific processes such as biotechnology the artworks are produced in laboratories, galleries, or artists' studios...
, and Electronic Civil Disobedience, and because of his arrest by the FBI in May 2004. His work often deals with social criticism
Social criticism
The term social criticism locates the reasons for malicious conditions of the society in flawed social structures. People adhering to a social critics aim at practical solutions by specific measures, often consensual reform but sometimes also by powerful revolution.- European roots :Religious...
.
Life and work
Kurtz is a founding member of the award-winning art and theater collective, Critical Art EnsembleCritical Art Ensemble
Critical Art Ensemble is an award-winning collective of five tactical media practitioners of various specializations including computer graphics and web design, film/video, photography, text art, book art, and performance. For CAE, tactical media is situational, ephemeral, and self-terminating...
(CAE). Since its formation in 1987 in Tallahassee
Tallahassee, Florida
Tallahassee is the capital of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County, and is the 128th largest city in the United States. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2010, the population recorded by...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, CAE has been frequently invited to exhibit and perform projects examining issues surrounding information, communications and bio-technologies by museums and other cultural institutions. These include The Whitney Museum and The New Museum in NYC; The Corcoran Museum in Washington D.C.; The ICA, London; The MCA, Chicago; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; and The London Museum of Natural History; and the Kunsthalle Luzern.
The collective has written six books, and its writings have been translated into 18 languages. Its work has been covered by art journals, including Artforum, Kunstforum, and The Drama Review.
Critical Art Ensemble is the recipient of awards, including the 2007 Andy Warhol Foundation Wynn Kramarsky Freedom of Artistic Expression Grant, the 2004 John Lansdown Award for Multimedia, and the 2004 Leonardo New Horizons Award for Innovation.
Arrest
In May 2004, Kurtz called 9119-1-1
9-1-1 is the emergency telephone number for the North American Numbering Plan .It is one of eight N11 codes.The use of this number is for emergency circumstances only, and to use it for any other purpose can be a crime.-History:In the earliest days of telephone technology, prior to the...
to report the death of his wife, Hope Kurtz, by congenital heart failure. In order to create their art installations the Kurtzes sometimes worked with biological equipment and had a small home lab and petri dish
Petri dish
A Petri dish is a shallow glass or plastic cylindrical lidded dish that biologists use to culture cells or small moss plants. It was named after German bacteriologist Julius Richard Petri, who invented it when working as an assistant to Robert Koch...
es containing biological specimens. At the time of Hope Kurtz's death they were working on an exhibit about genetically modified agriculture for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, commonly referred to as MASS MoCA, is a museum in a converted factory building located in North Adams, Massachusetts, USA. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing arts in the country.MASS MoCA opened with 19...
. Buffalo police deemed these materials suspicious and notified the FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
, who detained Kurtz for 22 hours without charge on suspicion of "bioterrorism
Bioterrorism
Bioterrorism is terrorism involving the intentional release or dissemination of biological agents. These agents are bacteria, viruses, or toxins, and may be in a naturally occurring or a human-modified form. For the use of this method in warfare, see biological warfare.-Definition:According to the...
." Meanwhile, dozens of federal agents in hazardous material suits
Hazmat suit
A hazmat suit is a garment worn as protection from hazardous materials or substances. A hazmat suit is generally combined with breathing apparatus for protection and may be used by firefighters, emergency personnel responding to toxic spills, researchers, specialists cleaning up contaminated...
raided the Kurtz home, seizing books, computers, manuscripts, and art materials, and removing Hope Kurtz's body from the county coroner for further analysis.
Kurtz was allowed to return to his home one week later, after the Commissioner of Public Health for New York State had determined that nothing in the home posed any sort of public or environmental health or safety threat, and that Hope Kurtz had died of natural causes.
Charges
In July 2004 a grand jury refused to bring any "bioterrorism" charges, but did indict Kurtz on federal criminal mail fraud and wire fraudWire fraud
Mail and wire fraud is a federal crime in the United States. Together, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, and 1346 reach any fraudulent scheme or artifice to intentionally deprive another of property or honest services with a nexus to mail or wire communication....
charges. Also indicted was Dr. Robert Ferrell, Professor of Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
Graduate School of Public Health, who served as a scientific consultant on Critical Art Ensemble's projects. The charges concern the way Kurtz and Ferrell allegedly ordered and mailed the non-pathogenic bacteria used in several museum installations. Under the USA PATRIOT Act
USA PATRIOT Act
The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of the U.S. Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001...
the maximum possible sentence for these charges has increased from five to twenty years in prison. The charges related to how Ferrell allegedly helped Kurtz obtain $256 worth of harmless bacteria. "This is the first time in the history of the federal courts that the U.S. Department of Justice is intervening in the alleged breach of a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) of nonhazardous materials in order to redefine it as a criminal offense."
In October 2007, Ferrell pleaded "guilty" to misdemeanor charges. Ferrell's wife and daughter subsequently issued public statements saying the plea deal was due to the stress of the case and severe illness (Ferrell is a 27 year survivor of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and suffered a series of strokes following his indictment in 2004). Ferrell was later sentenced to a year of unsupervised release and fined $500.
Kurtz has received much of his legal representation from Paul Cambria
Paul Cambria
Paul Cambria is a Buffalo, NY based first amendment attorney who has represented various figures and companies within the pornography industry. Cambria received his Juris Doctorate degree from University of Toledo College of Law in 1973 and a BA from State University of New York at Fredonia in...
, a Buffalo-based attorney who specializes in First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
issues.
2008 ruling
On April 21, 2008, the indictment for mail and wire fraud was ruled "insufficient on its face" by the presiding Judge Richard Arcara. This means that even if the actions alleged in the indictment (which the judge must accept as “fact”) were true, they would not constitute a crime. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) had thirty days from the date of the ruling to appeal. No action was taken in this time period, thus stopping any appeal of the dismissal. The only option left for the DoJ would be to re-indict Kurtz.Film
The story of Kurtz is told in the film Strange CultureStrange Culture
Strange Culture is a 2007 documentary film directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson. It stars Tilda Swinton and Thomas Jay Ryan.It premiered January 19, 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.-Synopsis:...
by filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson
Lynn Hershman Leeson
Lynn Hershman Leeson is an award-winning American artist and filmmaker. She was Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Davis, and an A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University...
. The film was simultaneously screened and webcast to the Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
game on January 22, 2007. It focuses on Kurtz' art, character, and interaction with law enforcement. Strange Culture
Strange Culture
Strange Culture is a 2007 documentary film directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson. It stars Tilda Swinton and Thomas Jay Ryan.It premiered January 19, 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.-Synopsis:...
premiered at the Sundance International Film Festival in 2007.
External links
Articles about the case:- CAE Defense Fund - Organization raising money for Kurtz's legal defense. Has additional information about the background of the Steve Kurtz case with extensive documentation.
- Trailer for documentary about the case, "Strange Culture" (directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson; features 2008 Oscar winner Tilda Swinton, Thomas J Ryan, Peter Coyote, Wallace Shawn)
- Washington Post article about the arrest June 2, 2004.
- College Quarterly article about the case and Bio Art Spring 2005.
- Huffington Post article about the case June 14, 2007.
- Alternative Film Guide interview with Steve Kurtz and Lynn Hershman Leeson March 31, 2008.
- Art or Bioterrorism - Who Cares Interview with Steve Kurtz by RU Sirius, 10 Zen Monkeys, September 26, 2007.
- Disciplining The Avant-Garde, The United States versus The Critical Art Ensemble by Gregory Sholette
- The Political Problem of Luck Interview with Steve Kurtz by Julia Bryan-Wilson, Plazm magazine, Issue 28, Summer, 2006.
- Navigating the Gray Zone Interview with Steve Kurtz, Arts Hub, April 21, 2006.
- CASE UPDATE: 21.Apr.08: DR. STEVEN KURTZ CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES!
Information about Steve Kurtz & Critical Art Ensemble:
- Critical Art Ensemble website
- Critical Art Ensemble project at the Corcoran Museum, Washington D.C.
- Critical Art Ensemble at the Edinburgh International Science Festival
- Critical Art Ensemble at the World Information Organization
Video
- Steve Kurtz interview on Democracy Now! program, June 16, 2008