The Assassination of Barack Obama Exhibit: Freedom of expression or racism?
A controversial art exhibit was raided and shut down before it could be viewed in NYC (June 2008).
According to the NY Times blog: Cityroom, Boston-born performance artist, Yazmany Arboleda, tried to set up a provocative art exhibition in a vacant storefront on West 40th Street in Midtown Manhattan with the title, 'The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama'.
The artist thought his racist views were protected under the Constitution because he was expressing himself through his art. Wrong.
Not 30 minutes after Arboleda set up the gallery across the street from the New York Times building, police, feds and secret service swooped in to shut the art exhibit down. While police covered the offensive storefront window with brown paper, Arboleda was led away in handcuffs to be 'interrogated'.
Arboleda, 27, learned the hard way that freedom has its limits. Later, in an interview, he said: 'It's art. It's not supposed to be harmful. It's about character assassination - about how Obama and Hillary have been portrayed by the media.' He added, 'It's about the media.'
View the offensive artwork here:
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Most people don't understand contemporary art and given the tension this election, this is bad timing and too much for the average person. And plenty of people talk about The Assassination of Obama because of his race...this isn't even about that. People barely took the time to educate themselves.
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