Did leaders make hasty decision in removal?
A group of community arts leaders, under the banner San Jose Arts Advocates, has presented an open letter to Mayor Sam Liccardo questioning the early removal of an artwork that was part of an exhibition at Mineta San Jose International Airport. The piece didn’t get close to the same leeway or public process that the controversial Fallon Statue is being accorded, the group says.
Some quick background: “Americana,” created by Eric Bui, depicts a person atop a vehicle that looks like a police car, holding an upside-down, tattered U.S. flag, and there are red splotches on the side windows of the car. It was one of 16 pieces installed in the first part of “Holding the Moment,” a monthly, rotating exhibition of 96 artworks at the airport meant to showcase artistic interpretations
of life during COVID-19, Black Lives Matter protests, the presidential election and other challenging topics of the time.
It was installed Nov. 1 and scheduled to be changed out Dec. 5. On Dec. 2, Jonathan Fleming, a former San Jose City Council candidate, tweeted about the piece, saying it — and the city by extension — promoted the killing of law enforcement. By the next day, all 16 pieces had been removed, three days earlier than planned, with City Manager Dave Sykes noting in a memo that complaints had been received by members of the public, city employees and the Police Officers Association.
This week, San Jose Arts Advocates — a group whose leaders include former Arts Commissioners Ron Muriera and Peter Allen, San Jose Jazz Executive Director Brendan Rawson, former Santa Clara County Poet Laureate Mighty Mike McGee and Mosaic America founder Usha Srinivasan — posted the open letter calling on the city to conduct a public review of the events, engage in a community discussion on the subject, apologize to Bui and the other artists whose work was removed and establish a policy to ensure artists are involved in these decisions.
They hoped this conversation would happen at a Jan. 29 online forum hosted by the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs, but that discussion wound up being almost exclusively about the controversial Fallon statue, which Liccardo since has urged be removed.
“While it took three decades of valid and passionate protests from a cohort of community members for city leaders to even consider removing the Fallon statue from public view, the work of Mr. Bui and his 15 fellow artists was removed — and effectively censored — in less than 24 hours,” the letter states.
Though the comparison is bit of a stretch, the point is valid that the removal of “Americana” was unneccessary. “Americana” and that the other pieces went through a monthslong process and were approved by the city’s Public Art Committee during an online public meeting in October attended by 55 community members. And given that the artwork already had been on display for a month and was slated to come down in a matter of days, the urgency comes off as a symbolic gesture.
If there was a threat to the artwork that necessitated its immediate removal, Sykes didn’t mention it in his memo — in which he carefully reaffirmed the city’s respect for its police officers while also acknowledging Bui’s right to free expression and the public process that led to the selection.
It’s notable that Sykes’ memo included Bui’s comments about the intent of the piece, made both before and after the removal. The artist said the piece was inherently anti-violence and a reaction to a country in turmoil, symbolized by the upsidedown flag, a symbol of distress. He said he understood that San Jose police officers had a particular reaction to the piece and considered it just as valid as his own.
“I want to be sensitive to the reactions of these people, and to acknowledge and understand why they responded the way they did,” he said. “The piece itself and the subject matter it portrays are inherently controversial. That I know.”
Had “Americana” been left up its final three days, the conversation could have been about those equally valid reactions, why the piece was chosen and where we go as a community. Instead, the conversation is about why “Americana” was removed, and that’s unfortunate. The first conversation would have been much more productive.