Stony Brook University Censors Students During Shirley Strum Kenny’s Arts Festival
April 20, 2008
(Stony Brook, N.Y.) Traditionally the month of April is filled with end of the year events and festivals that attempt to establish Stony university as the flagship institution of performance and visual arts, environmental responsibility, and academic superiority in the SUNY system. UNBOUND, a staple of the Shirley Strum Kenny Arts Fest (http://www.stonybrook.edu/sb/artsfest/), is a series of site-specific art exhibits that allows the graduate and undergraduate students of Stony Brook to activate the various spaces on campus through the creation and placement of visual art. It has also become a target of censorship by Shirley Strum Kenny’s Office of Administration.
UNBOUND consists of temporary student created installations placed on the conditions that they do not permanently alter any established building, are harmful to the environment, pose a threat to persons or structures, and meet the approval of building managers. Julianne Gadoury, a first-year Masters in Fine Arts student at Stony Brook University met all these requirements for her sculpture Polar Bear in Space, which was partially installed in the Charles B. Wang Center on Tuesday April 15. Julianne had rounded up a large group of her colleagues, and under the supervision of the building managers and engineers, hoisted a wire polar bear sculpture that she spent five months creating over one of the fountains of the Wang Center. The next day when UNBOUND opened President Shirley Strum Kenny ordered the removal of the art piece because it didn’t fit her aesthetic vision of the building by having her Vice President for Facilities and Services, Barbara Chernow, declare it structurally unsound.
In an emotional deinstallation of her piece on the opening day of the Shirley Strum Arts Festival with over 40 of her peers including faculty, students and staff watching in support, Julianne Gadoury announced that Polar Bear in Space was one of 3 pieces taken down the day the UNBOUND exhibition began and deinstalled it by throwing her sculpture in the fountain and leaving it on the side of the pool.
Further installations of any student pieces have been suspended and UNBOUND ordered discontinued.
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“Polar Bears in Space, uses the metaphor of the polar bear to talk about the larger issues behind global warming. We often fail to fully understand and gain knowledge about and push to the back of our minds many issues that affect us socially and on the global level.” Julianne Gadoury’s Artist’s Statement
Posted by News LI Editor · Filed Under Society
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7 Responses to “Stony Brook University Censors Students During Shirley Strum Kenny’s Arts Festival”
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It’s no wonder that the Princeton Review’s college guide lists Stony Brook with the distinction of earning the #1 slot for the unhappiest students. It appears to be one big disfunctional family.
- Posted by: Doug
Did the author of this news article even attempt to learn if the structure was truly unsafe. I’m sure if the installation had come crashing down on a group of students, their parents would be launching a multi million dollar lawsuit against the university for allowing the structure to be put up.
- Posted by: martin
Stony Brook continues to become more and more totalitarian. The whole problem can be traced back to the demise of the legitimate student government.
The students at Stony Brook need to rise up and unite to demand their rights. Forget the bogus graduate student union that is only about money for a select few. Form a student government. Demand a say in the governance of the university. Look through back issues of the Statesman and the Press to see how Polity allowed the student body a voice on campus.
- Posted by: Bob
Wow, I don’t blame them… what a crappy polar bear. She spent 5 months on that? I’ve got a closet full of coat hangers they could put on display!
- Posted by: SA
It is obvious SA is not an artist and to comment here makes me wonder how superficial can superficial get? Is it not obvious the bear was constructed to be transparent? Is it not obvious the image of the lights on the water? This is about turning an abstract into a visual, to think “beyond” what you see.
Bob - Do you not think the facilities manager is trained to understand whether or not the structure is safe? In fact, many intelligent adults agreed. This is a case of a superficial President who does not understand the reality she represents. A body of artists reaching out to expand our understanding, to go beyond and question the real reason such problems exist in this world such as Global Warming. Sorry, the stupidity here is unbelievable. This woman should do the right thing, and let someone represent this college who understands the beauty of art and its importance in society.
- Posted by: Terry
Hm… I think part of the problem is that this is a multi-use space, and not an art gallery. Apparently, there was a wedding held in that space on the 21st… and I think that the couple getting married have at least some right to get the space they payed for, without a giant chicken-wire polar-bear-thing in the background.
I don’t see why an artist has any more claim to the space than any other user, and so when the possible uses conflict (as they do in this case), it’s up to the administration to resolve the conflict.
“This is a case of a superficial President who does not understand the reality she represents.”
I don’t think the purpose of a school president is to “understand the reality” or to represent anything. Rather it’s to manage the school, and allocate resources between the competing interests for the good of all. In the same way that we wouldn’t allow the marching band to practice whenever it wants in the art gallery, it make sense to disallow art that disrupts the use of the chapel.
- Posted by: Tom
Tom - Those are valid issue, but that is why there is an approval process to display art in public spaces at Stony Brook. Obviously the time to discuss whether or not the polar bear fit with the aesthetics of the building, and how to ensure the installment is structurally sound, was during that process, not after approval had been given. This is another example of the supreme idiocy of SBU’s bureaucracy.
I am graduate student at Stony Brook and I agree that while Shirley Strum Kenney has done a great deal of good for SBU’s public image, her office has created severe problems with life on campus that could eventually undo SBU’s progress in the long run. Thankfully, she is retiring next year.
- Posted by: James