From the President’s Desk

Summer 2010

Art is in the eye of the beholder.  But what if the beholder is a judge making a decision in a dispute between the government and a private citizen?  Should judges be the arbiters of defining not only what constitutes “art”, but “great art”?  Although judges traditionally have refrained from defining “art”, the Fifth Circuit (the Federal court in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas) recently ruled that only “great art” is entitled to first amendment protection.  

This case, Kleinman v. City of San Marco, arose when Michael Kleinman took a beat up Oldsmobile and commissioned two artists, Scott Wade and John Travis, to transform it into an art installation to be displayed in Mr. Kleinman’s yard in San Marcos, Texas.  City officials cited Mr. Kleinman for violating city ordinances that ban junked vehicles on residential property and ultimately seized the car after the Fifth Circuit issued its opinion.  Now Mr. Kleinman, Mr. Wade and Mr. Travis have asked the Supreme Court to consider the matter.

The most troubling aspect of the Fifth Circuit opinion, written by one judge about one art installation, is its long-range and wide-spread implications for artistic expression.  Now a law exists in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, that holds that art must be “great art” for it to be protected as a form of expression from government action.  Not only does this law fly in the face of Supreme Court reasoning, it invites censorship by inserting a value judgment about “great” art.

WALA, along with several other volunteer lawyers for the arts organizations across the country have signed onto briefs urging the Supreme Court to hear this case and, further, to not let stand a legal decision that protects only “great art”.  In support of the petition, WALA has stated, “most of WALA’s clients have yet to receive widespread acclaim and cannot rely on courts to perceive ‘greatness’ in their art as a condition for protection under the First Amendment.”  Certainly, the greatness of art is found in unique expression, not common perception.

 

Laura Possessky
WALA Board President