FBI NABS BUFFALO MAN FOR “BIOTECH” ART

Waking up with his wife dead was only the begin­ning of Steve Kurtz’s trou­bles. Within a few days of her untimely pass­ing, the FBI had raided his Buffalo home. Health work­ers dressed in haz­mat moon suits had turned the place into a quar­an­tine zone. Now, in Kurtz’s liveli­hood may be in jeop­ardy, too. And let’s not even get into the legal bills.
Kurtz is a University of Buffalo pro­fes­sor and artist spe­cial­iz­ing in biotechnology-​​inspired works: sub­ver­sive remixes of big pharma cor­po­rate mate­ri­als, kits to see if food is genet­i­cally mod­i­fied. Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, New York’s New Museum, and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC dis­played his art. The New York Times and Washington Post, among oth­ers, have looked on it favor­ably.
Earlier this month, Kurtz woke up to find his wife, Hope, dead of appar­ent heart fail­ure. In shock, he called the police. But when the offi­cers came over, they saw strange things: test tubes, Bunsen burn­ers, Petri dishes, and the like. So they brought in the local counter-​​terror task force, and the FBI.
Kurtz was detained on the way to the funeral home. His house was cor­doned off, while the county health depart­ment searched for chem­i­cal or bio­log­i­cal agents and the local TV cam­eras rolled. And Kurtz’s equip­ment was all con­fis­cated, for fur­ther test­ing and inves­ti­ga­tion.
The artist was plan­ning to use some of that gear in a new show at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, slated to open Sunday. Now, that’s not hap­pen­ing. Other works includ­ing a book in progress are also on hold. And Kurtz has a $10,000 moun­tain of legal bills; he’s retained celebrity lawyer Paul Cambria (Larry Flynt and DMX’s defender) to rep­re­sent him.
Some would say Kurtz had it com­ing; a 2002 work­shop by his group in Halifax two years back lead to a scare with a feaux “bomb.” But, to oth­ers, Kurtz’s story is yet another exam­ple of how brit­tle rights can be in Ashcroft’s age of terror.

May 26th, 2004 | Chem-Bio | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.