Members of the Portland Victory Garden Project say the police protests that caused the University of Southern Maine to close “Can’t Jail the Spirit: Art by Political Prisoner Tom Manning and Others” have backfired by spreading the show’s ideas.
“If it was on campus it would have been great. A lot of people would have seen it, but the cops brought it out into the wider community,” says Dan Chard, a member of the PVGP who worked with USM to organize the show, which the university closed September 8, one week into a planned seven-week run at the Woodbury Campus Center art gallery.
“Definitely more people have an idea in their heads that there are political prisoners in the United States. The issue of political prisoners is being talked about more right now than it has been in the three years since the Portland Victory Garden Project started,” Chard says.
Frank Turek, the owner of Ubu Studio, says publicity about the controversy contributed to the crowds that thronged his cozy gallery to witness the reopening of the Manning show on October 6.
“The overwhelming response came from people who heard about the show, and who wanted to see it at USM,” says Turek. However, with that impossible, “they were really glad that they could come out and see it for themselves.” Turek was also glad that the show allowed his gallery to go out in such a memorable way, since Ubu will close at the end of the month.
The specter of police presence, which loomed over the show’s USM incarnation, has been nonexistent at Ubu. Opinions differ as to why.
Robert Schwartz, the president of the Maine Chiefs of Police Association, says his organization didn’t take a position on this version of the show because it isn’t being held at USM. “People have a right to go see whatever they want as far as we’re concerned, but not when [the show is] in a public institution,” Schwartz said.
Chard attributes the sudden police disinterest to other factors. “They made enough of an ass of themselves before. They’re trying to ignore us,” he says. “They haven’t been bothering us, which is good.”
And not only can people still decide for themselves about the paintings until October 21, but in the “things getting curiouser and curiouser” department, USM suddenly can’t stop talking about them, either.
A symposium on political repression and subversive art, originally scheduled in conjunction with the cancelled show, is slated for this week, and the university recently announced a second, mid-November symposium to specifically deal with the Manning fiasco, tentatively titled “Controversies on Campus: Who Decides?” Details have yet to be finalized.
