It turns out that the black boxes labelled "Fear" on the New York Subway were an art project, by a student from the New York School of Visual Arts. The artist in question will be charged with public endangerment, becoming another casualty of post-9/11 paranoia.

"Terrorists are the last true performance artists." -- Laurie Anderson

"The greatest surrealist act would be to point a loaded revolver into the crowd and then fire at random." -- Andre Breton

Posted by: mitch | http:// | Tue Dec 17 22:33:14 2002

"That letter's not an 'anthrax hoax', officer - it's mail art!"

Posted by: Graham | http://grudnuk.com | Wed Dec 18 01:17:41 2002

Brings a new meaning to the concept of High Weirdness by Mail...

Posted by: mitch | http:// | Wed Dec 18 07:02:24 2002

That's almost word-for-word what the police said about the letter bomb sent to Bob Black.

Posted by: Pitr | http:// | Wed Dec 18 13:27:41 2002

Yet have to figure why any artist would not be lapidated, toasted ou fried whether for good or ugly performance. The remaining question is : Can someone rejecting any artistic motive for some act be considered as a performance artist ?

Posted by: mark | http://cyberfuddle.com/infinitebabble/ | Thu Dec 19 02:27:06 2002

I think something like that would be a cool art project. However, I can't see the allure of, y'know, *injuring* (or killing) people for art's sake.

Me versus modern artists: one of us needs to revise his view of what it means to be artistic. Unfortunately, it's probably me.

Posted by: gjw | http://the-fix.org | Thu Dec 19 05:21:50 2002

If someone creates something, and someone else out there wants to view it / hear it / experience it, then it's art as far as I'm concerned. The real debate is whether it's good art and bad art. Personally I'd regard the boxes more as culture-jamming.

Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Thu Dec 19 06:34:54 2002

Is it art if it's not expressing anything new or making people think? Is a portrait of a businessman or politician art? Is a Ken Done bedsheet pattern art? What about a Destiny's Child song?

Art has to say something new, IMHO. Anything else is decoration or marketing.

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