Artist Hits Racism With S.D. Center Name Petition

If enough registered voters sign a petition that soon will be circulating around town, the November, 1990, ballot could include an initiative to rename the convention center the “San Diego White People’s Convention Center.”

The initiative is actually an artwork created by Stanley Fried for “No Stomach,” an exhibition organized in protest of recent events surrounding two controversial exhibits funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and an attempt by U. S. Sen Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) to punish organizers of the exhibits and the NEA. “No Stomach” opened Friday at Installation Gallery.

The petition is in response to the San Diego Unified Port District commissioners’ refusal to name the convention center after the late Martin Luther King Jr.

Fried says he needs a little more than 15,000 signatures to get the San Diego City Council to consider placing the initiative on the ballot. If he gets more than 51,000 signatures, the initiative would automatically appear on the ballot without council consent.

“I’d be pleased and rather surprised if we got the 15,000 signatures,” Fried said at a Friday press conference to announce the petition drive. “I don’t expect it to get on the ballot, I’m just trying to raise the issue of racism in the city.

“I want to take a creative approach to the political process while politicians are taking a political approach to creativity.”

Fried said circulating the petition is “a way for the public to participate in an artwork and a way to say to our politicians, ‘If you’re going to act facetiously, so will we.’ ”

Fried filed the necessary papers with the city clerk’s office Thursday. The petitions cannot be circulated until Sept. 20, and Fried has until February to collect the signatures.

The exhibit, organized by artists Lynn Engstrom and Gary Ghirardi, includes works by more than 50 artists from San Diego, Tijuana and Los Angeles. The works, which organizers said are designed to shock, include commentary on a variety of national and local issues, including Helms’ efforts, the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the U.S. flag, and San Diego’s upcoming Soviet Arts Festival.

One piece in the exhibit, by local artist Victor Ochoa, is a takeoff on one of the controversial artworks that captured Helms’ attention: Andres Serrano’s photograph titled “Piss Christ.” Ochoa put two cows’ tongues, one pierced by a large screw, in a clear jar filled with a yellowish liquid. The piece is accompanied by a text, written by Richard Lou, critical of Helms’ actions.

Another piece by Fried, “National Condom,” includes a U. S. flag rolled in a clear plastic bag with a label that reads, “This condom has been tested and proven effective protection against conception of socially and politically transmitted ideas.”