Chavez Reinstates Show After Banner Squabble Ends

In addition to the well-publicized controversy over federal funding for the New York Artists Space show “Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing,” another “Day Without Art”-related controversy has erupted. Manhattan’s Henry Street Settlement House’s show, “Images and Words: Artists Respond to AIDS,” has been embroiled in an internal feud that threatened the show’s opening.

The controversy over the show began last week when guest curator Humberto Chavez decided to pull works by 47 artists and collectives because administrators at the settlement would not allow Chavez to hang an 8-by-12-foot banner, which was to have read, “All People With AIDS Are Innocent,” on the outside of the building.

Barbara Tate, chief administrator of the settlement’s Arts for Living Center, said she did not allow the banner, by New York-artists group Gran Fury, because of the settlement’s policy against hanging anything on the building’s facade.

Chavez, however, said Tate had told him the banner was “too political” and “would not be well-received by conservative elements in the community.” Tate has denied making such a statement, and on Tuesday said the question of whether politics were involved in her decision was “stupid” because the gallery has already welcomed the show, which itself has works similar to the banner.

On Monday, the Borough of Manhattan approved Chavez’s request to hang the banner across the street outside the settlement, and although Tate maintains that her organization “has nothing to do with the banner,” Chavez has reinstated the show, which will open Friday and run five weeks.

“It’s going to be a very tense evening and I expect things to happen,” said Chavez of Friday’s opening of the show, which will include works in response to the controversy, such as New York artist Steven Pico’s watercolor “AIDS: All People Who Censor Are Guilty,” which shows an American flag with those words written across it.

A separate “Day Without Art” show in Allentown, Pa., will also respond to the recent controversies. In the downtown Open Space Gallery, a one-day, untitled multimedia installation will include “words, thoughts and quotes . . . about the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) and things that are happening that are related to AIDS,” said gallery board member Lynn Richardson.