FBI scours lab in an artist’s home

One morning last month, art professor Steven Kurtz called 911 to report that Hope, his wife of 20 years, had died in her sleep. One of the responding paramedics noticed laboratory equipment in Kurtz’s home in Buffalo, N.Y. That eventually brought FBI agents in hazardous-material suits who cordoned off the surrounding streets and evacuated nearby residents while combing through the house, seizing equipment, Kurtz’s personal computer, books and papers.

Via e-mail last week, the 46-year-old Kurtz, a founding member of the art collective Critical Art Ensemble who has taught at the State University of New York at Buffalo, referred questions about the incident to his lawyer, Paul J. Cambria, who said the laboratory equipment was simply art-making tools.

“He is basically an artist who uses biological material to make a point,” said Cambria, whose other clients have included Larry Flynt and Marilyn Manson. “It’s clear that it’s an entirely peaceful purpose and there’s no terrorism involved.”

Still, UC Irvine professor Beatriz da Costa, a fellow member of the Critical Art Ensemble, has been summoned to appear in front of a federal grand jury in Buffalo on Tuesday.

“If you wanted to use it for harmful purposes, you couldn’t do it technically,” she said, speaking of the lab equipment. “It’s a total overreaction. And it’s caused a lot of personal trauma.”

Da Costa, who teaches at both the arts and engineering schools at Irvine, described the collective’s work as “developing projects surrounding the politics of biotechnology.”

William J. Hochul Jr., chief of the antiterrorism unit for the U.S. attorney’s office in Buffalo, declined to comment on the case, citing Justice Department policy regarding current investigations.

-- Louise Roug