Save art from RMIT

Facebook causes page: http://www.causes.com/causes/537740-save-art-from-rmit

Front page of The Age, april 14th 2011: http://www.theage.com.au/frontpage/2011/04/14/frontpage.pdf

The exhibition summery removed from the galleries website, because of threats by RMIT. Presented here in full:

'This body of work was recently the subject of legal action taken against the artist, Steve Cox, by the head of the art school at RMIT University, Elizabeth Grierson. Ms Grierson sought to extend a temporary intervention order that she had taken out against the artist, in which she claimed that his art work scared her. Since November of last year, Ms Grierson and the RMIT lawyers placed the artist's Facebook page, and the pages of his friends and colleagues, under permanent surveillance. They amassed an exhaustive dossier of images, songs and other video clips, which they also demanded be removed, including such assorted items as; songs by Ella Fitzgerald, Jarvis Cocker and Leadbelly; video clips critical of Margaret Thatcher, clips from 'The Wizard of Oz' and a 1970s musical cinematic version of Alice in Wonderland. With no evidence to back their assertions, they claimed these must all surely refer to Ms Grierson.

In an extraordinary legal battle, the artist refused to bow to this incursion on his freedoms of speech and artistic expression. He enlisted Doug Hall AM, Australian Commisioner for the Venice Biennale, as his expert witness, whose testimony explained that artists are not defined by their subject matter. Facing this pressure, and with minutes to go before the court hearing, Ms Grierson and RMIT dropped the case against Cox. He had conceded to none of their demands. This was not the only victory for the artist; the magistrate ordered Ms Grierson and RMIT not to visit his Facebook page for twenty years, clearly indicating that she thought the litigants had been in error for scrutinising the artist's private Facebook page in the first place. It should be noted that the artist had for a long time been critical of the management style of Ms Grierson and the restructuring of the Fine Art program at RMIT. It can only be speculated if this fact was at the core of their legal action.

These stream-of-consciousness drawings and collages of invented underwater creatures and insect life are part of an ongoing series that the artist commenced in 2000. It was these art works, in particular, that Ms Grierson took offence to. He feels happy that he is permitted by law to continue to make them.'

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[HonestDiscussioner]

I think you need to give a little more detail. The extent of Steve's alleged crime was "supporting students' rights", I highly doubt he got in trouble for simply stating "I think students should have a say in their education", so what was the underlying context of the initial drama?

[thecorrectwing]

@HonestDiscussioner The official reason was that steve had brought RMIT's reputation into disrepute by asking questions which were seen to be critical of Grierson's management.

[HeathenLoveGod]

And yesterday, RMIT dropped ANOTHER intervention order case against a current student. Social Sciences student Luke McMahon was dragged into court by RMIT because he had dared to question, online, the restructuring of his course. At the last minute, RMIT dropped the case against him. Both the Fine Art program and the Social Sciences program are overseen by RMIT's Pro Vice Chancellor, Professor Colin Fudge.

[HeathenLoveGod]

@HonestDiscussioner: Steve got sacked for criticizing the administration. And when that didn't stop him asking questions about proposed restructure to the Fine Art program, they then launched a more personal attack on him and his art work, which they hoped he would be unable to defend in court. They are ruthless and autocratic and they want to stop freedom of expression and freedom to have a dissenting voice at all costs.

[HeathenLoveGod]

@HonestDiscussioner: Yes, he got sacked for criticizing the administration. And when that didn't stop him asking questions about proposed restructure to the Fine Art program, they then launched a more personal attack on him and his art work. They are ruthless and they want to stop freedom of expression and freedom to have a dissenting voice.

[thecorrectwing]

@HonestDiscussioner thanks thats really good, ill do that. i will be making more videos focusing on the various facets of the events, including the case, in more detail, and yes, ill include specific examples of the comments there. thanks again for your tips, very appriciated.

im still inexperienced with putting together videos so i had concerns like 'too much for ppl to read/ too much information at once/ video goes too long/ etc...' that were dictating my process

[HonestDiscussioner]

@thecorrectwing Take the ones that are the most innocent that they are accusing of being "defaming". If you have enough that are obviously innocent, or at least within the bounds of fair criticism and cannot be misconstrued as a personal attack, then you can make your case that they are only interested in silencing fair criticism, as they'll latch onto anything. THOSE comments are the ones you want to post, it doesn't have to be all of them. Take the worst (or best) examples you can find.

[thecorrectwing]

plus this has been covered by several news websites (such as crikey.com) so i didnt think that it needed more evidence, but ofcourse im willing to take your perspective over mine, you being a viewer after all

[thecorrectwing]

you&profmth are right, i did think about this as i was making it, but i didnt think i was being ambiguous because all my information is available at the 'save art from rmit' website, including steves comments and the discussion boards. some have been taken down unfortunately, but there is alot of comments, too many for me to show in full on youtube. every comment on the 'save art' page that steve made is an example of why they layed the charges against him

[HonestDiscussioner]

@thecorrectwing So you are telling me he got canned for criticizing the administration?

Listen, you CAN'T be ambiguous here. As ProfMTH has at the end of his videos, Veritas vos Liberatas ( think that's how it is spelled), which means "The Truth Shall Set You Free". You need to list the comments he made that are in question, because to the causal viewer, the ambiguity could be interpreted as "spin", you don't want that. You want to appear as the one giving full disclosure.

[thecorrectwing]

thanks for the question, this is helping me gauge how clearly the story is being presented :)