Art as Defense : Open Thread

There's a jawdroppingly cheeky defense being offered by a convicted murderer in Northern Ireland for what authorities call an attempted murder: That wasn't a crime, it was a performance piece. Artinfo.com has the details:

Michael Stone, a 53-year-old loyalist paramilitary on trial for allegedly attempting to murder Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, has told the court that his November 24, 2006, assault on the Northern Irish parliament, in which he carried explosives and a fake gun, was in fact “an act of performance art” meant to look like a terrorist act, the BBC reports.

Stone says that he was not looking to destabilize the peace process, but instead to help it along by staging a protest against the political deadlock that existed at the time.

Stone was convicted of triple murder and jailed for life for a 1988 gun and grenade attack on a funeral for fallen IRA members. He was released in 2000, under the terms of the Good Friday peace agreement.

He described his more recent attack as "a comic parody of my former self. I would rather be remembered as an eccentric artist that got it wrong in performance art than for my past, when I did some terrible things."

Stone's defense goes so far as to explain his "piece" in artspeak:

He said that each item he was carrying had symbolic significance, such as a sponge inside the butt of the fake gun that was meant to symbolize the "sponging unionists"; a bird-shaped pair of scissors were a "begrudging" symbol of Irish republicanism rising from the flames, and a badge on his jacket was a mark of respect for "fallen comrades."

Stone told the court he tried to keep everything in a "monochrome pallet" of black, white, and gray. "The symbolism of that was as in life, not everything is black and white — my perceived attack is a gray area, that it was an attack of art, an artistic protest."

I understand why Stone may have been released as part of the Good Friday peace agreement, but that doesn't automatically make him a citizen in good standing in my book. He's still suspect for his past crimes and as such not to be given the benefit of doubt in anything simulating additional crimes. All the same, the lad has big steel ones.

Personally, I hope the courts dismiss this defense in crystal clear terms. Crime is crime, even when it's art. We can separate the two for consideration in the court of public opinion, but within the judicial system, there should be no distinction, IMO. Break the law, you pay the price. I know this gets into tricky territory when the law is asinine or murky at best, as in the case of Critical Art Ensemble member Steven Kurtz, but when you bring actual explosives into the Parliament building, in clear violation of the terms of your earlier release from prison, it truly is chutzpah to expect anyone to give you any artistic license.

The other reason I hope Stone is laughed out of court and back into a cell for life is that I can imagine all kinds of future attempts at this defense, like, say when Bush & Co. are finally hauled into court in The Hague to account for their crimes against humanity and violating the terms of the Geneva Conventions. Indeed, the administration is already exhibiting breathtaking hubris by arguing that the reason they can't release photographs of the detainees tortured at Abu Ghraib is that doing so would violate their rights under, yes, the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions:

The argument is surprising, of course, because the same administration maintained for years that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to any of the detainees in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. It is surprising because the same administration relied upon its determination that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to justify its use of barbaric and inhumane interrogation methods in the first place. It is surprising because there would be no photos of abuse to request had the government cared this much about the Geneva Conventions before the abuses occurred and the photos were taken.

If they thought they could get away with it, I'm sure they'd try Stone's defense:

Dateline, The Hague, September 24, 2013:

As expected, counsel for former President and war crimes defendant George W. Bush offered what is commonly known as the "Stone Stormont Defense" at the Hague today, claiming that the invasion of Iraq was one massive Buchel-esque performance piece. Bush's lawyers argued that anyone with any sense of art history would easily see the obvious appropriation of Cai Guo-Qiang's work in the "Shock and Awe" initiation of the war, the references to Marina Abramović's work in the spiderhole endurance component of Saddam Hussein's staged capture, and in a particularly daring defense the assertion that images of detainees standing with outstretched arms in black hoods were an intentional anticipation of forthcoming prints by Richard Serra.

OK, so that's a bit too flippant, I know, but as the world becomes increasingly surreal, satire becomes the only comforting safe haven.

Consider this an open thread on art and crime.