After displaying a painting of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners, a San Francisco gallery owner bears a painful reminder of the nation's unresolved anguish over the incidents at Abu Ghraib -- a black eye and bloodied brow delivered by an unknown assailant who apparently objected to the art work.

The assault outside the Capobianco gallery in the city's North Beach district Thursday night was the worst, but only the latest in a string of verbal and physical attacks that have been directed at owner Lori Haigh since the painting, titled "Abuse," was installed there on May 16.

Last Wednesday, concerned for the safety of her two children, ages 14 and 4, who often accompanied her to work, Haigh decided to close the gallery indefinitely.

Painted by Berkeley artist Guy Colwell, "Abuse," the painting at the center of the controversy, depicts three U.S. soldiers leering at a group of naked men in hoods with wires connected to their bodies. The one in the foreground has a blood-spattered American flag patch on his uniform. In the background, a soldier in sunglasses guards a blindfolded woman.

The painting was part of a larger show of Colwell's work that mostly featured pastel-colored abstracts.

Two days after the painting went up in a front window, someone threw eggs and dumped trash on the doorstep. Haigh said she didn't think to connect it to the black-and-white interpretation of the events at Baghdad's notorious prison until people started leaving nasty messages and threats on her business answering machine.

"I think you need to get your gallery out of this neighborhood before you get hurt," one caller said.

Even after she removed the painting from the window, the criticism continued thanks to news coverage about the gallery's troubles. The answering machine recorded new calls from people accusing her of being a coward for taking the picture down. Last weekend, a man walked into the gallery, pretended to scrutinize the art work for a moment, then marched up to Haigh's desk and spat directly in her face.

On Thursday, someone knocked on the door of the gallery, then punched Haigh in the face when she stepped outside.

"This isn't art-politics central here at all," Haigh said. "I'm not here to make a stand. I never set out to be a crusader or a political activist."

In closing the gallery, Haigh was forced to cancel an upcoming show featuring counterculture artist Winston Smith. She covered the windows of the gallery with old newspapers from Sept. 11, 2003 that included stories about the war, a statement she insists was coincidental.

For Haigh, who opened Capobianco a year-and-a-half ago, having the chance to work with prominent artists fulfilled a lifelong dream.

"I kept thinking someday I'll have enough of a reputation where I could bring in my heroes of the art world, people like Guy Colwell especially," she said.

The irony of the attacks hasn't been lost on Haigh. Among the expressions of support she's received since shuttering the gallery, her favorite is an e-mail whose writer said, "I'm sure that a few and dangerous minds don't understand that they have only mimicked the same perversity this painting had expressed."

The abuse also has soured her on North Beach, the Italian-American neighborhood that spawned the Beat Generation. Long considered a bastion of free speech, it is also home to many old-time San Franciscans. Haigh believes "it is the locals" who first took aim at her gallery since it's on a mostly residential street and she hadn't advertised Cowell's show when the threats started.

But others in the neighborhood have gone out of their way to offer encouragement and sympathy, among them poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of the famed City Lights bookstore. Outside the gallery on Friday, someone had left a bouquet of flowers along with a note reading, "The woman who ran this gallery is a brave and honorable woman. ... She is a true American and a real patriot."

San Francisco police are investigating the incidents and have stepped up patrols around the gallery while Haigh finishes closing up shop.

Colwell stopped by on Friday and refused to discuss his work or the reaction to it, saying only, "I'm sorry if this is putting pressure on Lori."

Resident arch-reactionary and aspiring art critic, "Bush Admirer" wrote the following:

>> That's not artwork. The most polite term to describe it would be "Crap."
Careful with your opinions regarding art, Mr. "B. Admirer." They veer close to those who ruled Germany in the 1930's. Those artists who opposed the regime were regarded as "Bolshevik", "Unpatriotic", and "Degenerate." In fact, the Nazis declared all art that did not conform to their political/cultural platform as "corrupt" and the ranting of "madmen." The Nazis held special exhibits of "Entartete Kunst" (Degenerate Art), that attempted to mock all art that was not sanctioned by the Nazi Party.

B. Admirer's conclusion that Guy Colwell's painting, "Abuse", is nothing more than "crap" dovetails well with the Nazi predilection of condemning pacifist, internationalist, or humanist works of art as "garbage."

Guy Colwell is a respected professional who has worked for decades at his craft. He is an amazing painter well trained in the traditional discipline of oil painting. We are blessed to have such hard working and dedicated artists living amongst us. To call the work of this extremely talented man, "crap", is to place yourself in the crowd of fascist thugs and troglodytes who physically assaulted the gallery owner and threatened her with death. The croaking frogs on the right and their bully boys have succeeded in terrorizing an art gallery right out of existence. They stomp on the face of artists and their right to free expression while bellowing patriotic clap trap about "freedom" and "liberty."

The ugly face of fascism is rising... it smiles a crooked smile as it watches an art gallery shut down by pro-war brutes who do not hesitate to punch and spit on the woman who runs the artspace. Fascism grows as the media remains silent regarding the crime against our rights to free expression. Fascism florishes when dim-witted fools applaud the suppression and destruction of art.

Artist Guy Colwell's personal website:

http://www.atelier9.com/

The official website for the Capobianco Gallery:

http://www.capogallerysf.com/colwell.htm

Information of the Nazi suppression of art can be found here:

http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/arts/artDegen.htm

BA,

The painting is "art," just poor quality art in piss-poor taste.

But consider the source.

Do you think the glot of parasitic "artists"--most who call themselves leftists--will ever paint the destruction wrought by 9-11? Or the thousands murdered by Saddam?

These leftists were ashamed of their OWN country when terrorists attacked it, which really sums it up.

Future generations who may happen upon this trash "art" will be upset for about 5 seconds, until someone properly explains the men with buckets on their heads followed the savage cult of islam, were not part of an opposing army but instead terrorists and insurgents, and the lives of innocent Iraqis and American troops depended on extracting information from them.

Derrick Samson posted: "Do you think the glot of parasitic "artists"--most who call themselves leftists--will ever paint the destruction wrought by 9-11?" And the ever Goose stepping "Bush Admirer" croaked: "The landlord who owns that building should have that Crap Gallery evicted from the building."

You fellows just as easily could have said, "Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver!" You are of like mind with the person who made that statement. He was warning that art was the realm of subversion... a space occupied by parasitic artists, leftists, and other mental defectives out to undermine western civilization. That man was telling all who would listen that artists were nothing but unpatriotic traitors... and that when someone was heard to speak of art or culture, beware, that person was most likely ready to stab the nation in the back! The man making the warning was calling his nation to defend itself from radicals and pacifists... and all those who would undermine the reputation of the military. The man who made the famous utterance was none other than the Nazi, Hermann Goering.

You guys are every bit as fascistic, every bit as undemocratic, thuggish, and narrow minded as the brown shirts who beat up artists and gallery owners in 1930's Germany. Like your brown shirted jack booted processors, you wish to silence your opponents by the fist and the club.

The woman who ran the gallery in San Francisco was spat upon, physically assaulted, and threatened with death for god's sake.... and you idiots are sitting around making excuses for this type of behavior. You are nothing but fascists. You are NOT Americans and you don't have the slightest understanding of what freedom, liberty, or democracy is all about. Find yourselves another country to be a part of.

Look at artist Guy Colwell's personal website, and tell me he was dangerous, un-American, or utterly without talent. The man had painted a mural for a zoo... he painted his mother holding kittens. This is what you want to destroy? http://www.atelier9.com/

"If the people were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched."

-George Bush, cited in the June, 1992 Sarah McClendon Newsletter.

...bushblower, somehow I don't think that many people here give a rats ass about your thoughts on what is or is not "art"....

“You fellows just as easily could have said, "Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver!" You are of like mind with the person who made that statement. He was warning that art was the realm of subversion... a space occupied by parasitic artists, leftists, and other mental defectives out to undermine western civilization.”

-------The difference here is that unlike the nazi evils the left recognizes and the communist evils it does not, I never advocate for the censorship of this “garbage.”

I only condemn it for the laughable shit it is with MY First Amendment rights.

“You guys are every bit as fascistic, every bit as undemocratic, thuggish, and narrow minded as the brown shirts who beat up artists and gallery owners in 1930's Germany. Like your brown shirted jack booted processors, you wish to silence your opponents by the fist and the club.”

------I merely mock the indefensible, in this case, the same desperate comparison of abu grab misconduct with the worst atrocities of the Holocaust.

“The woman who ran the gallery in San Francisco was spat upon, physically assaulted, and threatened with death for god's sake.... and you idiots are sitting around making excuses for this type of behavior.“

------Nowhere in my posts have I made any excuse for this unlawful behavior. However, if you think that art exists in a vacuum and won’t piss anyone off, then you understand little about human nature.

-------Besides, you're just reaping what you've sown: it’s dorks on the left that came up with the bogus concept of “hate crimes” ---a nazi method to suppress expression of ideas the LEFT finds unpopular. When the shoe’s on the other foot, you LEFTIES don’t want others to have the right to protest against YOU now, do you?

------I would rather have you lefty dopes parade your nonsense in the sunlight, where all can see it for the twaddle it is.

“You are nothing but fascists. You are NOT Americans and you don't have the slightest understanding of what freedom, liberty, or democracy is all about. Find yourselves another country to be a part of. “

-------Liberal PLEASE. Stop playing the FASH* card, it just makes you look even more foolish, which against all odds, is still possible.



* short for “Fascist”

Looking at the picture of the, ahem, artwork presented above leaves zero wiggle room -- that is not art -- that's trash.

this idiocy;

"Nowhere in my posts have I made any excuse for this unlawful behavior."



is immediately followed by this;

"However, if you think that art exists in a vacuum and won’t piss anyone off, then you understand little about human nature. "

...sounds suspiciously like an excuse to me...what you should have said was "Nowhere in my posts have I made any excuse for this unlawful behavior.....YET"

------At IMC there's always the remedial group who can't put 2 + 2 together without blaming Righty.

Well Zoltar, I'm not going to explain the obvious to the clueless. A double-dumbass on you.

I didn't say anything about 'righty"...what I did was point out that YOU..specifically...not "righty" in general...are a hypocrite who is fond of making a fool of himself online...

...although it generally applies to "righty", that is true...but you pointed that obvious tidbit out, not me.

...but I do enjoy your 'hip' use of such cuttin' edge coloquialisms like "double-dumbass" and "twaddle"...it is so tough to keep up with the language kids use these days.....

...fuckin' felcher..,..

Thanks for handing me my ass yet again.