Bondage Act Steps Over Cutting Edge
From EXAMINER STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
March 7, 2000This one sounded almost too much like another urban legend, but there was so much detail. I checked it out, and it is on the Examiner's website--in its special "BONDAGE FILE," no less (http://examiner.com/bondage/) which is a pretty weird site in its own right!
The San Francisco Art Institute prides itself on fostering art that is cutting edge. But one student apparently has stepped over that edge with his "Art Piece No.1" - in which he placed a volunteer in bondage, performed unprotected oral sex and an enema.
Student Jonathan Yegge's project, performed Jan. 25 on an open-air stage, was observed by about 20 other students, two professors and passersby.
The volunteer, who was blindfolded, bound and gagged, ultimately complained. Eventually school officials advised Yegge to seek counseling, get tested for AIDS and share the results with his sex partners. A "frustrated" Yegge withdrew from the school last week.
"They say you can do whatever you want as long as you can justify it artistically. I was given no chance to do that," said Yegge, 24, who insists he intended the piece as an exploration of Hegel's master-slave dialectic and Kant's theories on freedom of thought and action.
His classmate, who volunteered for the performance without knowing its details, signed a makeshift waiver beforehand consenting to actions of a violent and/or sexual nature and agreed not to sue Yegge or complain to school officials.
"Everything was great. He didn't seem upset," Yegge said. "He didn't yell at me or anything."
Yegge claims his classmate even smiled when he asked to be cut down from the ropes that immobilized most of his body during the 10-minute session, which included using enemas to trade excrement with him.
But the classmate did complain to school officials, who have since made it clear that when it comes to keeping students safe, they are willing to retreat from art's cutting edge.
Yegge's instructor, Tony Labat, called the piece "bad art, absolutely." Labat says he has not been disciplined, even though he watched the performance and did nothing to stop it.
Reached at home Sunday night and asked about the controversy, Labat said, "I'm sort of sick of it."
No crime
School administrators have refused to discuss their investigation. On Sunday night, Ella King Torrey, the school's president, did not return calls made to her San Francisco home.
Lt. Mary Stasko, who works at the Northern Station of the San Francisco Police Department, said she hasn't heard of any student from the institute filing a complaint.
"In order for there to be a crime, it would have to be against the will of the person," Stasko said. "If this guy volunteered, and signed a waiver, I think that's pretty consensual. He probably got more than he bargained for."
The institute is privately funded and receives no money from the National Endowment for the Arts, which was attacked by conservative politicians who learned that the NEA funded Karen Finley's "indecent" art.
Finley, an alumna of the Institute whose work has included smearing her naked body with chocolate and inviting audience members to lick it off, was awarded an honorary doctorate from the school after she was criticized in Washington.
But the health risks involved in Yegge's performance were too much, even for Finley's alma mater.
Yegge said he's not HIV positive and felt comfortable having sex with a stranger. Condoms were not offered, nor did his volunteer ask for them. By signing the consent form, Yegge believed the acts were consensual.
And Yegge said he would be retested for HIV.
But the school took a dim view.
"It is considered a serious violation for you or any individual to participate in any activity, sexual or not, which involves exposing yourself or others to any bodily fluids or excretions including but not limited to feces, urine, semen, saliva and blood," reads the letter from Larry Thomas, the Institute's vice president and dean of academic affairs.
'Hardly something revolutionary'
Yegge said he spent months planning his performance, studying the school handbook and the mission of the "New Genres Department," which encourages students to "work outside of the more traditional practices of painting and sculpture."
"I'm just shocked and appalled that you can't do certain things in art school," Yegge said. "All these bodily fluids have become a medium. Since the beginning of time these have been used as a medium. This is hardly something revolutionary."
He also said Labat approved the general premise beforehand.
"I didn't know what he was going to do," countered Labat, an institute alumnus who has taught there since 1985. "It does not represent the work I do and what I do in my class and what has gone on at that school for 30 years."
Another of Yegge's former instructors, writing teacher Dodie Bellamy, said she wasn't surprised to hear that he chose to make a controversial statement.
"Everything he wrote for me was about raping or mutilating babies," said Bellamy, adding that her former student was exploring and tracing theories on the history of violent pornography and literature and how they overlap. However, she said, "He's very bright, articulate, and sort of charming. He's not like some weirdo-rebel type."
The institute, which was founded in 1871 and located on Chestnut Street, has about 650 students. It has long been a magnet for artists pursuing innovative art forms. Ansel Adams founded the nation's first art photography department there in the 1930s. In the 1950s and '60s, it was a center of beat and funk movements.
The New Genres Department was founded in 1970 by sculptor Howard Fried, who wanted to recognize art that left no physical remnants.
"There isn't much happening in this piece that's beyond any boundaries," Fried said. "I'm not teaching now, but if I was I wouldn't be involved in trying to be a censor about people's work."
Yegge is now trying to figure out his next step.
"If they'd ask me to come back, I would. I really love it there," Yegge said. "I'd have a different focus. I'd love my academic classes and try to do other art that doesn't deal with the body."
Justino Aguila of The Examiner contributed to this report.
(03-06-00)
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