According to yet another email from the prolific John
Viramontes and the Council for Artists’ Rights, Dallas “wildflower artist”
Chapman Kelley has asked Dallas Museum of Art Director Bonnie Pittman to remove
his 1960 painting Sand Dune from the museum’s collection and return it to
him. The artist will refund the purchase price. Apparently, Kelley objects to
the painting’s inclusion the DMA’s Coastlines:
Images of Land and Sea, an exhibition incorporating an “evocative sound
installation relating and responding directly to the works on display” created
by faculty and graduate students in the Arts and Technology (ATEC) program at
the University of Texas at Dallas. In Kelley’s excerpted letter to Pittman, the
artist writes: “If I had intended for it to include such added-on effects,
I would have made it an installation piece or a ‘happening’ with audio and visual
effects of my own choosing. Or perhaps have it submitted to the Ringling Bros.
and Barnum & Bailey Circus.” Glasstire encourages its readers to visit the
DMA show or Mr. Kelley’s website and weigh in on the possible negative impact
of sound on the artist’s work.
Sounding Off
