Artist or bioterrorist? The highly combustible art of Steve Kurtz
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Imagine walking through a local park, enjoying the solitude and the autumn air, when you unexpectedly find a woman in a lab coat in front of a shiny machine with petri dishes and a big red button. You ask her, “What are you doing with this machine, right in the middle of the park?” She responds, “We’re releasing bacteria with human DNA into the air. Would you like to push the button?”Steve Kurtz and his art performance collective, Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), have had some serious run-ins with the law because of projects like these. So it may be surprising to know that the University of Minnesota’s Department of Geography hosted Kurtz—Professor of Art at SUNY Buffalo—at their Friday Coffee Hour series, in part because he was accused of bioterrorism. Continue Reading