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san antonio, texas
September 16, 1977

The Ranger

san antonio college
Vol. LII, No.2

Teachers withdraw from Witte exhibit

Four art teachers here are among six artists who withdrew their works from an exhibition at Witte Museum in protest against the censorship of a work by a University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) professor and sculptor. 

Frank Hein and Mark Pritchett, art professors, and Ray Cox and Tom Willome, art instructors, here took their works out of an exhibit of art created by faculty at San Antonio colleges and universities.

The teachers issued a joint statement saying the museum violated its agreements with all of the participants by censoring a work after expressing no desire to make qualitative judgments and allowing the work to be installed and displayed for a week.  

All four teachers and Mel Casas, art department chairman, attended a meeting of interested artists, San Antonio Arts Council (SAAC), officers and museum officials Thursday at the Witte. Several person at the meeting said the show was the first exhibition of living local artists in several years, and community artists do not enjoy a close working relationship with San Antonio public museums.  

The work sparking the protest was a 14-foot display of black paper with lead pencil writing on it.  A statement placed in the blank space left by the missing work explained the work expressed feelings about night and nightmares.

An unidentified museum patron took the trouble to read the words scribbled on the work and found some of them, a description of a sexual act, offensive. The patron wrote a letter to Jack McGregor, director of the Witte; McGregor then ordered the removal of the work. 

Two art teachers from Trinity University joined the four teachers from this college in the pull-out. UTSA faculty members posted a statement explaining that their works remained under protest.

Willome said the affrontive nature of the work involved a "trap" set for literal interpretation.

"I think the offensive quality in it was a built-in trap that the artist used. When I looked at the work, I found myself first of all getting involved in the visual form, then realizing I was being drawn into it because there was writing on it; writing that stretched all the way across the 14-foot space.

"Reading it, the nature of the writing was outside of conventional story-telling. Phrasing and thoughts had their own kind of continuum, but didn't flow in a normal sense. It wasn't a normal kind of story; it was kind of like a daydream, or a night dream," Willome said. 

"I think the trap is involved with Mr. Cohen's use of the literal device, the story-telling device, to draw the person who wasn't sensitive to the visual form into it

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[[photo]]

[[photo caption]]
Protest
Mel Casas, art department chairman here, tells local artists at a meeting held at Witte Museum Thursday, "Before you look for a place to exhibit, you need to settle this question of artistic freedom."
[[/photo caption]]


Forty get commission applications

Forty students picked up applications for Student Representative Commissions (SRC) slots in response to articles in last week’s Ranger, the assistant director of student activities said Wednesday. 

Kathy Major said articles reporting a dismal turn-out of candidates got immediate response, as the student activities office issued 30 applications within hours of The Ranger’s distribution Friday. Eleven students applied for 22 positions prior to the deadline Sept. 2. 

“There is no question in my mind that The Ranger sparked considerable interest in our student representative program. The editorial on the back page also helped us tremendously,” Major said.

The assistant director said elections might have been possible if the filing deadline for candidates had been extended past the first issue of The Ranger.

"Provided The Ranger would have given us good coverage, there might have been enough candidates for an election. Of course, I realize you cannot guarantee us that---you cannot be sure you'll have the space to give us the coverage we need," Major said.

Five candidates have returned applications and four have been approved. The commissions will elect new members at their first meeting Tuesday.

James Dutton has filed for student services commission, Mary Kay Olivares has filed for public relations and Nancy Vella and Mario Resendiz have filed for campus operations. Rick Taylor, who has also filed for operations, had not been approved Wednesday.

Three students who were not eligible for candidacy have volunteered to work in the SRC office. Gene Miller, SRC president, said their help would keep the office open from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Joe Ramirez, Margaret Hardaway or Denise Richardson will be in the office to answer questions and pass on messages, Miller said.

"It's open for the students---it's their office. They can sit down and rap if they're curious about student government, want to complain or if any of them are interested in doing things on campus, they can talk to us," Miller said.

The next SRC meeting will be at 12:30 Tuesday in the Bluebonnet Room of Loftin Student Center. All SRC meetings are open to the public, Miller said.