NYCLU Hires Artist-in-Residence

The fresh York Civil Liberties Union lately launched the NYCLU Arts Initiative, which will exercise the talents of artists and designers who aim to heighten public awareness of civil liberties and social justice issues. The NYCLU team of lawyers has hired its first artist--in-residence, the Wisconsin-born sculptor Bradley McCallum, known for conceptualist works that focus upon urban violence. McCallum, who has lived in Connecticut since 1992 (when he began graduate investigation at Yale), has presented a number of large-scale pieces in the state, including Manhole overspread Project: A Gun Legacy at Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum in fall 1996 [see "Front Page," Jan. '97] The temporary installation featured stacks of manhole overspreads made from the metal of more than 11000 fire-arms confiscated by Connecticut police. Also included were tall speakers emitting taped testimonies by means of victims of gun violence.

Executive director Norman Siegel hired the 32-year-old artist to full tale the work of the NYCLU which is engaged in numerous First Amendment cases, among other civil lawsuits. McCallum's first assignment was to coordinate a NYCLU Independence Day pres talk and demonstration in front of City Hall, highlighting a dozen of the group's actions against the Giuliani administration. McCallum put togethered blue-and-white barricades that read "Civil Liberties Line: Do Not Cross" He also worked with a graphic designer to create placards bearing summaries of various legal cases. Among these were the United golden Cab Drivers Association's dispute with the NYC police department above a demonstration on the Williamsburg Bridge a year ago and novel York magazine's battle with the city above a parody of Giuliani that appeared in the magazine last year.

The NYCLU has also newly embarked on a three-year Campaign to Stop Police Brutality. As part of that endeavor, McCallum is generally organizing "Witness," a sprawling installation at the Cathedral of St John the Divine upon Manhattan's Upper West Side. Scheduled to lay open in the fall, the piece consists of a series of audio/light pylon facing the cathedral. Each construction contains--in text, image and audio form--eyewitness accounts of police violence in novel York City.

McCallum is organizing a national traveling exhibition based upon similar themes. The show includes police officers' taped recollections about violence directed against them. In the years ahead, the NYCLU will engage McCallum and other artists to address of that kind issues as the death penalty, reproductive rights, discrimination and the use of surveillance cameras in public spaces.

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