The Director of Communication is being overzealous in trying to direct censor your content. He mentions it will eventually be posted on his approved site and available to all, free of charge. Does he actually think you are charging people to view your videos?

I think the best route is to inform Dave Hickey, to let him know that your well meaning documentation is being assaulted by the institution. I can only imagine he would come out strongly on the side of free expression.

James Kalm

Thanks for your support Steven.

I Received a phone call last night from Phong Bui (Publisher of the Brooklyn Rail) that he’d been contacted by David Levi Strauss (head of the Art Criticism Dept. at SVA and also a Brooklyn Rail contributor) saying he’d heard Dave Hickey was upset by the vids. Evidently, after viewing part of the lecture, well know local artist, Glen Goldberg, called the administration at SVA to complain about Hickey's "Jew" remark. When Goldberg watched the entire lecture, he changed his mind and realized Hickey was making a provocative jest (perhaps not in the best taste, considering where he was speaking). I have defended Hickey and sought to dismiss any charges of insensitivity. I'll write an open letter to Hickey, that will be published here, and try to smooth ruffled feathers. Wish me luck.

What a champion of free speech you are, Loren, folding the instant someone sends you an e-mail message. You could've showed a little backbone, you know. Argued your case. You don't necessarily need a lawyer.

Then again, maybe you were right to take it down: I don't know the legality of posting home videos of lectures. Obviously the copyright on the lecture belongs to the speaker, but I'm not sure about a video of the lecture. Google is your friend, though: Did you look up your options before you took it down?

Maybe you just don't want to piss off other people in the art world. In which case I guess I understand that.

But I do need to call you out since you invoked Godwin's Law in your post here. Although you didn't clearly reference Nazis, exactly. But then it'd be merely a slur against Germans, which isn't very nice, either.

I guess I stupidly assumed you took the videos down. EAG said as much over at his blog, and then I read the cease-and-desist here, so I figured you'd removed them as asked. If you left them up, good for you! Although, having watched that video I linked to, I'm not sure you have a shot here without Hickey's permission. I'm not sure.

I always tell people who receive cease-and-desists to argue the point for a bit. Just because it sounds all serious and legal and stuff doesn't mean the guy who wrote it isn't wrong. You can get far -- I know this from personal experience -- by talking it over before you roll over.

Lay off the poor Germans, though, just because their language has an clearly defined imperative form. It's not their fault they always sound like they're giving orders, it's their grammar.

Funny how easy it is to think that everyone else knows about your own tiny little world. I've built a wacky little segment of art world blogs for myself and I often forget a lot of people don't read the same ones.

EAG is the cranky but entertaining artist and critic over at EAGEAGEAG. He's the one who probably started the flap about Dave Hickey and his allegedly anti-Semitic aside, although I imagine it might have been simultaneous spontaneous generation. Then again, maybe EAG just picked up the ball from someone else and ran with it. I don't know. I don't read a lot of the blogs other people do. I saw it there first.

I want to add that I really am sorry I thought you took the videos down. I should've checked. Silly of me not to.

Did you coin that phrase, DUGO, yourself, or do people actually call it that? I'm thinking I like "Area Suffused by the Gowanus Odor" better.

But, yes, I'm still there, beavering away. Any time you want to drop by, let me know. We can go to Lowe's and build something together, as the commercials say.

Loren, when I first saw your "Achtung" title, I also thought about Godwin's Law and all the cliches surrounding the Nazis. So in the interest of not impinging your valid arguments re: the Hickey videos with any negative borrowed controversy, I have changed the title to an English equivalent. If you feel this takes something away from your message, you can always restore it.

Now you've rewritten your history! Holy 1984!

Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.

And may I add:

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.

If Big Brother was watching me, by now he's fallen asleep from boredom. "All he does is type on the Internet all day. Hey, Prole, wash some dishes or something!"