Citing Mooninite scare, artist cancels Boston exhibit

Call it the Big Chill: after the events of the past 48 hours, would any self-respecting public artist want to exhibit anything that might be mistaken for, erm, a bomb? Hellz no. So count the easter bunny -- sort of -- as the latest casualty of Boston's Aqua Teen Hunger Farce. The following came in via email from Louisville-based artist Jeffrey Scott Holland, who had been planning a public-art exhibit here this spring. (Find out more at his EGGS NOT BOMBS site.)

As you may know, last year I left green Easter Eggs in various

public and semi-public places in several American cities, as part

of my PROJECT EGG public art installation. This April, it had been

my intent to the expand the egg hunt to cover the entire nation,

with eggs hidden in the major cities of each of the fifty states.

 

However, in the wake of the ludicrous and Orwellian response of

Boston city officials to the Aqua Teen Hunger Force ad campaign,

I have been deeply morally appalled at behavior and statements

of Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Assistant Attorney General

John Grossman, claiming that lightboxes such as those used in

the Aqua Teen Hunger Force ad campaign were no longer

appropriate in a "post 9/11 world", and that the "hoax" perpetrators

"clearly intended" the lightboxes to be mistaken for bombs.

 

Given this chilling effect the powers-that-be in Boston have cast on

free expression (not to mention common sense), I must withdraw my

intent to give away Easter Eggs in the state of Massachusetts in

April. I will not give these men further fuel in their drive to present

themselves as intelligent and valiant fighters of "potential" terrorism

in the name of national security, which is the real hoax being

perpetrated here.

 

To paraphrase Senator Jordan in the original Manchurian Candidate

film, "these men could not be doing more harm to America than if

they were paid Russian agents".