Outraged Bush Conspires With DC Art Critic

US Department of Art & Technology
Washington, DC
http://www.usdat.us
[email protected]


Press Secretary
For Immediate Release: September 2, 2003

Outraged Bush Conspires With DC Art Critic

WASHINGTON, DC - The US Department of Art & Technology (US DAT) has
learned from senior White House officials that an outraged President
George W. Bush directed the Justice Department to conspire with a DC
art critic to discredit the Department and its Visitor Center at the
Corcoran Gallery of Art in a recent review in one of Washington's
alternative newspapers.

Apparently the President felt US DAT's anti-administration,
hyper-political propaganda was too close to home - the Corcoran is
across the street from the White House - ordering Attorney General
John Ashcroft to seek out a local art critic who could be easily
influenced.

Ashcroft was eager to take on the assignment given his recent defense
of the USA Patriot Act. According to the Attorney General, "We
really did not want to undermine the exhibition at the Corcoran, we
just wanted to reveal the true intent of the US Department of Art &
Technology in order to protect our homeland. We felt that working
with a local art critic would give the Department of Justice a good
shot at fighting such blatantly unpatriotic and subversive behavior
as demonstrated by Secretary Randall M. Packer."

What tipped off the Department was a reference to a work by DC
artists Team Response, who in the exhibition satirically depicted the
Secretary's art studio as the "all seeing eye" atop a federal annex
near Colorado Springs. The following statement in the review exposed
the Administration's deep existential paranoia of artists when it
described "Packer's studio as one of those eye-capped pyramids that
stokes conspiracy theories in the brains of stoners staring down the
back of their last dollar."

President Bush meanwhile has called an emergency cabinet meeting in
an effort to suppress the controversy brewing from within his
increasingly fractured Administration. When the White House Press
Secretary was asked to comment he replied, "The President is focused
on what has to happen here, today, based on the facts on the ground.
I'm not going to anticipate or try to anticipate every conceivable
threat that comes from within the Department of Art & Technology. We
are dealing with a series of events that took place, and that's where
we are today. I have no further comment."

Asked if he will seek a congressional investigation, Secretary Packer
exclaimed, "I can understand the President's fear of artists seeking
to reclaim America's government, but what is truly disturbing, is how
easily the media succumb to the hard-ball tactics that prevail in the
Bush Administration. Despite resistance from the Administration and
the local press, we will continue our effort to fight anachronistic
tendencies in order to create a world without fear and with unfeigned
pleasure, a visionary world inspired by the legacy of the
avant-garde, for which we all yearn."

The Secretary went on to quote the Italian Futurists, "Realizing the
scope of our task and the imperative need for success, we intend to
exalt aggressive action, a feverish insomnia, the racer's stride, the
mortal leap, the punch and the slap."

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The US Department of Art & Technology
http://www.usdat.us

The US Department of Art and Technology is the United States
principal conduit for facilitating the artist's need to extend
aesthetic inquiry into the broader culture where ideas become real
action. It also serves the psychological and spiritual well-being of
all Americans by supporting cultural efforts that provide immunity
from the extension of new media technologies into the social sphere.

US DAT Visitor Center

The US DAT Visitor Center, currently on view until October 6 at the
Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, has as its theme, "Enter a
Citizen, Exit a Revolutionary." The exhibit features a unique
collection of tactical media, information panels, and a historical
timeline detailing the chronology of the Department and its
extraordinary development. The Visitor Center was organized by the US
Department of Art & Technology, the Corcoran College of Art & Design,
and the White House Office of Appropriations.

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