Painting the American Dream at Guantánamo
Muhammad Ansi, Untitled (Field with Windmill).
Thirty-six artworks made by detainees while at Guantánamo Bay are currently on display at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in midtown Manhattan. To view them, however, takes persistence. You must possess both a photo ID and enough patience to explain to the security guard that the college does indeed have an art gallery. You then have to navigate the building: down an escalator, up an elevator, past an indoor rifle range and a rooftop tennis court, until you finally reach the President’s Gallery, outside her offices. It’s hardly the Met.
The exhibition opened in early October (my.) On November 16, the that in response to the show, the Pentagon has stopped releasing security-screened prisoner art and has declared that, as the wrote, “the art made by wartime captives is U.S. government property.” One attorney even told the that the U.S. military intends to burn the art. Since then, the exhibition has gotten a new wave of media attention. Because it is so difficult to actually access the artwork, few of the people reporting and commenting on the art have actually seen it. The exhibition has become largely symbolic.
