Sacramento — A painting of the United States sinking into a toilet now on display in the cafeteria of the state Department of Justice has raised the ire of the state Republican Party, which is demanding that Attorney General Bill Lockyer remove the image.
The painting — part of an exhibit of more than 30 works by lawyer artists and pieces with overt legal themes — has an American flag-painted continental United States heading into a toilet. Next to it are the words: “T’anks to Mr. Bush.”
The artist, Stephen Pearcy, a Berkeley lawyer with a house in Sacramento, won earlier notoriety for hanging an effigy of an American soldier on the outside of his home here with a sign saying “Bush lied, I died.” Angry residents tore the effigies down.
“I don’t know why we need to tolerate the cheap artwork of a gadfly with a world view that is so offensive to a majority of the people,” said Karen Hanretty, a spokeswoman for the California Republican Party.
One Web log, Conservative Schooler, had collected 55 signatures by late Tuesday afternoon for a petition calling on Lockyer to remove the painting because it desecrates the flag, and “material that is offensive to most people does not belong in a government office.”
Although the debate centers on the appropriateness of art in public places, the exhibit was neither commissioned by Lockyer, nor did he participate in selecting the pieces, and no public funds were spent on the show.
“We played no role in developing the guidelines on what the curator of this exhibit could pick or not pick,” said Nathan Barankin, a Lockyer spokesman. “His only constraints were his creative muse and space limitations. ”
Barankin said all the works in the exhibit would be on display until the show ends Aug. 31, a likely result since Lockyer, for most of his political career, has kept a representation of a man with a hand over his mouth on his office wall. Beneath the man are the words: “No Censorship.”
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