Clinton Fein
Encyclopedia
Clinton Fein is an artist, writer
and activist, noted for his company Apollomedia's controversial website
Annoy.com and its Supreme Court
victory against Janet Reno
, United States Attorney General
, regarding the constitutionality
of the Communications Decency Act
in 1997.
This victory, a landmark for First Amendment
rights, won Fein's right to disseminate his art. Fein won another federal First Amendment lawsuit to remove a government-imposed gag order
. As recognition, Fein received a nomination for a PEN/Newman's Own
First Amendment Award in 2001. Fein now presides the board of First Amendment Project, a nonprofit organization that protects and promotes freedom of information, expression, and petition.
, Johannesburg, in 1986, with a Bachelor of Arts in Industrial Psychology. After living in New York for a couple of years, Fein moved to Los Angeles
, where he began reporting directly to the President of Orion Pictures
, as part of the creative team for numerous films, among them Academy Award-winning Dances with Wolves
and The Silence of the Lambs.
From the outset, Fein's work has led him into some high-profile confrontations. In 1994, his CD-ROM
Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the US Military
, based on the book by renowned investigative reporter Randy Shilts
that examined the issue of gays in the military, used digital technology as an art form. When the US Navy unsuccessfully attempted to block its release, it became the first CD-ROM to triumph under First Amendment protections. Conduct Unbecoming won the Critic's Choice Award, was praised by Wired Magazine as "a tantalizing peek at the potential of CD-ROM publishing," and dubbed "evolutionary" by Rolling Stone Magazine.
The CDA made the communication of anything "indecent with the intent to annoy", a felony punishable by a fine and up to two-year imprisonment. President
Bill Clinton
signed the CDA into law in February 1996. Fein filed the lawsuit, Apollomedia v. Reno, the same time he launched his Annoy.com web site. A three-judge panel in United States District Court for the Northern District of California
made a divided decision on the lawsuit. Fein filed an Supreme Court
appeal, which he won in 1999.
In June 1999, the U.S. government sent Fein an order to reveal a user of Annoy.com's e-card
service.
Earlier, in April 1999, the University of Houston
tried unsuccessfully to obtain the website's records. The government later ordered Fein to stop discussing details of this investigation, its existence or its application. In United States v. ApolloMedia, Fein argued that this gag order violated the First Amendment
and the statutory requirement that it have a definite duration.
The case moved from a Texas magistrate
court to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas
and then to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
. The Fifth Circuit granted the appeal. The District Court then unsealed the website's records and all related proceedings and lifted the gag order.
, and his shows have been dogged by controversy. In 2001, Fein was scheduled to open a solo exhibition, Annoy.com, (based on his critically acclaimed web site of the same name), in San Francisco in October. After the September 11, 2001 attacks
, Artforum Magazine pulled an advertisement for Fein's show from their October issue. The advertisement displayed an image of a purse lipped former New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani
, sitting naked in a urine-filled glass, referencing the technique used by artist Damien Hirst
, in which animate objects are soaked in formaldehyde and encased in a glass containers. Fein’s advertisement, designed to link Mayor Giuliani with mayoral candidate Michael Bloomberg
, incorporated imagery from the exhibition Sensation that resulted in mayor Giuliani withholding funding from the Brooklyn Museum
. Clutching a crucifix with a nod to artist Andres Serrano
and with another Giuliani targeted work, Chris Ofili's Virgin Mary forming the backdrop, copy on the top of the image reads: "Mike for Mayor" and at the bottom, "Start Spreading the News."
Artforum Executive Editor, Knight Landesman, stated that the magazine was understaffed and that the editors did not feel comfortable publishing a disparaging image of Rudy Giuliani.
In October 2004, Palo Alto-based printing company, Zazzle
, destroyed two of Fein’s giant images. just before the opening of a solo exhibition at Toomey Tourell Gallery.
The one image, reviewed at Chelsea’s Axis Gallery by New York Times’ Ken Johnson, was described as "an American flag with the stars and stripes made from the text of the official Abu Ghraib report is accompanied by fifty representations of the iconic image of a hooded man teetering on a box with wires trailing from his arms comprising the stars." The second image depicting President Bush on a crucifix entitled "Who Would Jesus Torture?" was also withheld by the printing company, who told San Francisco Chronicle
art critic, Kenneth Baker that the company had "destroyed the images." Company spokesperson, Matt Wilsey, claimed the image might "offend Christians," and threatened to sue Fein for defamation if Fein publicly criticized the company’s actions.
Fein's image, "Who Would Jesus Torture?" was published in Art of Engagement, Visual Politics in California and Beyond, by Peter Selz, released in November 2005, and exhibited at the Katzen Arts Center at American University in 2006. Peter Selz is Professor Emeritus of the History of Art at the University of California, Berkeley, is the founding director of the Berkeley Art Museum and a former curator of New York’s Museum of Modern Art
.
In November 2006, "Who Would Jesus Torture," accompanied an article about Fein in American Protest Literature by author and Harvard University lecturer Zoe Trodd, published by Harvard University Press
. It was this interview that Fein cited as a catalyst for his exhibition Torture, which opened at Toomey Tourell gallery in San Francisco in January 2007, featuring gigantic, high-resolution photographs that reenacted infamous scenes from Abu Ghraib prison
in Iraq http://www.clintonfein.com/torture/statement.html.
Fein's Torture series was exhibited in Beijing in September 2007 and in London in October 2007. A review in the December 2007 issue of Art in America
magazine , summed up the impact of Fein's Torture series, stating: "Torture of detainees or their rendition to countries with even more abusive torture regimens has become semi-legal under the Bush administration. Fein reminds us, however, that these practices can never be anything less than intolerable."
Fein is the current editor of First Amendment Project's web log and writes a blog, Pointing Fingers http://clintonfein.typepad.com/ for the San Francisco Chronicle
.
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and activist, noted for his company Apollomedia's controversial website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
Annoy.com and its Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
victory against Janet Reno
Janet Reno
Janet Wood Reno is a former Attorney General of the United States . She was nominated by President Bill Clinton on February 11, 1993, and confirmed on March 11...
, United States Attorney General
United States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
, regarding the constitutionality
Constitutionality
Constitutionality is the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution. Acts that are not in accordance with the rules laid down in the constitution are deemed to be ultra vires.-See also:*ultra vires*Company law*Constitutional law...
of the Communications Decency Act
Communications Decency Act
The Communications Decency Act of 1996 was the first notable attempt by the United States Congress to regulate pornographic material on the Internet. In 1997, in the landmark cyberlaw case of Reno v. ACLU, the United States Supreme Court struck the anti-indecency provisions of the Act.The Act was...
in 1997.
This victory, a landmark for First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
rights, won Fein's right to disseminate his art. Fein won another federal First Amendment lawsuit to remove a government-imposed gag order
Gag order
A gag order is an order, sometimes a legal order by a court or government, other times a private order by an employer or other institution, restricting information or comment from being made public.Gag orders are often used against participants involved in a lawsuit or criminal trial...
. As recognition, Fein received a nomination for a PEN/Newman's Own
Newman's Own
Newman's Own is a food company and for-profit corporation founded by actor Paul Newman and author A. E. Hotchner in 1982. Newman received all of the profits from product sales and donated 100% of the proceeds, after taxes, to various educational and charitable organizations of his own selection...
First Amendment Award in 2001. Fein now presides the board of First Amendment Project, a nonprofit organization that protects and promotes freedom of information, expression, and petition.
Early life and career
Born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, Fein graduated from the University of the WitwatersrandUniversity of the Witwatersrand
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg is a South African university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University...
, Johannesburg, in 1986, with a Bachelor of Arts in Industrial Psychology. After living in New York for a couple of years, Fein moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, where he began reporting directly to the President of Orion Pictures
Orion Pictures
Orion Pictures Corporation was an American independent production company that produced movies from 1978 until 1998. It was formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. and three former top-level executives of United Artists. Although it was never a large motion picture producer, Orion...
, as part of the creative team for numerous films, among them Academy Award-winning Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves is a 1990 epic western film directed by and starring Kevin Costner. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake and tells the story of a Union Army Lieutenant who travels to the American frontier to find a military post, and his dealings with a...
and The Silence of the Lambs.
From the outset, Fein's work has led him into some high-profile confrontations. In 1994, his CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the US Military
Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the US Military
Conduct Unbecoming: Lesbians and Gays in the US Military from Vietnam to the Persian Gulf War was a non-fiction book by Randy Shilts , published in 1993 shortly before Shilts' 1994 death....
, based on the book by renowned investigative reporter Randy Shilts
Randy Shilts
Randy Shilts was a pioneering gay American journalist and author. He worked as a freelance reporter for both The Advocate and the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as for San Francisco Bay Area television stations....
that examined the issue of gays in the military, used digital technology as an art form. When the US Navy unsuccessfully attempted to block its release, it became the first CD-ROM to triumph under First Amendment protections. Conduct Unbecoming won the Critic's Choice Award, was praised by Wired Magazine as "a tantalizing peek at the potential of CD-ROM publishing," and dubbed "evolutionary" by Rolling Stone Magazine.
Art and Law
Fein was the first South African-born American to challenge government restrictions on technological communications when he filed a federal lawsuit on 30 January 1997. Fein, represented by Michael Traynor of Cooley Godward LLP and by William Bennett Turner of Rogers, Joseph, O'Donell and Phillips, filed a lawsuit against Janet Reno, former United States Attorney General, challenging the constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act (CDA).The CDA made the communication of anything "indecent with the intent to annoy", a felony punishable by a fine and up to two-year imprisonment. President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
signed the CDA into law in February 1996. Fein filed the lawsuit, Apollomedia v. Reno, the same time he launched his Annoy.com web site. A three-judge panel in United States District Court for the Northern District of California
United States District Court for the Northern District of California
The United States District Court for the Northern District of California is the federal United States district court whose jurisdiction comprises following counties of California: Alameda, Contra Costa, Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Monterey, Napa, San Benito, San Francisco, San...
made a divided decision on the lawsuit. Fein filed an Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
appeal, which he won in 1999.
In June 1999, the U.S. government sent Fein an order to reveal a user of Annoy.com's e-card
E-card
An e-card is similar to a postcard or greeting card, with the primary difference being that it is created using digital media instead of paper or other traditional materials. E-cards are made available by publishers usually on various Internet sites, where they can be sent to a recipient, usually...
service.
Earlier, in April 1999, the University of Houston
University of Houston
The University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
tried unsuccessfully to obtain the website's records. The government later ordered Fein to stop discussing details of this investigation, its existence or its application. In United States v. ApolloMedia, Fein argued that this gag order violated the First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
and the statutory requirement that it have a definite duration.
The case moved from a Texas magistrate
Magistrate
A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...
court to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas
United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas
The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas is the Federal district court with jurisdiction over the southern part of Texas...
and then to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* Eastern District of Louisiana* Middle District of Louisiana...
. The Fifth Circuit granted the appeal. The District Court then unsealed the website's records and all related proceedings and lifted the gag order.
Art, Politics and Censorship
As an artist, Fein is represented by Toomey Tourell in San Francisco and Axis Gallery in New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, and his shows have been dogged by controversy. In 2001, Fein was scheduled to open a solo exhibition, Annoy.com, (based on his critically acclaimed web site of the same name), in San Francisco in October. After the September 11, 2001 attacks
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
, Artforum Magazine pulled an advertisement for Fein's show from their October issue. The advertisement displayed an image of a purse lipped former New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani KBE is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001....
, sitting naked in a urine-filled glass, referencing the technique used by artist Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
, in which animate objects are soaked in formaldehyde and encased in a glass containers. Fein’s advertisement, designed to link Mayor Giuliani with mayoral candidate Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Rubens Bloomberg is the current Mayor of New York City. With a net worth of $19.5 billion in 2011, he is also the 12th-richest person in the United States...
, incorporated imagery from the exhibition Sensation that resulted in mayor Giuliani withholding funding from the Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
. Clutching a crucifix with a nod to artist Andres Serrano
Andres Serrano
Andres Serrano is an American photographer and artist who has become notorious through his photos of corpses and his use of feces and bodily fluids in his work, notably his controversial work "Piss Christ", a red-tinged photograph of a crucifix submerged in a glass container of what was purported...
and with another Giuliani targeted work, Chris Ofili's Virgin Mary forming the backdrop, copy on the top of the image reads: "Mike for Mayor" and at the bottom, "Start Spreading the News."
Artforum Executive Editor, Knight Landesman, stated that the magazine was understaffed and that the editors did not feel comfortable publishing a disparaging image of Rudy Giuliani.
In October 2004, Palo Alto-based printing company, Zazzle
Zazzle
Zazzle is an online retailer that allows users to upload images and create their own merchandise , or buy merchandise created by other users, as well as use images from participating companies...
, destroyed two of Fein’s giant images. just before the opening of a solo exhibition at Toomey Tourell Gallery.
The one image, reviewed at Chelsea’s Axis Gallery by New York Times’ Ken Johnson, was described as "an American flag with the stars and stripes made from the text of the official Abu Ghraib report is accompanied by fifty representations of the iconic image of a hooded man teetering on a box with wires trailing from his arms comprising the stars." The second image depicting President Bush on a crucifix entitled "Who Would Jesus Torture?" was also withheld by the printing company, who told San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
art critic, Kenneth Baker that the company had "destroyed the images." Company spokesperson, Matt Wilsey, claimed the image might "offend Christians," and threatened to sue Fein for defamation if Fein publicly criticized the company’s actions.
Fein's image, "Who Would Jesus Torture?" was published in Art of Engagement, Visual Politics in California and Beyond, by Peter Selz, released in November 2005, and exhibited at the Katzen Arts Center at American University in 2006. Peter Selz is Professor Emeritus of the History of Art at the University of California, Berkeley, is the founding director of the Berkeley Art Museum and a former curator of New York’s Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
.
In November 2006, "Who Would Jesus Torture," accompanied an article about Fein in American Protest Literature by author and Harvard University lecturer Zoe Trodd, published by Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
. It was this interview that Fein cited as a catalyst for his exhibition Torture, which opened at Toomey Tourell gallery in San Francisco in January 2007, featuring gigantic, high-resolution photographs that reenacted infamous scenes from Abu Ghraib prison
Abu Ghraib prison
The Baghdad Central Prison, formerly known as Abu Ghraib prison is in Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi city 32 km west of Baghdad. It was built by British contractors in the 1950s....
in Iraq http://www.clintonfein.com/torture/statement.html.
Fein's Torture series was exhibited in Beijing in September 2007 and in London in October 2007. A review in the December 2007 issue of Art in America
Art in America
Art in America is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It is designed for collectors, artists, dealers, art professionals and other...
magazine , summed up the impact of Fein's Torture series, stating: "Torture of detainees or their rendition to countries with even more abusive torture regimens has become semi-legal under the Bush administration. Fein reminds us, however, that these practices can never be anything less than intolerable."
Fein is the current editor of First Amendment Project's web log and writes a blog, Pointing Fingers http://clintonfein.typepad.com/ for the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
.
Articles
- The Horror of Torture, Reinterpreted through Art By Kenneth Baker, The San Francisco Chronicle
- Precision Strike By Michael Leaverton, The San Francisco Weely
- The Bigger Picture 'Torture' By Reyhan Harmanci, The San Francisco Chronicle
- Everything's Fein By Molly Freedenberg, Ventura County Reporter
- As Nov. 2 nears, artists get in their last licks, sending up Bush and company on center stage By Steve Winn, The San Francisco Chronicle
- The Clinton Cabinet Surface Magazine
- The Importance of Being Annoying By Michelle Goldberg, Metropolitan Magazine
- Designed to Annoy, Web Site Flouts CDA By Steve Silverman, Wired
- Asserting a Constitutional Right to Annoy By Pamela Mendels, The New York Times
- Does Anything Go? Limiting Free Speech on the Net:Five Players Debate the Issue The Wall Street Journal
- U.S. court protects 'annoying' online speech By Elinor Mills, CNN
- A very confusing decision KRON TV
- Additional articles
News
- Corporate Policy Leads to Political Censorship By Molouk Y. Ba-Isa, Arab News
- 2 of Clinton Fein's political works run afoul of his printer's policies By Kenneth Baker, The San Francisco Chronicle
- Annoy.com Webmaster says war art censored By Paul Festa, C|NET
- Artist and advocate Clinton Fein has his controversial images destroyed prior to exhibition By Kresta Tyler Johnson, Artthrob Magazine
Publications
- American Protest Literature by Zoe Trodd, from Harvard University Press, 2006.
- Art of Engagement: Visual Politics in California and Beyond by Peter Selz, from University of California Press, 2006.