Guantanamo Art History

The buffoons in government who continue indefinite detentions without charge at the lawless US gulag in Guantanamo, Cuba have now added an additional layer of humiliation and subjugation – the confiscation of artwork made by inmates there with threats to destroy it. According to an article in The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/08/guantanamo-bay-art-new-york-exhibition,  authorities have begun to confiscate artwork by detainees after the success of an ongoing exhibition ‘Ode to the Sea’ at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York which runs through January 26, 2018. The authorities now claim all artwork produced by detainees belongs to them and are confiscating and preventing their transfer outside the prison. Originally they announced plans to ‘incinerate’ the artwork but the Miami Herald reported http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article186891663.html that it may just be ‘archived’ in unknown fashion, leading to charges of censorship, further dehumanization, and violation of human rights. Detainee attorney Wells Dixon declared “Let’s see who can destroy works of art and culture faster, ISIS or @DeptofDefense”, while the National Coalition Against Censorship stated “This baseless policy change uses art as a political football in an effort to prevent these works — and a deeper understanding of those who created them — from informing public discussion of the policies the U.S. government makes in its citizens’ names”. The art program was the prison’s most popular and until this exhibition presented no significant controversy over process or content. All the artwork on exhibit was inspected and put through a rigorous vetting and approval procedure. It is a sad comment on the drift of our democracy that Guantanamo still exists, much less that artwork produced there is now being confiscated with threats of destruction by the fascists in charge.