American Notes CHICAGO

"I couldn't have imagined this would happen in my wildest fantasies," marveled artist Dread Scott Tyler. What astonished him was the mobs of outraged veterans and others who gathered daily at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to protest his controversial work featuring an American flag stretched on the floor. Until the exhibition closed last week, politicians, patriots and just plain folks joined in angrily condemning what they believed was desecration of Old Glory.

Other artists felt obliged to counterprotest what they said was a curtailment of Tyler's right to free expression. The Art Institute school was the site of a similar controversy last year over a painting portraying the late Mayor Harold Washington dressed in lingerie. Ironically, at that time Tyler joined protests alleging that the portrayal of the mayor was racist.