Offensive performance an offense?

By LAUREN MAGNUSON

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In a pretrial hearing last Friday, performance artist Milan Kohout faced criminal charges for standing outside Bank of America's headquarters in the financial district, ropes strewn at his feet, with a sign reading "Nooses on sale." He's being charged as a "transient unlicensed vendor" for peddling without a permit.

Kohout had no intention of selling the nooses. His performance was meant as a critique of the bank's involvement in the foreclosure crisis. "I worked to use my piece as a metaphorical comment on this predatory, cynical behavior," Kohout said Friday after the hearing at the Boston Municipal Court.

Police reported that bystanders found Kohout's actions "extremely offensive"; nooses generally conjure associations of lynching and hate crimes. Kohout says the offended spectators misinterpreted his symbolism, which was meant as a metaphor for the sale of lives caught up in the crisis. "Lenders might as well have invited their clients to commit suicide by selling mortgage loans they couldn't afford," he says.

The performance lasted six minutes before three officers confiscated Kohout's equipment as material evidence.

Jeffrey Pyle, Kohout's attorney, filed a motion for dismissal, citing First Amendment rights. "This is a classic example of protected symbolic speech," Pyle said. He added that prosecuting Kohout for offending the public "sends a very dangerous message."

Kohout was expelled from the former Czechoslovakia (his native country) in 1986 for his political activism, and sought asylum here. "Even a small step to compromise freedom of speech can have disastrous consequences. I experienced [this] under totalitarianism," he said.

Kohout's past performances included tearing copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the Golden Gate Bridge, asking Chinese school children to dump papers inscribed with traditional values in a trash can and literally kissing 50 US citizens' asses.

The motion for dismissal will be reviewed on March 7.