Mark Young

At the San Francisco Art Institute 24 year-old Jonathan Yegge put on a 10 minute piece of "performance art" more suited for San Francisco's red light district than an open-air stage on campus. Entitled "Art Piece N. 1," Yegge's performance has sent shockwaves across the Institute since its first and only showing on January 25.
     In the February 23-29 issue of the SF Weekly, Yegge offered this description of how a male classmate who volunteered for his piece was set up for the performance: "He was tied up. He had a blind fold and a gag, but he could see and talk through it. He had freedom of movement of his pelvis." Yegge then told what happened during the performance: "I engaged in oral sex with him and he engaged in oral sex with me. I had given him an enema, and I had taken a s*** and stuffed it in his a**. That goes on, he s***s all over me, I s*** in him. There was a security guard present. There was an instructor from the school present. It was videoed, and the piece was over."
     Founded in 1871 and with an enrollment of around 650 students, the Chestnut Street SFAI has long been the home for artists searching for new and radical forms of art. Today the school is headed by Ella King Torrey, who also sits on the Board of Directors for The National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, "an educational and advocacy network" whose mission is "to protect and extend freedom of artistic expression and fight censorship throughout the United States."
     According to Quill, "the SFAI has more than a century long history of pushing the boundaries of fine art, standing behind very, very, progressive artists that are on the cutting edge, that are creating works that [are] pushing new boundaries." She added that the school "fully supports freedom of expression."
     Yegge's piece, though, may have been too much for even Torrey.
     Though the man had volunteered to participate in Yegge's performance, and had even signed a hastily drawn-up consent form just prior to the start of the performance, he has since had misgivings about his participation in an "artwork" that left his rectum coated and stuffed with feces. The man, whose name has not been revealed, has not publicly commented on the incident.
     "I haven't talked to him since," the former art student offered, "but the impression is that he is treating it as if he is a rape victim even though he consented. They're treating me as though I committed a crime which I didn't because he consented and could have said stop at any point."
     The man eventually complained to the school administration, leaving Yegge bewildered. According to Yegge, everything was normal after the performance. The classmate, according to Yegge, even smiled when he asked to be cut from the ropes that held him nearly immobile for the duration of the class project.
     School officials, though, were not smiling when they called Yegge in for consultation and placed him on academic probation. They advised him to get counseling and an AIDS test, and make the results known to his sex partners.
     School officials also talked with Yegge's professor Tony Labat about the dangers of allowing the performance to take place in a supervised course. Labat, an SFAI alumnus and an associate professor in the New Genres Department, has taught at the school since 1985. Labat said, after meeting with school officials for several hours behind closed doors, that Yegge's piece was simply bad art that was done irresponsibly and that he could not understand why anyone would be interested.
     After being told to create a project that would push the limits of art, Yegge claims that he outlined the project to Labat and got his OK. "I did a piece, I stayed within the rules, and then I got in trouble for it," Yegge laments. "I got put on probation. Then they created a rule after that got distributed to all the teachers about no more using bodily fluids in art and such.... They told me I can't have unprotected or protected sex on campus anymore."
     "Two professors, a security guard, and a whole class of students" were present, Yegge notes, "and any one of them could have jumped in and stopped it too if it looked like something was going wrong. Nobody did anything. Nobody complained afterwards. Nobody."
     Labat has not been disciplined by the school, and administrators have not given any indication that they will do so.
     SFAI Dean of Academic Affairs Larry Thomas released a statement saying, "It is considered a serious violation for you or any individual to participate in any activity, sexual or not, which involves exposing yourself or others to any bodily fluids or excretions including but not limited to feces, urine, semen, saliva, and blood."
     Quill claims that the issue over the performance is one of "health and safety" and that "it is not a matter of freedom of expression. It is a matter of safety [and] responsibility. [Yegge] created something very unsafe, that is what the issue is absolutely. It is a health and safety issue and we are not in any way censoring him." If, as the school claims, it is a health and safety issue, why haven't officials taken disciplinary action against the two professors who attended the performance, one of them being Labat?
     Yegge claims that he spent several months planning the performance, reading over the school handbook as well as the mission statement of the "New Genres Department," which encourages students to "work outside of the more traditional practices of painting and sculpture."
     Yegge goes on to say that Labat had asked him to produce the piece for the class. Labat, in a seeming attempt to protect not only himself but also the school, said that he was unaware of Yegge's intentions. However, Labat not only allowed the performance, he did not even attempt to stop the piece while it was taking place in front of a mixed audience of about twenty students. One of Labat's female students who was present at the show was so upset that she planned a protest performance piece. Others agree that Yegge's "artwork" was an outrage, and had no place on a college campus even in liberal-minded San Francisco.
     While people in the area are talking about what happened on the campus, the SFAI has barricaded itself behind a wall of silence, refusing to speak of the incident (several attempts were made to talk with officials about what happened but they refused to talk about the incident). In the near future, though, it may be necessary for the SFAI to talk very publicly of Yegge's exhibition. The volunteer's mother is said to be a judge and that the anonymous volunteer may decide to sue the school, though no criminal charges have been filed yet.
     Although his time at the San Francisco Art Institute is finished, Yegge says he is "intending to get a degree in theology or philosophy."