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VALENCIA, California -- It's every art school dean's nightmare: A group of students and alumni auction off space in your school gallery to the highest bidder on eBay.
Then they start considering whether to take bids from dissidents in North Korea, a country with which Americans are forbidden by law to trade.
That's exactly the position the prestigious California Institute of the Arts in Valencia now finds itself in.
"I don't know why these kids would shoot themselves in the foot by selling off such a valuable resource," said CalArts spokesman Louis O'Toole -- at least according to a statement released by the students.
The statement has O'Toole noting that CalArts doesn't censor any art work display, but that the bidding creates an "illogical use of exhibition space, which has been allotted for student expression."
O'Toole couldn't be reached for comment.
Now the question is whether the State Department will step in, considering that the students may be breaking Section 6 of the Export Administration Act, which forbids Americans from trading with North Koreans. Not to mention the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917.
To protect themselves, the students of the group called AKSHUN are remaining anonymous, hoping that they can collectively withstand any official action.
"We're not friends of the oppressed, and we're not defending their views," said an art student, who gave her name only as "Mona." "Our complaint is about not having a forum for the free exchange of views."
As for the auctioning off of the gallery space usually reserved for students' work, Mona said the students are making a statement about the way art is displayed -- in most galleries anyway.
"It's not necessarily the best artists who are awarded with visibility," Mona said. "It's a matter of where you went to school, who you know. We wanted to reduce it to the most base economic sense."
And, truth be told, the students wanted to throw a party. The roughly US$150 they've collected so far will help them throw a shindig for a the AKSHUN group exhibition which runs from 11-16 December.
The eBay auction is born of the shortage of gallery space for aspiring artists. Good placement in a gallery can instantly launch a lucrative career, and CalArts' gallery is visited by eminent critics from around the world.
That explains why bidders for the eBay spot included students from nearby UCLA and USC. Every CalArts student has an opportunity to exhibit in the gallery.
The idea for the eBay auction was born when one of them decided to donate their slot for an Internet auction. Others enthusiastically supported the idea, Mona said.
Among the people supporting it were some South Korean students and graduates. They suggested that some of their friends and relatives in North Korea -- including two prominent dissident artists -- should be allowed to bid, too. The others agreed.
"We were ignorant of the laws forbidding trade with North Korea," Mona said. "We knew that [communicating with the United States] was a problem for North Koreans. What we didn't know was that there were US laws prohibiting us from doing it, too."
Getting in touch with the dissidents was tricky. An Internet firewall prevents direct contact with North Korea, and the United States has no telephone connection with the country. The group passed messages to former CalArts students in South Korea. Mona said she isn't exactly sure what happened to the messages after that, or how the dissident artists were able to send messages back.
The eBay auction, launched a week ago, quickly attracted dozens of bidders along with hundreds of messages directed to the AKSHUN group. Somewhere along the line, the group received an anonymous email warning them that their contacts with the North Koreans were in violation of US law.
The group wants the State Department to make an exception in this case.
"The laws regarding trading with the enemy were written in 1917," Mona said. "They have little to do with the reality of business online today. This is something outside the political realm."
Seeing their project as an important vehicle for public debate, the AKSHUN decided a few days ago to launch a mass email campaign about the eBay auction. Oh, and they hired an attorney to help them with all that State Department stuff. If CalArts officials think they can breathe a sigh of relief in January, they may be in for a shock.
"It's been very exciting," Mona said. "We'd love to do it next year."
