Get rid of it!
WTC site art gallery
says no to censorship
BY ADAM LISBERG
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
The lower Manhattan Development Corp. wants to keep a controversial SoHo gallery in the planned Ground Zero cultural center - but the gallery director says it won't stay unless it has complete artistic freedom.
"The LMDC knows that we would never be able to accept censorship," Catherine de Zegher, director of the Drawing Center, told Crain's New York Business. "Now they have to come to us with their decision."
The gallery and the rebuilding agency have been scrambling since late last month, when Gov. Pataki demanded that arts groups given spots at Ground Zero promise the LMDC to "respect the sanctity of that site," adding that if not, "they shouldn't be there."
LMDC President Stefan Pryor said yesterday the agency is still trying to accommodate the Drawing Center - if not in the cultural center, then elsewhere at the World Trade Center site or in lower Manhattan.
"We have been engaged in constructive negotiations with the Drawing Center," Pryor told the Daily News. "We look forward to continuing to work with them in order to find a solution."
Drawing Center spokesman Fraser Seitel said the process "at times has been frustrating."
"But in the past week the discussions have really gotten much better and positive," Seitel said.
The News last month spotlighted some recent works shown at the Drawing Center that outraged the families of some World Trade Center victims.
One drawing, called "A Glimpse of What Life in a Free Country Can Be Like," featured a hooded figure, evocative of Abu Ghraib prison. Another, "Homeland Security," showed four planes swooping from the sky - one toward a naked woman.
Some groups representing 9/11 victims' families say they don't want anything on the site detracting from the memorial.
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