And here in New York, officials in the city of Troy shut down a community space Tuesday, one day after the opening of a controversial exhibit by an Iraqi-born artist. It marked the second time in a week the exhibit “Virtual Jihadi” by Wafaa Bilal was shut down. Bilal was originally invited to display the installation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, where he is an artist-in-residence. But school officials shut the installation down last Thursday after protests over the focus of the exhibit: a video game based on an al-Qaeda game where President Bush is targeted for assassination.
After Bilal accused RPI of censoring his art, the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy offered to host the exhibit until April.

An opening was held on Monday night, but early on Tuesday the city called to say the building was not up to code because the building’s doors were not wide enough.

Troy, NY official: “We’re going to put a placard on the front door stating that the place has been posted unfit and that no — there should be no assembly there at all for any reason until these doors have been taken care of.”

The phone call came less than twenty-four hours after an inspection by code enforcement and fire officials cleared the building for use. At the exhibit’s opening on Monday night, Wafaa Bilal said the meaning behind the “Virtual Jihadi” was misunderstood.

Wafaa Bilal: “This artwork is meant to bring attention to vulnerabilities of Iraqi civilians, to the travesty of the current war and to expose racist generalization and profiling.”

It is not the first time Bilal’s artwork has caused a stir. He had to flee his native Iraq after being arrested several times, because his artwork was too controversial for Saddam Hussein’s regime.