nothin Guerrilla “Bust-Op” Rides On | New Haven Independent

Guerrilla Bust-Op” Rides On

Brian Slattery Photo

“Bust Op” on the Green, defying government orders.

A downtown bus stop became a Bust-Op” for a day and sparked conversations about breast cancer awareness — despite a city government effort to shut it down.

A standoff ensued, pitting rules-minded city government against a social-minded art.

The standoff occurred Friday at the bus shelter at the corner of Chapel and College Streets on the Green.

Local artist, musician, organizer, and provocateur Bill Saunders had turned the bus shelter into a pop-up gallery show calleed Bust Op” with his paintings of women — in some cases, more accurately, women’s breasts. The exhibit was aimed at increasing awareness about breast cancer; a few of the subjects of the paintings were, in fact, breast cancer survivors. One was a casualty.

Passersby took a look, talked with Saunders offered their support.

Except for one passerby. At about 12:30 p.m., city Transportation, Traffic & Parking Deputy Director Michael Pinto stopped by the exhibition.

Take it down, Bill,” he ordered.

Please hear me out,” Saunders said.

When’s it coming down?” Pinto said. He said that his concern didn’t originate in the exhibition itself, so much as the lack of explanatory materials outside of the bus stop. From the street, he explained, it just looked like larger-than-life portraits of breasts.

Go in and experience the content,” Saunders said. He also suggested that he was exercising his freedom of speech. This is an open, public space — it’s for the public!”

Pinto suggested that Saunders needed a permit, which he did not have. Saunders explained that he was planning to have the paintings up until only 5 p.m.

Pinto suggested 2:30 p.m. Saunders insisted on 5 p.m.

I’m not kowtowing to this,” he said.

Pinto suggested that he might call for backup. Saunders said that calling the cops was fine with him. As Pinto walked back up Chapel Street, he declined to comment to the press. The city has to do its job,” he said.

Pinto left. More passersby stopped and lingered. Just to walk by, it looks like a bunch of breasts,” a woman said. But now that you explain it, it makes sense. This is awareness,” she said.

It’s really awareness,” Saunders agreed.

A lot of people need to be aware of it,” the woman continued. See what it does to people. Downtown New Haven, there are a lot of black women who aren’t aware they have breast cancer. White women, they know.”

Don’t Call Me Baby”

Friday’s Bust Op” exhibition was a natural evolution of Don’t Call Me Baby,” Saunders’s July 2015 exhibition at Ordinary that took on the tangled politics of sex and power at the heart of director Russ Meyers sexploitation movies. It featured bare-breasted women who had been in Meyer’s films. Weere they victims of the lens, or did they have the power? The debate over Meyer’s movies continues to this day, with Meyer finding unlikely allies from Roger Ebert to some feminists.

While Don’t Call Me Baby” was up at Ordinary, Saunders said, a few women had suggested to him that his portraits would be great for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.” Saunders agreed. He liked the angle, he said, of re-exploiting exploitation to a higher purpose.” He had a personal connection to breast cancer; when he was a kid, his mother’s cousin had a double mastectomy, and his mother went to the hospital a few times to remove lumps and bumps.” He got to work making new portraits that he tied explicitly to breast cancer awareness and he tried out the idea last year with five large paintings at a bus kiosk on lower Chapel Street. He was blown away” by the response he got, he said.

A grandmother came by with five kids,” he said, and regarded his paintings. He explained his mission. I know,” Saunders recalled the grandmother explaining. Their mother’s undergoing treatment right now.” Other people stopped first to gawk, then to be sobered when they understood the subject matter at hand. One person was offended,” Saunders said. The other people at the bus stop defended the art.”

This July, Saunders got to work on a new series of six paintings, which went on display Friday. It succeeded in drawing attention and conversation.

One painting (shown above) depicted Kitten Natividad, a Mexican-born film star, former Miss Nude Universe, exotic dancer, and breast cancer survivor,” an accompanying note explained.

Another was of Lina Romay, a Spanish-born actress, film star, and breast cancer casualty.”

A third portrayed blaxploitation film stars Pam Grier and Richard Roundtree. Both are breast cancer survivors,” read an accompanying note.

Saunders had the paintings hanging in the bus shelter at about noon. He planned to be there all afternoon to talk to people about the exhibit. Bus rider Rafael Gottleib ducked inside the stop, reading about his risks of contracting the disease as a man. As the bus pulled up, he gave Saunders a little nod.

It was unexpected, though I liked it,” he said. I hope when people walk by, they notice this.”

I think it’s good,” said Maria Ellington, who had stopped to look at the paintings on a walk downtown with her son, Isias. When she and Isias had arrived downtown hours earlier, Saunders was parking behind them, and encouraged her to check out the installation when it was up.

It brings awareness to breast cancer, which runs in my family,” Ellington said. It’s actually a reminder — I need to get a mammogram this year. I’m 28.”

She recalled watching her grandmother, always a proud woman, lose her hair to breast cancer treatment several years ago. I couldn’t do that,” she said.

Saunders approached a man who was looking at the Greer and Roundtree portrait. He explained that Greer and Roundtree had both had breast cancer. I had a male friend who was a guitarist who had breast cancer,” he said.

A silver CT Transit van pulled up. The driver rolled down the window. What are you doing to our bus stop?” asked the transit officer.

It’s for Breast Cancer Awareness Month,” Saunders said.

Oh, cool,” the officer said. He drove off.

Art Prevails

Saunders and Stina.

At 1:15 p.m., Pinto returned to the street corner. He explained that it was all right if Saunders kept the paintings up until 5 p.m.

Passersby were still coming by, but there was time to talk with Saunders and Stina, who minded the paintings along with Saunders, about why the paintings had turned out to be so provocative.

They delved into the same volatile territory as Don’t Call Me Baby,” raising uncomfortable questions about sex and power. Including a treatable — but so far not curable — fatal disease in the equation made for a kind of art that further humanized the subject and shocked the viewer, especially a viewer that had started off by objectifying the women in the paintings. It raised a lot of mixed feelings. As Saunders put it, my mom was always going to the hospital to have lumps removed, and my dad always had Playboys in the back of the closet.”

Stina explained that she had wrestled with the same kinds of questions when she managed the bar in a strip club for several months. She got to know the dancers who worked there, all of who did so voluntarily. But their stories were so different. Some were sad. Some were empowering,” she said. You had some of them who got up there and danced and were psyched about it. And some of them were just dead inside.”

It’s complicated,” she said. But is it really?”

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