Game Politics

Troy City Officials Wield Building Code to Shut Down Game Art Exhibit

City officials in Troy, New York apparently used the municipal building code to shut down a controversial video game art exhibit.

As we’ve been tracking on GamePolitics, Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal, a faculty member at the Art Institute of Chicago, was invited to present at - and then abruptly booted from - Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute.

Following his RPI expulsion, Bilal’s Virtual Jihadi exhibit was moved to the nearby Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy. On Monday night, a local Republican political figure, Robert Mirch left, led a protest against Bilal’s work outside the Sanctuary. Mirch, by the way, also happens to be the Public Works Commissioner for the city of Troy. In that capacity, he is responsible for enforcing building codes.

On Tuesday, as reported by the Albany Times-Union, the Sanctuary for Independent Media was shut down by city code enforcement officials. Sanctuary spokesman Steve Pierce told the newspaper:

They put us out of business. They said we had doors that were not up to code.

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