Steve Kurtz

Steve Kurtz is an American artist and co-founder of the art collective Critical Art Ensemble (CAE). His work with CAE is considered pioneering in the areas of politically engaged art, interventionist practices, and cultural research and action in the field of biotechnology and ecological struggle. He is also a writer and educator.

Kurtz's arrest in 2004 for suspected “bioterrorism” is the subject of a film, Strange Culture, by Lynn Hershman Leeson, and served as inspiration for the novel Orfeo by Richard Powers.

Kurtz is a founding member of the award-winning art and theater collective Critical Art Ensemble (CAE). Since its formation in 1987 in Tallahassee, Florida, CAE has been frequently invited to exhibit and perform projects examining issues surrounding information, communications and bio-technologies by museums and other cultural institutions. These include the Whitney Museum and the New Museum in NYC; the Corcoran Museum in Washington D.C.; the ICA, London; the MCA, Chicago; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; the London Museum of Natural History; the Kunsthalle Luzern; and Documenta(13).

The collective has written seven books, and its writings have been translated into eighteen languages. Its work has been covered by art journals including Artforum, Kunstforum, and the Drama Review. CAE is the recipient of awards, including the 2007 Andy Warhol Foundation Wynn Kramarsky Freedom of Artistic Expression Grant, the 2004 John Lansdown Award for Multimedia, and the 2004 Leonardo New Horizons Award for Innovation.

Kurtz is emeritus professor of art at SUNY Buffalo, and former professor of art at Carnegie Mellon University.

In May 2004, Kurtz called 911 to report the death of his wife, Hope Kurtz, of congenital heart failure. In order to create their art installations the Kurtzes sometimes worked with biological equipment and had a small home lab and petri dishes containing biological specimens. At the time of Hope Kurtz's death they were working on an exhibit about genetically modified agriculture for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Buffalo police deemed these materials suspicious and notified the FBI, who detained Kurtz for 22 hours without charge on suspicion of "bioterrorism." Meanwhile, dozens of federal agents in hazardous material suits raided the Kurtz home, seizing books, computers, manuscripts, and art materials, and removing Hope Kurtz's body from the county coroner for further analysis.

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