American Notes CHICAGO

Less than a year ago, enraged aldermen barged into the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and snatched from a wall a portrait of the late Mayor Harold Washington in lacy lingerie. Last week the institute was defending another inflammatory exhibit, a work by Scott Tyler, self-proclaimed "supporter of the Revolutionary Communist Party U.S.A.," titled What Is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag? Its key component: an American flag stretched out on the floor. The institute claimed that Old Glory was positioned so viewers would not be forced to walk on it. But Joseph Morris, a lawyer for several veterans' groups, said the exhibit constitutes an "invitation to step on the flag." The vets, however, failed to persuade Cook County Circuit Judge Kenneth Gillis to close the show, so it reopened to the public Friday, after several days of being viewable only to students, faculty and staff. Security guards allowed only a limited number into the gallery at any one time, but that did not stop several veterans from taking the flag off the floor and holding it up while making speeches. Said James McManus, chairman of the school's liberal-arts department: "We are trying to defend the notion that all art, provocative art, can be displayed." That is certainly true at the Art Institute.