Artist: Patrick Garcia
Confronting Bodies: Edward Shanken; SCAD Dept. of Academic Affairs
Date of Action: Feb. 12, 2007 - Feb. 26, 2007
Specific Location: Savannah College of Art and Design
Description of Artwork: In Feb. 2007, Patrick Garcia submitted a 7 sentence paper proposal w/ annotated bibliography to Prof. Edward Shanken discussing the influence that the Dada movement had on the contemporary art world.
Description of Incident: Upon submission of the paper proposal, Shanken accused Garcia of committing academic theft of intellectual property because he disagreed with an idea stated in the paper proposal; that idea being, Garcia felt that though Dadaism tried hard to remove itself from what was considered mainstream art, he found it ironic that it would later be included in the main art cannon along side the other art movements it rebelled against.
Shanken disagreed that it was ironic and filed academic dishonesty charges against the student claiming he may have stolen the idea from Wikipedia.
Results of Incident: After fighting the charges for multiple weeks, the Savannah College of Art and Design decided to protect on of their own and upheld the charges against Garcia. He received a grade letter "F" for the course and the incident became part of his permanent record.
Source: Savannah College of Art and Design