HOUSTON – Campus police at the University of Houston are censoring a student art exhibit because it featured a real gun, which was not loaded and enclosed in a glass case.

Authorities are essentially playing into the social commentary that fine arts student Alton DuLaney was hoping to provoke with his “ARTGun” exhibit for the Blaffer Art Museum’s annual student art exhibition by banning the student from displaying his work last week.

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DuLaney’s original “ARTGun” featured an unloaded .22 revolver in a shadow box with a small flag protruding from the barrel. The cartoon-like “Bang” flag, as DuLaney described it in a column for the Houston Chronicle, includes the word “ART.”

“I am an artist. I make art. In my work I examine the concepts of pride, power, and patriotism, especially as it relates to art,” DuLaney wrote. “Having recently moved back to my native Texas to obtain a MFA through the University of Houston, I have been fascinated with the discourse about guns – especially the loaded (pun intended) topics of concealed handgun licenses, licenses to carry, and campus carry.

Texas lawmakers approved legislation to allow people to carry concealed weapons on public university campuses last year, but the law does not take effect until August 1. The legislation prompted heated debate about guns at schools across the state.

“I wanted to create a piece of art that took a neutral stance on the controversial subject, while at the same time commenting on the omnipresence of guns in the American culture,” he for the Chronicle. “I quickly learned that getting a gun in Texas is much easier than getting an MFA.”

When DuLaney went to submit his piece for the student art show, UH officials stepped in and banned the gun from Blaffer Art Museum, ABC 13 reports.

“When I proposed this piece for the show, I was advised by the UH police and legal departments that ‘the gun is not to be allowed on campus…(and) the matter is closed.’ Despite my efforts, and those of the museum, the piece was forbidden from being exhibited in its original form,” DeLaney wrote. “I have chosen to include the piece in the show anyway — only without the gun that was central to its original conception.”

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The exhibit also features a personal letter explaining what happened, as well as a letter from the museum.

DuLaney told ABC 13 he thinks school officials made a bad decision, and pointed out that – gun or no gun – the exhibit is generating the discussion he was hoping for.

“I view the museum as a sacred place. I think art has the power to transform both objects and opinions. I was hoping my alterations of this piece would transform it and it would be seen strictly as an art piece and then we could be having this conversation,” he said.

“The authorities here on campus felt otherwise. They felt it was still a weapon, even though it had been altered, and couldn’t be included.”

School officials issued a statement to ABC 13 about their decision.

“SB11, adopted in our last legislative session, allows individuals licensed to carry concealed handguns to ‘carry a concealed handgun on or about the license holder’s person while the license holder is on the campus of an institution of higher education’ effective August 1, 2016 subject to rules adopted by the president of the institution,” officials wrote.

“Until August 1, 2016, the Texas Penal Code prohibits a person from bringing a firearm onto campus, even in the guise of ‘art.’ The art as proposed was to include a real firearm and therefore, it was explained that the law did not have an exception for what was proposed. Under these circumstances, the guidance provided to the student and the Blaffer was related to compliance, nothing more.”

Art department director John Reed told The Daily Cougar he also thinks the school’s general council has no real justification for banning DuLaney’s piece.

“The gun in the piece is really not available as a gun,” Reed said. “It’s mounted in a frame. It has a flag down its barrel. It’s unloaded, and it’s in an environment where security is watching it the entire time the gallery is open. Humorously, it would be far easier to walk in with your own gun than to come in, steal that gun, load it and then use it for something. It’s really not a safety issue.”

DuLaney’s Chronicle column makes it clear his intent was not to smuggle a gun into the museum, or to provoke a confrontation with school officials, but to build on the work of the many famous artists who have converted weapons into art.

He wrote:

People familiar with art history will see that I was drawing on a long list of artists who’ve gone before me. I used the same caliber of gun that artist Chris Burden used “Shoot,” the famous 1971 performance in which he had an assistant shoot him in the arm. I referenced Marina Abramovic, who in a 1974 performance laid out a table with 72 items, including a loaded gun, and invited artists to do as they saw fit. Then there’s Andy Warhol (with his famous portrait of a gun­slinging Elvis), Marcel Duchamp (and his exploration in the beauty of the ready­made), Roy Lichtenstein (with his comic book approach to Pop Art), and even Mel Chin (who has exhibited works of art relating to both firearms and ammunitions at the Blaffer Art Museum).

DuLaney also posed a few questions for consideration:

When a thing (a revolver) is designated an artifact (an art object object) is it still regarded as contraband (a weapon)?

­How is an unloaded piece of industrial design securely framed and under glass hanging on the wall as art, in a museum with security and cameras, still considered inherently and prohibitively dangerous?

Is this object so powerful and taboo that it can’t even be allowed into the building?

­Can we as a society see guns on TV and in movies, and even out on the street, but not in the museum?

By not allowing the gun into the exhibition, was even more power given to the object, and thereby validate the power of the ART by censoring it?