Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 13, 1990 TAG: 9006130480
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bob Willis
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Those questions have tied both Congress and White House in knots for the past year - since an uproar began over two exhibits, one of them denounced as obscene and the other as sacrilegious.
The National Endowment for the Arts, focal point of the controversy, is up for congressional reauthorization this year. The White House wants to punt; it has asked Congress to reauthorize the NEA for one year with no restrictions. Meantime, a commission would review the endowment's grant-making procedures.
Congress dearly loves to delay painful issues, so probably a majority will go along with the White House proposal. But conservatives in both chambers can be expected to oppose the move, and it is hard to envision any change in NEA procedures that would avert another fight a year from now.
What raised the issue in mid-1989 were exhibits of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano, whose work had been supported by NEA grants. Mapplethorpe's photos included some with homoerotic and sadomachistic subjects. Among Serrano's was a picture of a crucifix in a jar of urine.
The Serrano photo was defended as a protest against using sacred imagery for profit, in the manner of some televangelists. But just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is interpretation of art. Some could see nothing but blasphemy in Serrano's picture, and some could see Mapplethorpe's pictures only as obscene.
Our government has done many things I consider blasphemous and obscene, such as asking divine blessings on works of war and using covert operations to foment violence and uprisings in other countries. If our tax money is to be spent on blasphemous and obscene things, I would much prefer that these be photographs, which may offend some but are comparatively harmless.
But that begs the question. I would like the government not to do certain things I consider wrong or obscene. So, in a sense, would Sen. Jesse Helms, D-N.C., a leader of the protest against the NEA grants to Mapplethorpe and Serrano. Helms and others raise a valid point: If the federal government puts money into something, it can rightly demand some say over how that money is used.
That is the very reason a few artists have, all along, resisted Uncle Sam's getting into the business of underwriting artistic efforts. With that, they say, will come efforts at control; and art cannot thrive under government control. Neither can it be said that government funding is essential to artistic development: In 1988 the NEA endowment was $120 million, while private donations totaled $6.8 billion.
One irony is that since the endowment was established in 1965, its charter has contained wording that implicitly forbids it from funding obscenity. When the NEA was last up for reauthorization in 1985, Congress - in an effort to meet with objections by a group of Texas Republicans - reaffirmed the endowment's mission to support only those projects that "foster excellence, are reflective of exceptional talent, and have significant literary, scholarly, cultural or artistic merit."
And who decides what projects meet those criteria? Not Congress. The NEA uses an elaborate screening process involving 109 different panels of experts in such fields as modern dance, folk arts, film preservation, opera, stage design and videography. The NEA chairman appoints panel members from a group of nominees whose names are put forth in a variety of ways: by themselves, by state art agencies, by current panel members or by NEA staff.
After the panels decide on funding, the National Council on the Arts reviews the selections. This group has 26 members who - like the NEA chairman - are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Final word comes from the NEA chairman, currently John Frohnmayer.
This involved, removed process is intended to make the selections politically accountable. Obviously, it doesn't make everyone happy, and that includes not only some members of Congress but also artists and institutions whose requests are rejected.
Frohnmayer, who got a vote of confidence recently from President Bush, has said he will not try to defend every funding decision the NEA has made. Overall, though, he contends that the agency's record is very good: "One of the tragedies of this is that all of our energy is being spent in this battle over [a few controversial projects]. We have funded maybe a million images over the last 24 years, and [the critics] are taking issue with 20 of them."
I would like to see the NEA continue in its present, if imperfectly handled, role. Money to encourage the arts is better spent than on many other endeavors into which the federal government sinks our funds.
The critics have a good point, however, regarding accountability. They also have an arguable point when they say that funding art is no business of government. And the more strident their criticism, the more likely that - to avoid controversy that imperils its function - the NEA will come to fund only "safe" art. Better than that would be no federal involvement at all.
by CNB