FIRST OFF . . .

Los Angeles artist David Hockney has threatened to cancel a major art show at London’s Tate Gallery to protest planned government legislation aimed at outlawing the promotion of homosexuality. Hockney, a Briton and an acknowledged homosexual, was quoted in the Sunday Times of London as saying he might withdraw his retrospective exhibition because the government was trying to return to a 1930s atmosphere of censorship. In a five-page letter to the paper, Hockney said his loathing of “Nanny England” forced him to flee it 24 years ago, and the planned legislation on homosexuality showed nothing had changed. A controversial clause in a bill before parliament would ban local authorities from promoting homosexuality and clamp down on government spending supporting gay activities. Many sections of the British arts community have condemned the clause, saying it threatens artistic freedom. “Nanny England was to me a hideous perversity that was, as I saw it, denying my own heritage,” Hockney’s letter said. He also attacked Philistinism, licensing laws and “the small group of dreary, unimaginative people running almost everything” in Britain. Hockney’s exhibition, due to be shown at the Tate in October, opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art last month and is also scheduled to be shown at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.