FIRST OFF

U.S. Rep. Sidney Yates (D-Ill.) said Tuesday he will offer legislation to block federal grants to a North Carolina arts agency that supported a controversial photograph featuring a crucifix immersed in the photographer’s urine. Under the Yates amendment to a National Endowment for the Arts funding bill, the NEA would be required to make its grants directly to artists, a change in endowment procedures that would affect 200 of the NEA’s 4,500 annual grants with an estimated value of $15 million. The change in procedure, a Yates spokesman said, is intended to prevent a recurrence of a controversy in which conservative senators and congressmen have demanded action against the endowment because of its indirect support of the photographer who produced the crucifix-urine image. The work, by New York photographer Andres Serrano, was selected for inclusion in a traveling show that received partial NEA funding and was organized by the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, a North Carolina agency that receives about $75,000 a year from the endowment.