Helms Bill Will ‘Disable’ Endowment, Agency Argues

The National Endowment for the Arts contended Friday that a pending bill that would prohibit support for controversial art would “totally disable” its grant-making apparatus, forcing it to become the federal government’s “cultural czar.”

And the first time it has publicly come to its own defense, the endowment argued that the restrictions, which await action by a House-Senate conference committee, would “fundamentally impair” the arts agency’s ability to comply with its legal mandate to foster artistic excellence without interfering with freedom of expression.

The endowment statement came in the form of a letter from Hugh Southern, the endowment’s acting chairman, to Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.), chairman of the Senate delegation to the conference committee. Southern resigned earlier this week, effective next month, to become general manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

The document, released Friday, is the first detailed statement by the endowment since the controversial legislation first surfaced in Congress in July.

Meanwhile, the endowment certified that two grants that precipitated the current political crisis went to organizations that had acted completely “in accordance with published endowment guidelines,” with no reason from the government to believe “that disqualification from future funding could result from sponsoring a project which later resulted in controversy.”

The letter amounted to an official declaration that the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, N.C., and the Institute for Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania were innocent of violating government rules and regulations. The two organizations separately assembled exhibitions that contained photographs later alleged to be obscene or offensive to religious sensibilities.

Southern argued that an amendment attached to its funding bill by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), which would bar federal grants for “offensive,” “indecent” or “obscene” art, would leave grant applicants unable to seek federal funding because they could not predict what might subsequently be declared offensive.