Corcoran Gallery Apologizes for Cancellation of Exhibit

The director and executive trustees of the embattled Corcoran Gallery of Art issued a statement Monday expressing “regret” for offending members of the arts community with their cancellation of a show of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs, and said: “Our course in the future will be to support art, artists and freedom of artistic expression.”

Corcoran Director Christina Orr-Cahall said the significance of Monday’s action “is really not about the statement per se; it’s about the fact that the statement is real and that the trustees and I do feel regret and felt that the approach we took did not work. . . . It was a failed strategy and probably on my part naive. That’s much more important than any piece of paper or statement.”

When she announced the cancellation in June, Orr-Cahall said she hoped to avoid exacerbating a growing political crisis surrounding the National Endowment for the Arts and federal funding of controversial art. She and others involved in the decision have previously expressed regret for any distress their action gave artists, using much the same language as they did Monday.

But unlike this statement, earlier comments have not been offered as apologies. “This is a symbolic gesture,” Orr-Cahall explained, “and one that we needed to make and that we wanted to make. The Corcoran’s strategy had not been successful, clearly, and we needed to really make a statement that let the artistic community know where we stood.”

The full statement reads: “The Corcoran Gallery of Art, in attempting to defuse the NEA funding controversy by removing itself from the political spotlight, has instead found itself in the center of controversy. By withdrawing from the Mapplethorpe exhibition, we, the board of trustees and the director, have inadvertently offended many members of the arts community, which we deeply regret.

“Our course in the future will be to support art, artists and freedom of artistic expression.”

Over the last 3 1/2 months, the Corcoran has been buffeted by criticism from the art world, an artists’ boycott that has forced the cancellation of two exhibitions and endangered a third, as well as the withdrawal by artist Lowell Nesbitt of more than $1 million in property and art that he had intended to will the museum.

“Far-out!” said Nesbitt when the statement was read to him. “It’s a little bit overdue, but I am very happy that they could bring themselves to make that statement. It is long overdue.”

Seeks Proof

However, Nesbitt said that although that portion of his estate intended for the Corcoran will end up in Washington, he will not return it to the gallery. “Their position has yet to be proven,” said Nesbitt, adding that its destination is still being negotiated. Painter Annette Lemieux, who canceled her one-woman show that had been scheduled to open at the Corcoran next month, was more skeptical. “That’s very safe,” she said of the statement.

Orr-Cahall said that the statement was only the first “dramatic step forward” in a campaign still under development to win back the respect and cooperation of the artistic community. She said she had spoken earlier in the day to some of the artists who have withdrawn from Corcoran shows, and that “they seem pleased. I think they recognize it as a major step on the part of the Corcoran.”