NEA Faces Backlash for Grant Policy

One of the nation’s largest arts groups suggested today that irreparable damage may have been done to the National Endowment for the Arts in a new controversy over cancellation of a grant for an art show on the AIDS epidemic.

And in Washington, a spokesman for a House subcommittee that will hold a hearing next week on the conflict between artistic freedom of expression and taxpayer rights said the panel’s chairman is concerned that the new controversy may have so compromised the arts endowment that “it is no longer a vehicle for freedom of speech.”

The statements came in reaction to Wednesday’s decision by NEA Chairman John E. Frohnmayer to cancel the $10,000 grant to Artists Space, a New York City artists group and gallery that has scheduled a Nov. 16 opening for the AIDS show, “Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing.” The show includes some sexually explicit photographs and political commentary on various aspects of the social devastation brought about by AIDS.

Milton Rhodes, president of the American Council for the Arts, said the arts endowment decision, which Frohnmayer said was taken because the “Witnesses” show was too politically risky in view of recent pressure on the NEA in Congress, places the federal arts agency in grave short-term and long-term danger.