NEA Halts Grant for Show Displaying AIDS Artwork

The National Endowment for the Arts on Wednesday impounded a $10,000 grant to a New York City gallery for a show focusing on social aspects of the AIDS epidemic that contains some sexually explicit photographs and other provocative work.

The unprecedented action by John E. Frohnmayer, the NEA’s chairman, came after the arts endowment and Artists Space, the Manhattan arts organization, were unable to resolve the latest episode in the political crisis that has wracked the NEA since last spring.

Frohnmayer said he decided to withhold funds approved in a July grant to Artists Space but not yet disbursed after he concluded that the tone of the exhibition was inappropriately political in nature. The exhibit, “Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing,” includes work of 23 artists in a variety of media dealing with social aspects of the AIDS epidemic.

Frohnmayer said he would seek further advice from the Justice Department on the endowment’s legal right to withhold grant money it has formally approved.

The show was organized as part of a nationwide observance by the arts community, scheduled for Dec. 1, called “Visual AIDS.” The “Witnesses” show is to open in New York next Thursday and Susan Wyatt, executive director of Artists Space, said it will open as scheduled.

In a letter to Wyatt dated last week and in a statement Wednesday, Frohnmayer said the situation placed the arts endowment in a politically difficult position since the NEA has been embroiled since last April in a controversy over its support of sexually explicit and religiously offensive artworks.

The controversy, in which conservative opposition was organized by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), was precipitated by NEA’s funding of shows including the work of two New York photographers, Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano. Before an uneasy truce was declared, conservatives succeeded in amending the agency’s 1990 funding bill to prohibit grants supporting “obscene” art unless the work has exceptional artistic merit.

“Because of the recent criticism the endowment has come under and the seriousness of Congress’s directive, we must all work together to ensure that projects funded by the endowment do not violate either the letter or the spirit of the law,” Frohnmayer wrote to Wyatt. “The message has been clearly and strongly conveyed to us that Congress means business. I believe that the endowment’s funds may not be used to exhibit or publish this material.”

Frohnmayer asked that Artists Space voluntarily relinquish the grant. On Wednesday, the gallery board voted unanimously not to do so. Frohnmayer said he withheld the money reluctantly, noting that Wyatt had brought the matter to his attention herself to try to avert the crisis.

The grant at issue was technically made under the NEA’s 1989 budget. Since the new obscenity provisions apply only to the 1990 fiscal year, the “Witnesses” grant is legally unaffected by the new restrictions.

But Frohnmayer said the Wednesday action was appropriate because the “Witnesses” show, whose content--like many NEA-funded exhibitions--had not been selected when the grant was approved, was unacceptably political in nature. “I think we have agreed to disagree,” Frohnmayer said.

Wyatt disputed the conclusion that the show is any more or less political than any art that treats controversial themes. “It certainly has some political aspects to it, but I don’t think that’s the main thrust,” she said.