Arts Groups Say NEA Future at Risk : Arts: A new controversy over the National Endowment for the Arts’ withdrawal of a grant for a New York art show may have more far-reaching effects on the agency than last summer’s funding battles.

A National Endowment for the Arts political crisis appeared to be developing rapidly Thursday after the arts agency withdrew a $10,000 grant for an art show focusing on AIDS.

Indications are that the intensifying fight among the agency, Congress and artists may prove more far-reaching than the fierce battles waged last summer with Congress over censorship issues arising over the funding of controversial photography exhibits.

The president of one of the nation’s largest private arts-advocacy groups called the situation the equivalent of a 7.3 earthquake and said the endowment has been brought to “the middle of a disaster” that will inevitably lead to a nationwide protest among artists and arts sympathizers.

Milton Rhodes, president of the American Council for the Arts, said the controversy over the endowment’s cancellation Wednesday of the grant to Artists Space, a New York City gallery and arts group, has the potential to become so serious that the endowment’s fundamental ability to operate could be compromised.

Rhodes predicted that artists who serve on NEA grant-making panels may start deserting the endowment. He also suggested that the arts agency’s broad mandate--ranging from funding arts education to multicultural programs providing access to the arts--may be threatened.

Meanwhile, a House subcommittee said it had formally scheduled for Wednesday a hearing on the potential for conflict between the rights of artists to freedom of expression and the rights of taxpayers to prohibit use of public funds to support controversial or offensive art.

An aide to Rep. Pat Williams (D-Mont.), chairman of the post-secondary education subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee, said the latest endowment crisis raised questions about whether the arts endowment had been so damaged compromised that “it is no longer a vehicle for freedom of expression.”

In recent weeks, Williams has said that he could be forced to abandon his long support for the endowment and vote to put it out of business if the arts agency was forced to assume the role of the federal government’s official art censor.

The hearing, which had been in the planning stages for several weeks, seems certain to acquire added significance in light of the decision by endowment Chairman John E. Frohnmayer to impound money for a $10,000 grant that would have helped support an AIDS-awareness art show, “Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing.”

Anne Murphy, executive director of the American Arts Alliance, another arts advocacy group, said employment of a political standard by Frohnmayer in cutting off the grant introduces a potentially catastrophic element into the debate over the endowment’s future. “Does this mean that a political satire play that outlines the misuses of government subsidies could not be supported because it has political overtones?” Murphy asked. “If the answer is ‘yes,’ we’re on a slippery slope that is turning into a chasm.

“I was truly dismayed when I heard the (grant-revocation) statement. This is going to have very serious ramifications, but we don’t have enough information yet to know what they are.”

Frohnmayer said he was forced to take the extraordinary action since the allegedly political tone of the show, which includes some sexually explicit photographs and provocative commentary by artists afflicted with AIDS, might provoke a confrontation with conservatives in Congress.

Frohnmayer, said Rhodes, is caught “between a very difficult rock and hard place and he has chosen to try and walk the line. That line is a very narrow one.”

Rhodes noted that Frohnmayer, in a statement Wednesday announcing termination of the grant to Artists Space, argued that the sexually explicit content of some of the work involved was not as objectionable as the overall political tone of the show. The position, said Rhodes, apparently indicates a content-control role for the endowment even broader than what congressional conservatives demanded last summer when they forced inclusion in the endowment’s 1990 funding bill of a provision outlawing grants for obscene artworks unless they have high artistic value.

“It started off as an obscenity provision and now he’s broadened it to being a political consideration,” said Rhodes. “That’s a toughie. We think we will end up with a federal program for the arts (still in existence), but we’re going to have a rough time. The danger is immediate and long-term.”

The “Witnesses” show, which is scheduled to open Thursday, is part of a nationwide observance called “Visual AIDS” set for Dec. 1. In the national program, organizers said, more than 500 arts organizations are expected to participate--in ways ranging from closing for the day to permit their staffs to participate in AIDS-awareness programs to making curtain-call announcements in theaters and mounting special AIDS-related shows in galleries.

Late Thursday, the Visual AIDS steering committee released a statement saying it “deplores the NEA’s withdrawal of funding” and calling for a nationwide protest. The statement lashed out at what it characterized as the endowment’s “censoring constitutionally protected speech which may be critical of public officials.”

Frohnmayer said he took the action terminating the grant because the Artists Space show had changed in content and tone, becoming primarily a political statement. “The show had become so politicized that it no longer met artistic criteria,” Frohnmayer said. “There is a certain amount of sexually explicit material, but the primary problem is the political nature. It essentially takes on the church. It takes on a number of elected officials and expresses a great deal of anger over the AIDS situation.

“I can understand the frustration and the huge sense of loss and abandonment that people with AIDS feel, but I don’t think the appropriate place of the national endowment is to fund political statements.”

Frohnmayer said that the political nature of the exhibit was not fully disclosed in Artists Space’s initial grant application, filed in November of last year. However, the complete application, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, indicates that the gallery repeatedly emphasized the intended function of the show as a vehicle for social commentary.

“This exhibition will be one of the first opportunities to examine this social issue,” the application read. “Through (“Witnesses”), Artists Space will be able to respond to an important social concern that has made an enormous impact on the work of many artists and that has affected the art community and the audience, as well.”

Susan Wyatt, executive director of Artists Space, insisted that the show will open as scheduled. She disputed the assertion that “Witnesses” is inordinately political. “What this show is for some is understanding the experience of having AIDS and seeing many friends die,” Wyatt said. “It certainly has some political aspects to it. I don’t think that’s its main thrust. I think it’s about emotion and feeling and what it feels like to live in a climate where people who have AIDS are discriminated against.”

Wyatt said that one part of the show consists of commentary by artist David Wojnarowicz, who himself has AIDS and takes issue with what he perceives as indifference among the political power structure to people in his position. The commentary includes specific references to Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), a leader of conservatives who have attacked the endowment in recent months.

“He (Wojnarowicz) is probably going to have to face death very, very soon,” Wyatt said. “He’s talking about what it feels like to live in a (political) climate that’s repressive.”

“I don’t know what kind of art is not political,” the American Arts Alliance’s Murphy said. “I don’t know how you have a show that talks about AIDS in its context in society without addressing that fact.”

Elliot Figman, an endowment panel member and head of the New York group Poets and Writers, said the endowment’s action was “very distressing.” “It just moves us that much closer to government censorship,” he said. “Whether it’s political content or sexual content, I don’t think this decision is going to help the arts flourish. It puts the endowment in jeopardy.”

Michael Kerns, of the Los Angeles group Artists Confronting AIDS, called the endowment decision “murderous in many respects.” “I truly believe that one of the functions of art is to educate, and the primary tool of saving lives in the AIDS crisis is education. For any potential education to be wiped out because of homophobia is equal to murder and that’s what the situation is here. Not only are we silencing artists, the potential for behavior change, healing, awareness and catharsis--all those things are threatened.”