Bush Seeks Arts Funds Without Content Control

The White House, fending off demands that it limit the content of federally supported art, Wednesday sent Congress a proposal to renew arts funding without any restrictions on subject matter.

The Bush Administration proposed a five-year extension of the National Endowment for the Arts and rejected content controls such as those that sparked an uproar here last year and led to a one-year congressional ban on financing of artworks thought to be obscene.

NEA Chairman John E. Frohnmayer, testifying before a House subcommittee considering a budget authorization for the arts, said: “After much careful thought and discussion, it is our conclusion that the legislation proposed here, which contains no content restrictions, . . . will best serve the American public.”

The NEA controversy centers on objections by some conservatives to federal support for artworks that may be offensive, sacrilegious or indecent.

The protests were set off last year by two photographic exhibits that received NEA support. One, by Robert Mapplethorpe, included sadomasochistic and homoerotic themes. The other, by Andres Serrano, depicted a crucifix in a jar of urine.

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) objected vehemently to those projects and pushed through a measure that withheld $40,000 of the NEA’s funding, the equivalent of the money spent on those projects, and imposed the one-year restrictions. The NEA’s budget for this year is $171 million.

“To those who are offended, I am truly sorry,” Frohnmayer said of last year’s controversy.

But, he told the subcommittee, “art is like research. It is trying new things, taking risks, pushing boundaries.

“Not all art succeeds. To not do research is to stand still and be bypassed by the rest of the world.”

The NEA director also pointed out that the endowment relies heavily on reviews by citizens’ panels in issuing grants.

Rep. Pat Williams (D-Mont.), chairman of the House education and labor subcommittee, called the proposal announced by Frohnmayer “a major piece of information and news.”

But while the Bush proposal was welcomed by arts groups and arts supporters in Congress, it promises to lead to more difficult congressional and public debate.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Lomita), the leading congressional proponent of NEA restrictions, said Thursday evening that he had not been officially notified of the Bush proposal, but: “If the arts community has convinced the Administration that government should keep funding things like pictures of Jesus Christ in bottles or urine . . . then I think the Administration has been misguided.”

Rohrabacher said he had not lobbied the White House on his call for content restrictions, and he conceded that Bush’s proposal could hinder his effort. But he said he expects the issue to be vigorously debated.

“There will be a major debate in Congress,” he said. “And the American people, as they become aware that there are no restrictions on the use of their tax dollars for live sex shows, are going to be more and more outraged.”

The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, head of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition, which supports content controls, said Thursday: “We’re very disappointed. I don’t really understand why they’ve done this. . . . While it is most unfortunate that the White House currently is being insensitive to the values and a beliefs of those who support the President on many other issues, we will continue to press forward with this specific issue.”

In Raleigh, N.C., Helms announced that he had written to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, demanding an investigation of the arts endowment. In a statement, Helms contended that the arts endowment had continued to fund pornographic artworks, despite the restrictions imposed last year.

Frohnmayer, in his testimony, angrily denied that the NEA has ever had a policy of promoting obscene artworks. He attacked right-wing groups by name--including the Mississippi-based American Family Assn. and the fundamentalist “700 Club” TV program--and accused the family association of mounting an advertising campaign “seeking to raise funds . . . at the expense of the National Endowment for the Arts.” Rep. E. Thomas Coleman (R-Mo.), the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, complained that the controversy and debate over the NEA reflected “a bumper sticker mentality” in which discussion “has been simplified down to whether one supports pornography . . . or censorship.”

But Coleman said the content of some of the photographic images that were the initial source of the controversy that began last year remains troublesome. He and Rep. Paul B. Henry (R-Mich.) warned Frohnmayer it may be impossible to navigate the NEA reauthorization bill through Congress without content restrictions being attached at some point.

“I will not attempt to justify artworks that offend common sense standards of decency,” Coleman said.

He said it may be inevitable--even desirable--that a political compromise will have to be struck under which the NEA authorizing law would contain “appropriate language that will guarantee freedom of artistic expression and accountability” for possibly offensive content.

“I, for one, am deeply distressed by some of the grants funded by the NEA,” Henry told Frohnmayer. But he was even more sharply critical of what he characterized as “duplicity and moral posturing” by members of Congress who have become the NEA’s most effective adversaries. Though he did not mention them by name, Henry, Williams and other subcommittee members made it clear they were referring to Helms and Rohrabacher.

“Some of the political posturing on this issue is itself pornographic,” the Michigan Republican said.

But, he said, “please don’t blind yourself to the political reality. The NEA has some explaining to do. In order to save it, we are going to have to reform it.”

In his statement Wednesday, Helms said he “is deeply concerned about the NEA’s apparent indifference to enforcing the congressional ban on funding obscene art.”

Despite personal assertions by Frohnmayer that the endowment would not, as a matter of policy, pay for obscene works, Helms said that “the evidence to the contrary is so compelling that is imperative that there be an objective investigation.”

Helms’ letter, addressed to Controller General Charles A. Bowsher, included several examples of allegedly pornographic art. At the opening of the letter, Helms cautioned Bowsher that “because of the nature of the enclosed material, I urge that great care be taken to assure that your women associates are not exposed to the material.”

The NEA said Frohnmayer had no immediate comment on the demand for a GAO investigation.

During the hearing, Coleman pressed Frohnmayer specifically to clarify remarks he made at a subcommittee hearing two weeks ago at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu when, responding reluctantly to repeated questions by Williams, Frohnmayer said it is appropriate for the federal government to support artworks that may be offensive to some people.

“If it is artistically excellent,” Frohnmayer told Coleman on Wednesday, “it does not make it unfundable just because it is offensive. Some art is offensive. That is not to say that (artistic) voices ought to be denied federal funding, if it is excellent art.”

Times staff writers Dave Lesher and Mark Pinsky contributed to this report.