Rohrabacher to Judge Art Contest That Takes a Swipe at the NEA

Orange County Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R--Lomita) will serve as a juror for a “conservative art” contest whose sponsor, Pasadena-based radio station KKLA, hopes to attract exhibition funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

“I’m just basically participating in a spoof,” Rohrabacher said Thursday from his office in Washington. “A lot of things the NEA has funded in the past look strange to most Americans. The other aspect of (the contest) is mainly aimed at drawing attention to the fact that quite often more classical and traditional artists are discriminated against in favor of the weird and wacko.”

The contest was announced Friday at a press conference in Los Angeles. KKLA (99.5 FM), which claims its biggest audience is in Orange County, bills itself as the largest religious talk station in the country.

“We would like the NEA to recognize all forms of art, not just the artistic elite,” says Jeff Powell, producer of John Stewart’s drive-time talk show, “Live from LA.”

“We don’t feel the average taxpayer should fund the NEA. But if we must, then the average taxpayer should have a say in what art actually is. If you’re taking money from the general population, the artistic elite shouldn’t determine what art is.”

Rohrabacher, who has repeatedly stressed his opposition to federal funding for the arts, will judge only the “best satire” category of the contest. The winning works in this category are likely to involve “some kind of parody on the NEA, or on obscene art or some kind of political parody directed to the ‘croissant elite’ in the political community,” according to Stewart.

Told that KKLA is serious about getting the NEA to fund a show of the winning work, Rohrabacher said he had “no intention of doing anything that would try to pressure the NEA on any specific artworks, one way or the other.”

“I’ve given people at the NEA a lot of grief for funding things most people think are obscene or indecent . . . but I’ve never really told them to fund what I like. My role as a congressman is not to pressure the NEA to sponsor any specific work of art. . . . I’ll put a big disclaimer on my participation.”

Participation in the contest, which closes June 1, is open to amateur and professional artists working in all media. There are no guidelines on subject matter. In addition to best of show, three awards will be given to work in each of four categories: most creative, most inspirational, best satire and most conservative. Stewart says the latter category has to do with upholding “traditional family values.”

Besides Rohrabacher, the show’s other jurors are Tim Solliday, a Pasadena painter and illustrator who works in a traditional style; Lindsey Price, a teen-age actress in Disney films and commercials; and talk show host Stewart of Yorba Linda, who was a leader of a public protest against the film “The Last Temptation of Christ” in 1988.

Powell said he has been in contact with several possible venues for an exhibition but wouldn’t specify them. He said he has made some inquiries at the NEA about the exhibit but refused to elaborate.

Told by a reporter that the NEA funds only exhibitions sponsored by a nonprofit group, Stewart said he was certain a suitable space could be found (“even churches, schools,” he suggested).

Susan Ludowsky, director of the Visual Arts Program at the NEA, said her program funds only artists and nonprofit groups. “It’s very rare that we fund an exhibition.” (The NEA’s Museum Program pays for exhibitions, but only those sponsored by a nonprofit arts organization.)

“From time to time,” Ludowsky said, “we’re asked what proportion of grants we award to realist artists. Generally speaking, approximately half of our awards do go to artists working representationally, but that general category is very broad. To isolate artists working in a traditional academic style would be highly subjective. However, I can certainly say that those artists are represented within this larger pool.”

Ludowsky mentioned such better-known realist artists as Martha Alf of San Diego; Catherine Murphy of Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; Julie Bozzie of Ft. Worth, Tex.; Altoon Sultan of New York City, and Willard Dixon of San Rafael as recipients of grants from the Visual Arts Program. She added that “many lesser-known artists working in this manner” have also received grants.

In a press release Stewart is quoted as saying the exhibition would “determine whether the NEA is merely a front for anti-Establishment liberal bigots intent on censoring conservative expression.”

Informed that the NEA does fund artists who make traditional art, Stewart said he was “pleased it does happen. . . . Rather than attacking the NEA, this (exhibit) will give them a chance to act consistently with what they (believe) they are and promote art that is appreciated by a diverse group of people, especially the conservative majority . . . who would not consider (photographs by Robert) Mapplethorpe to be art.”

Last year’s cancellation by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington of an NEA-funded exhibit that included homoerotic photographs by Mapplethorpe lit the still-simmering debate between defenders of artistic freedom and defenders of traditional values in art.

Solliday, the juror whose art includes both landscapes and figurative paintings illustrating scenes from the Bible and literary works, said he believes “relativistic thinking has taken its toll on the art world” ever since the heyday of Impressionism.

In his view, even Vincent van Gogh was “nowhere near the same (exalted) category” as 19th-Century academic painter William Adolph Bougereau. Solliday sees his role as an academic painter as “trying to bring beautiful art back into people’s consciousness.”