Laguna Art Museum Accepts NEA Grant

The Laguna Art Museum has won an $8,500 matching grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that it will use to buy a complete set of prints by Chicano artists produced by Los Angeles-based Self-Help Graphics.

Some arts organizations have recently rejected or threatened to reject NEA grants in reaction to congressional attempts to regulate artistic content with wording specifying that grant recipients not use the money to promote “obscene” artworks.

Laguna Art Museum director Charles Desmarais said that while he shares “the same nervousness as other museum directors” over the new clause, the museum has chosen to accept the grant.

“My understanding is that work is not obscene if it has artistic value, and it seems to me that if an art museum shows something, that proves it has artistic value,” Desmarais said. “Let the crazies say what they will.”

Desmarais said the museum will not change its standards in light of the NEA controversy and the new grant clause. In a written statement, he said: “Whether every political extremist in America will agree with our choices cannot be predicted, and that question is really not as important to us as our educational duty to our own community.”

On Tuesday, after the museum received word of the grant, trustees voted to take an official stance in support of the embattled NEA and to send copies of the resolution to local congressmen and President Bush. The resolution voices support for “continued and increased federal funding” of the NEA “without government restrictions on free artistic expression.”

Since 1982, the nonprofit Self-Help workshop has produced 150 prints by 70 Chicano artists in East Los Angeles. The works will be included in an upcoming Laguna exhibition and then be rotated through the museum’s galleries in smaller exhibits.