NEA-Funded Artists Criticize Police Shootings

A group of local artists has spent federal grant money to rent space on 25 bus benches for ads that criticize the use of deadly force by the San Diego Police Department, angering the police chief and others.

The art on the benches features the outline of seven human bodies silhouetted in black against a red background. Within each human figure is a target, similar to those at police shooting ranges.

Within one target is a trowel, within another a baseball bat and within a third a garden tool. A pair of upraised hands and a question mark are drawn within others. (San Diego police have wounded 14 people and killed nine in shootings since the beginning of the year. Among those killed were men wielding a garden tool, a trowel and a baseball bat. Another man was unarmed.)

Police Chief Bob Burgreen on Tuesday called the ads a “cheap shot that will have no impact.” He said the motive for the ads is “sour grapes” over the failure of last year’s Proposition F, a ballot measure that would have given wide-ranging powers to an independent police review board.

Callers to local radio talk shows Tuesday appeared overwhelmingly opposed to the ads, which attracted the attention of Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado) as well.

“Duncan has some real concerns about many of the projects funded by the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts),” said Frank Collins, a spokesman for Hunter. “This is similar to many of the controversial messages brought forth recently in NEA-funded work, which hasn’t made us very happy. This is the type of ad that merits an ongoing review of the NEA.”

Although voicing anger at the ads, as did many of his officers, Burgreen said he had asked no one to remove the ads, nor would he.

“I’m not in a position to be objective on this issue, but absolutely, I support their right to free speech,” Burgreen said. “I will go to war to protect anyone’s right of free speech and the right of people to disagree with me and others.”

Paul Downey, a spokesman for Mayor Maureen O’Connor, echoed the chief, saying that, since no city money was spent, “This is a matter between the NEA and these artists. It’s a federal matter--their right to say it--but, of course, there is a right to free speech. As far as the shootings are concerned, there’s an ongoing public forum to address these matters. And we believe the process is working.”

But the artists involved said “the ongoing public forum” is unacceptable because a citizens’ review board set up under another ballot measure has “no teeth.” The artists donated their time to create the ads but said the cost to produce them and rent the space--$3,662.50--was paid out of a $12,500 NEA grant awarded in 1989 for the funding of “social-protest” art.

Noting the recent national controversy surrounding the NEA and the spending of tax dollars on controversial art, local artist Scott Kessler said he and his colleagues “knew we were taking a risk.”

“The risk is obvious, but yes, the risk was worth it,” Kessler said, stating that a childhood friend of his, Tony Tumminia, was shot and killed this year after a confrontation with police.

The work of Kessler and fellow artists Deborah Small, Elizabeth Sisco and Louis Hock has ignited controversy before. A 1988 project by the artists appeared on the back of San Diego Transit buses around the time of Super Bowl XXII, which was held in San Diego in January of that year.

Depicting San Diego as “America’s Finest Tourist Plantation,” the 1988 ads protested racism, Small said.

Part of the group’s NEA grant money also was used last year to suggest a lack of public discussion in San Diego during the Soviet Arts Festival, which was brought to the city by Mayor O’Connor.

The artists said Tuesday that O’Connor and Burgreen tried to have the most recent bus-bench ads removed. But Arlan Renfro, the president of Coast United Advertising in Commerce--the company that reproduced the ads--denied that, as did Burgreen.

“Any effort to do that would be viewed as overly defensive,” Burgreen said. “I believe in speaking my mind but not in being overly defensive.”

Renfro said, however, that he had insisted that the ads carry the notation, “ ‘Partially funded through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts’ . . . to protect ourselves.”

Small said that, if the NEA “and its problems” became the focus of the bus-bench campaign it would be the fault of the media and not the artists.

“We want the focus to be on police practices, a weak citizens’ review board, no investigative powers, no power to subpoena witnesses . . . ,” Small said. “But, we can’t control what you people write. Do I think tax dollars should fund the NEA? Obviously, that’s why we got the grant.”

Burgreen said he and the department are diligently researching the issue of deadly force and how to best control it.

“We’ve spent a lot of time and effort to do the most thorough study on the use of deadly force that’s ever been assembled in this country,” the chief said. “We’re concerned about the issue, and the community knows we’re concerned. But those ads are a cheap shot that won’t have an impact on me or how I do my job or on how my officers do theirs. It isn’t the first time we’ve been cheap-shotted, and it won’t be the last.”

Andrea Skorepa, chairwoman of the citizens’ advisory board on police-community relations, said she supports the ads because they “provoke thought, which is what we need and which is the function of art anyway, isn’t it? Especially public art. The ads should help to provoke dialogue in a community that desperately needs it.”

Skorepa said she feels “empathy” for the police, who say the streets have never been more dangerous. “But, at the same time,” she said, “we have the right to establish our own values and standards about police conduct. It’s important to give our officers as many options and good training methods as we can give them. I want their skills to be at a peak, so that they might avoid shooting at someone . . . who has no intention of killing them.”