Bus Bench Art Within NEA Guidelines : Furor: Government arts organization nevertheless plans to investigate use of funds to create works critical of San Diego police.

Four San Diego artists who used federal funds to pay for bus-bench ads that protest deadly force shootings by police were operating within guidelines set forth by the National Endowment for the Arts, according to documents obtained by The Times on Friday.

Nevertheless, officials for the embattled NEA said Friday that they intend to investigate the artists for what appears to be, in the words of national spokesman Jack Lichtenstein, “a most inappropriate use of NEA funds.”

The NEA agreed to investigate the artists after a request from Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego), who said that it was “highly unusual and improper for artists to take NEA money and buy commercial advertising, regardless of its content.”

But, according to the $12,500 grant issued to the artists through the Installations Gallery of San Diego, $4,000 is budgeted for “media advertising,” as well as printing and direct mailing. The ads themselves cost $3,662.50.

Despite the clear wording of the grant, which functions as a contract, Lowery received a letter Friday from Rose M. DiNapoli, the NEA’s congressional liaison, informing him that the investigation will continue. DiNapoli wrote that NEA officials will determine whether Installations Gallery “is in compliance with the terms and conditions of the grant award.”

In the letter, DiNapoli wrote that she regrets the published comments of Virginia Falck, an NEA press aide, who made statements supportive of the artists and their adherence to the terms of the grant.

“The views attributed to her would have been premature,” DiNapoli’s letter states.

Elizabeth Sisco, one of the artists involved, said Friday that she had received assurances from Loris Bradley of the Inter-Arts division of the NEA--which granted the four their funding--that “we have done nothing wrong.” Bradley was unavailable for comment, but Sisco said she couldn’t understand why Bradley’s assurances were in such “stark contrast” to what national spokesman Lichtenstein said publicly.

“As far as I know, the inquiry is still going on and will for a while,” Lichtenstein said Friday. “I don’t know who they (the artists) talked with, but I haven’t heard anything like that.”

“We don’t think there’s a problem,” artist Louis Hock said. “We did exactly what we said we would do in the grant.”

The NEA-approved agreement allows the artists “to extend our exploration of the way art can illuminate contradictions and act as a catalyst for local debate,” the grant reads.

The artists have said they used $3,662.50 of a $12,500 NEA grant to rent space on 25 area bus benches through Coast United Advertising of Commerce, Calif. Arlan Renfro, president of the company, said the check he received was from the account of Scott Kessler Public Relations. Kessler is one of the artists who produced the work.

Even the ad itself carries the wording, “Partially funded through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.” The artists say they donated their time and materials to produce the ads but used NEA money to rent space on 25 benches, which are scattered throughout San Diego.

The ads are in protest of the police policies that the artists say have left nine people dead and 14 wounded in so-called “deadly-force” shootings. The artists have called for a stronger police review board, namely one with subpoena powers.

The ads were denounced almost immediately by San Diego Police Chief Bob Burgreen and the police officers’ association, as well as by several local politicians.

The furor over the ads escalated Friday with Ronald Newman, president of the 1,750-member San Diego Police Officers Assn., writing a letter of complaint to nine high-ranking congressmen over the use of federal funds in paying for the ads. Newman called the use of NEA grant money for political purposes “patently unfair to all citizens.”

But the grant apparently allowed the artists to use the money that way. Joy Silverman, director of the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, said Friday from Washington that the high-level political battle now being waged within the NEA has caught the San Diego artists in a cross-fire.

“Nowadays, as soon as somebody criticizes the Endowment, you have somebody saying, ‘OK, we’ll check that out right away, we’ll get right on it!’ ” she said. “They’re constantly bowing to forces from the Jesse Helms-inspired far right, rather than serving the American public and the American arts community. They’re trying to address these volatile politics, rather than the needs of American constituents.”

Silverman said she knows of several NEA-funded artists whose work has been reproduced on commercial billboards, as per the terms of their grants. She listed an AIDS exhibit and a piece critical of the mass media as examples.

The art on the 25 bus benches features the outline of seven human bodies silhouetted in black against a red background. Within each 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 stake. A pair of upraised hands and a question mark are drawn within others. Among those killed in deadly-force shootings were men wielding a baseball bat, a garden stake and a trowel. Another man was unarmed.

In recent days, two of the 25 bus-bench ads--those closest to San Diego police headquarters at 1401 Broadway--have been defaced in ways the artists say are “pro-police.” One bench now bears the graffito--”Kops Are OK,” and, attached to another are replicas of two badges and the names of two officers killed in the line of duty.