Arts Panel Supports Grants for 2 Controversial Artists

The advisory council of the National Endowment for the Arts voted unanimously Friday to recommend new grants for productions by two New York performance artists whose work has been at the center of the NEA’s political controversy since last May.

The action by the National Council on the Arts is not binding on NEA Chairman John E. Frohnmayer, who declined to say how he would rule on the two applications.

But the 15-0 vote by the arts council--with one abstention--appeared to be an important political signal from the beleaguered federal arts agency, which is trying to shake off the effects of nearly 18 months of searing controversy in Congress.

The vote recommended grants to support work by performance artists Karen Finley and Holly Hughes. Technically, the grants would be awarded to two avant-garde New York theaters, the Kitchen Center for Video, Music and Dance, which plans to present a piece by Finley, and the Downtown Art Company, which will put on work by Hughes.

Also approved were grants to the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) gallery, the Washington Project for the Arts and Arts Company Inc. of Cambridge, Mass.

The vote came three months after the arts council postponed action on the applications and sent them back to a review panel for further evaluation.

Performance artists stage monologues and musical acts that frequently deal with political issues, racism, feminism and homosexual concerns, sometimes in sexually explicit terms.

Finley and Hughes are pressing a lawsuit against the NEA over a decision by Frohnmayer earlier this year to reject fellowships to them and two other performance artists, John Fleck and Tim Miller of Los Angeles. The rejection came after Frohnmayer apparently voiced concerns about the potential political fallout from awarding grants to the four performers, who have become known in the arts community as the NEA 4 and are a national protest symbol among artists.

In September, the four sued Frohnmayer and the arts endowment in federal court in Los Angeles, charging that denying the funds for political rather than artistic reasons violated their free speech rights under the 1st Amendment.

The motion to recommend the grants Friday was made by national council member Phyllis Berney, a Wisconsin art collector and museum patron who had argued in August against approval of grants for artists and art centers likely to inflame the NEA’s political crisis.

Berney’s support Friday seemed to signal a new resolve by the NEA advisory board to try to extricate itself from the controversy and return to an apolitical program of recommending grants on the basis of talent.

Both Finley and Hughes have received critical acclaim and extensive NEA support in the past. Finley’s work is stridently feminist in tone. Hughes’ performances deal extensively with lesbian themes. Both women employ political provocation. Finley has occasionally performed partially unclothed.

The votes came after a morning of discussion in which arts council members expressed concern over the effects of the NEA’s bruising fight for survival. Last Saturday, the House and Senate approved compromise NEA legislation renewing the endowment for three years and jettisoning most controls over the kind of work it can support.

But the bill also directs the NEA to make grants based on “general standards of decency” that respect diverse American values. During Friday’s meeting, NEA council members repeatedly expressed concern that the arts endowment may be unable to regain the confidence of the nation’s creative community unless Frohnmayer and the council show quickly that the endowment can still freely support controversial and cutting-edge work.

The council voted to hold an unprecedented special meeting within the next few weeks to shape ways to alter the NEA’s operations to comply with new laws regulating it, but also to recapture support among artists and arts institutions.

“I see the endowment as a severely wounded animal,” lamented Lloyd Richards, dean of the Yale School of Drama. Richards was appointed to the arts council by then-President Ronald Reagan.

“The endowment and its integrity,” Richards said, “have been severely affected” by the political imbroglio and by another stricture in its new operating statute that reserves as much as 35% of the NEA’s $174.5-million 1991 budget for grants to state arts councils.

The proportion is up from 20% in 1990, and some council members and arts observers have contended the shift could significantly alter the system of public support for the arts in the United States.

The NEA declined to provide details on the amounts of money recommended for each of the five grants, although each application is thought to have been for about $25,000. Frohnmayer declined to say when he would make decisions on the applications. Although the applications have been reviewed by at least four NEA panels--all of which recommended them for approval--Frohnmayer said he would completely review the applications in question.

The five grants were held up in August because members of review panels that evaluated them were also parties to the grant applications themselves. The practice was acceptable under NEA rules at the time, because the affected reviewers left the room while the rest of the panel voted on grants in which they had an interest. Under NEA legislation passed 10 days ago, however, the practice is illegal.

Finley and Barbara Tsumagari, director of the Kitchen, reacted with caution to the council vote. The Kitchen has come under investigation by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, and the NEA over the content of work it has previously presented.

“I’m just going to wait and see what happens with John Frohnmayer,” said Finley, who attended the national council meeting, sitting intently in a seat at the back of the room and occasionally cheering statements made by council members. “It’s not over yet.”