NEA Panel OKs Controversial Grants

The advisory council of the National Endowment for the Arts overwhelmingly approved grants for two controversial stage performers Friday, less than a week after Congress voted to repeal strict anti-obscenity curbs on the agency.

Endowment grants to two avant-garde New York theaters for performances by Karen Finley and Holly Hughes were approved by the National Council on the Arts on a voice vote, with 16 members voting yes and one abstaining.

The presidentially appointed council’s recommendation is only advisory. The final decision on the two grants rests with NEA Chairman John E. Frohnmayer. “I will make my decision as quickly as possible,” he said.

Previous grant applications submitted by Finley and Hughes, along with performers John Fleck and Tim Miller of Los Angeles, were rejected by Frohnmayer in June on the ground that their work would not “enhance public understanding and appreciation of the arts.”

In September, the four performers sued Frohnmayer and the arts endowment in federal court in Los Angeles. They charged that their 1st Amendment free-speech rights had been violated because funds were denied on political rather than artistic grounds.

At the time, Frohnmayer was under pressure from conservative members of Congress to halt federal support for what they consider obscene and blasphemous artistic projects. Some critics have cited the NEA’s previous grants to Finley and Hughes as evidence of a willingness to support objectionable works.

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

The two new grant applications are for performances by Finley at the Kitchen Theater and Hughes at the Downtown Art Company, both in New York. They had been unanimously approved by an NEA peer panel of outside artists and arts managers.