One of ‘NEA Four’ Artists Brings Monologue to Sushi : Rejection: Performance artist says controversial denial of funding has made atmosphere for her work “horrible.”

Holly Hughes does not enjoy the expectations that go along with being branded a member of the “NEA Four.”

Hughes, who will present her monologue, “World Without End,” at Sushi Performance Gallery from Thursday through Dec. 16, has been working in what she calls “a horrible, horrible atmosphere” since the summer of 1989 when the National Endowment for the Arts Chairman John E. Frohnmayer overruled the unanimous vote of a grant-review panel and rejected NEA fellowships for Hughes and fellow artists Tim Miller, Karen Finley and John Fleck.

The grounds for the rejection have never been explicitly stated, but the implication is that the work of these four artists is offensive. The decision was made, according to a Times story in September after Frohnmayer reportedly told a meeting of arts activists that the NEA’s precarious political situation necessitated denial of the grants.

Those rumors of offensiveness have not eliminated audiences, but they have changed them. Now people come with the expectation of being shocked. And that’s the problem.

Those who go to see “World Without End” with that in mind are likely to be disappointed, Hughes said on the phone Tuesday from Los Angeles.

“I think the piece can only be seen as shocking to those people who are freaked out about thinking and want their art to be their esthetic equivalent of a Long-Boy recliner,” she said.

The piece is about Hughes’ reflections on her mother’s death.

“I wrote it after my mother’s death, and it explores my relationship to her and both the negative and positive sides of the relationship. It explores how she helped me, how she hurt me and what choices she had.

“I also reexamine my relationship to men, both as a category and as individuals. I find that, even though I identify myself as a lesbian, my feelings run the gamut from incredible anger to sexual attraction, and I wonder how I reconcile that with being a lesbian.

“In this piece, I don’t have the answers. It feels to me like a conversation with the audience, an intimate, casual kind of conversation, a trip through the wilderness of ambivalence.”

Hughes, a New York-based artist who has been performing since 1983, said the NEA controversy has “transformed her from a political artist to a political football.”

And the reception of her work has suffered as she has come to be viewed as not just an artist, but as a symbol for people on either side of the NEA fight.

“Either I have been told that I’m a lesbian, and that’s grounds enough for rejecting my work. Or people say I’m not lesbian enough, and the work isn’t shocking enough.

“If only I could go back to the time before this happened. People are seeing me now through the lens of this controversy, and it’s not good for the work. Every artist wants attention. But you want it for someone saying your work is good, not for someone seeing your work as trash and a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

But one thing has remained the same since all this happened, the continuing support of Sushi founder/director Lynn Schuette, who has presented each member of the “NEA Four” over the years. And Hughes appreciates that.

Her first appearance at Sushi was in “Dress Suits to Hire” in 1988, followed by a brief run of “World Without End” in June, 1989.

“Immediately after I got into hot water with the NEA, she (Schuette) called and offered her support to me and said she wanted to represent the work so people could see what the government didn’t want them to see.”

Schuette has also signed Miller for a January run and Finley for June.

But, despite this gesture, the battle with the NEA is beginning to resemble a “fight without end” to Hughes.

Now on the table is a proposed grant for Hughes from the NEA Inter-Arts program called Artists Projects: New Forms. Finley and three other artists were also proposed for these grants. But their awards, despite initial approval, were sent back to a review panel for reconsideration after questions were raised about conflicts of interest among panel members who had originally proposed them. The grants were re-recommended by the review panel in November, but Frohnmayer has yet to act upon the recommendations.

“I’m not confident,” said Hughes. “I believe there is an attempt to blacklist artists. And I’ve made that list.”

In this case, too, more than just money is involved, said Hughes. It’s validation of her work as an artist.

“The most damaging thing the NEA did was not to take away a grant. The most damaging thing they did was to target us so that you wake up in the morning and have to defend your work to people who have never even seen it.”