NEA Board Rejects Written Decency Guidelines : Arts funds: The head of the National Endowment for the Arts says he has no intention of becoming a ‘decency czar.’

The advisory board to the National Endowment for the Arts voted unanimously Friday to omit any written requirement in its grant guidelines that federally supported art observe standards of “decency.” NEA Chairman John E. Frohnmayer also said emphatically that he would not set himself up as a “decency czar.”

The action by the National Council on the Arts occurred at a two-day special session called to deal with growing concern among artists and arts groups over the implications of a new law regulating the endowment. The law requires federally funded art to comply with “general standards of decency” and respect traditional American values.

Arts council members also sharply criticized Frohnmayer’s recent unilateral veto of a grant to prominent New York City artist Mel Chin. In doing so, Frohnmayer ignored recommendations from the national council and an NEA review panel. Several critics and arts groups have asserted that overturning of the grant have been politically motivated. The proposed Chin project is a controversial environmental Houston art installation.

The unanimous decision to omit any written reference to decency and the unusual vigorous public criticism of Frohnmayer in the unrelated Chin affair appeared to underscore the internal and external political turmoil still dogging the NEA as it attempts to come to grips with fallout from its 18-month battle for political survival.

The 12-to-0 council vote technically represented less than a quorum of the 26-member group. But the National Council on the Arts, whose members are appointed by the President and subject to confirmation by the Senate, currently has 10 vacancies. The unanimous vote eschewing written decency standards was seen as an important and strong statement by the council, which had often appeared silent, weak and indecisive during the NEA political crisis that began in April, 1989.

The vote appeared to set the stage for a possible political confrontation with NEA critics in Congress. Last month, after Frohnmayer told The Times that the endowment would seek some “benign” way to implement the decency clause, he received a strong protest letter from Rep. Paul Henry (R-Mich.), author of the decency wording. NEA sources said a second conservative congressman also filed a strong protest.

Frohnmayer said he was prepared to make a commitment not to alter any grant review panel or National Council on the Arts grant vote on grounds that the proposed artwork might run afoul of the decency language. (The NEA chairman is empowered to ignore most National Council on the Arts recommendations if he chooses.)

Frohnmayer’s promise not to overturn such votes appeared significant because he has rejected funding for work already approved by either a grant panel, the national council or both seven times since taking over the NEA in October, 1989.

The decency question arose after Congress included the paragraph in NEA legislation passed in October.

In deciding how to put the decency provisions into effect, the national council accepted a system under which NEA panels will be verbally reminded that, since their members are widely representative of the American geographic and ethnic mix, it is simply assumed they will reflect diverse values. The council rejected a recommendation to refer specifically to “decency” in the NEA’s official statement of mission.

Rejection of written decency standards contrasted sharply with Frohnmayer’s decision last year to require artists to sign certifications that they would not create obscene work. The requirement, which responded to NEA legislation that expired Sept. 30, provoked more than three dozen grant rejections and has precipitated four lawsuits against the NEA.

The action to dispense with any written reference to decency--and Frohnmayer’s emphatic pledge not to interfere in any grant on decency grounds--was taken after two communications were presented to the National Council on the Arts from grant-review panels protesting the new legal provisions.

One of the panels, which sets policy for the NEA’s opera and musical theater program, sent a memo to the council saying that in a meeting that ended Dec. 4, “we have vehemently opposed and avoided any consideration of ‘decency’ as a funding (criterion) in our deliberations and therefore we disassociate ourselves from the addition to the guidelines of any language referencing this issue.”

A second panel, which met to judge playwright fellowship applicants, sent a memo dated Dec. 12 expressing similar sentiments and demanding that written grant guidelines ignore the “decency” issue since panel members felt powerless to define the term in an artistic context, much less judge grants based on it.

“We will, I think, follow that advice,” Frohnmayer said of the unanimous council vote. “There will not be a case where I will impose my own judgment (on a grant based on decency concerns). I am not going to be the decency czar here.”

At the same time, Frohnmayer denied any political motivation in vetoing the Chin grant, which had been recommended by a review panel specializing in arts projects that represent new, untested and unusual media. Chin said he would employ an “invisible aesthetic” to create an art piece whose subject would be a toxic waste dump.

“I perceive this to be a pretty isolated situation,” Frohnmayer said of the Chin decision. “There is a perception, entirely unwarranted, that this is a rejection of Mel Chin as an artist. This project, in my view, was not a worthy project.” He characterized as “outrageous” any assertion that political considerations played any part in the grant rejection.

“It was difficult for me to see what the aesthetic value of this project was or how the public would interact with it,” Frohnmayer said. “I was not persuaded (of) the aesthetic value. There was absolutely no political pressure here. Just because the artist is denied (one grant) does not mean that the artist is rejected.”

Frohnmayer said he felt no obligation to seek additional explanation from the artist before canceling the grant or to inform National Council on the Arts members of his decision before word of the veto reached the press. He said he mailed council members a memorandum telling them what he had done, but none of the 12 people present at the meeting had received the Frohnmayer memo before news reports of the veto were published.

Chin, who has filed an appeal, is scheduled to meet with Frohnmayer next week. Several major arts institutions across the country, led by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, which recently organized a major show of Chin’s work, have reacted angrily to the decision.

Last summer, Frohnmayer rejected fellowships to four prominent performance artists after reportedly telling a meeting of arts leaders in Seattle that the rejections were necessitated by the need to calm conservative critics of the NEA in Congress. Frohnmayer has repeatedly denied political motivations in the performance-art rejections.