COVER STORY : What’s good taste? What is art? What’s real? Who owns America?

JENNIFER LAWSON

PBS executive vice president for national programming and promotion services

What is art?

Art is the most skilled and most developed way of doing even the most ordinary things; that is to say that we all use our voices, but that when someone is singing, the art of singing is the most skillful use of the voice.

When it comes to obscenity . . .in our country we are in a debate about ethics and morality, asking which emotions become appropriate in response to a work of art. If a work of art moves into the realm of sensuality, does it then move into the realm of obscenity? This can become quite subjective.

Who decides?

In the interest of preserving democracy, these must always be questions that don’t have easy answers. I don’t think that art is decided by institutions, necessarily--anyone can name great artists who have been rejected by great institutions. Nor should it be decided by the artists themselves; that would allow me to arrange the chairs in my room and call it a work of art. But I don’t believe that we want restrictive judgments unless we want to devalue democracy, and devalue free expression and thought in this country.

I do believe that public funds should be used to support art, and obviously I believe in the mission and purpose and value of an organization like the National Endowment for the Arts. Public television is a medium that provides information and education, and attempts to do so in the most entertaining and engaging format possible. We aspire toward art.

MATT GROENING

Creator of “The Simpsons.”

What is good taste?

Good taste is pretending to be interested when you’re bored and acting more reserved than you feel in order to impress people you don’t like.

Who decides?

Good taste is always decided by the richest person in the room. In cases of equal wealth, good taste is decided by the person whose normal facial expression most resembles that of someone getting a lingering whiff of a very disagreeable odor.

JACKIE MASON

Comedian whose remarks over the years have startled and offended some groups.

Who owns America?

I don’t see what the problem is. I don’t see where we have something to be afraid of or that foreign purchases have adversely affected anything in this country. The competition with Japan has only done us good. Until the competition started, the American car was the worst-made in the world. They (the companies) were forced to make improvements. We did not make progress in this country in the last 20 years. America was getting sluggish.

RICHARD HEFFNER

Chairman of Classifications And Ratings Administration of the motion picture industry, which this year replaced the X rating with NC-17: No children under 17 allowed.

What’s good taste?

Our ratings have nothing to do with taste. They have to do with parental opinions, and if we let our individual sense of good taste, bad taste, medium tastes enter into the ratings decisions, we would not be doing our job.

Who has it?

Listen I hope I’m too smart to get into that kind of (personal) discussion. . .

ROSEANNE BARR

Comedian and television actress

What’s good taste?

I think myself and my husband, Tom Arnold, should be the final word on what is obscene. We’re cooler than Jesse Helms and we’ve actually had sex in the past decade.

JUNE WAYNE

Artist and arts activist.

What is art and who decides?

While damn near everybody in the art world thinks that the decision of what is art is up for grabs, in fact, only the artist has that power. The rest is seasonal gossip.

Who pays?

The outcome of the National Endowment for the Arts controversy this year has left us with a gravely damaged institution. NEA grants can no longer be taken seriously. They have lost their professional prestige now that the chair of the Endowment will decide who is to receive grants. Peer panels of professionals will no longer make the decisions and therefore there is a justifiable suspicion that either a grantee has the right political connections or else is so bland as to be thought of as safe from attack by Helmsian zealots. Thus, an artist who receives a grant will have to suffer a certain onus that will come along with the money.

When the endowments were founded, the wording of the legislation sheilded them from political manipulation. That shield has been pierced so now the endowments are ripe for pork-barreling, and there is little reason to believe that the current chairman is not susceptible to those temptations.

The arts communities were amazed and then stunned by the zeal with which (NEA Chairman) Mr. (John) Frohnmayer rushed to enforce the language favored by Mr. Helms. Mr. Frohnmayer’s unncecessary implementation of those oaths showed that he had little understanding of the arts and even less awareness of how to use the great support he actually enjoyed in the battle just ended.

Inasmuch as he is not a trained arts executive, there is little reason to be optimistic that his having the power to decide who is to receive grants is justified. We would not put him at the head of the Department of Health and Human Services, for which he is equally unqualified. We (in the arts) should be able to propose qualified people, and we should be able to prepare an advisory of at least the abstract qualifications for that position.

WARREN BEATTY

Actor and director.

What’s good taste?

The most cogent response I know, when issues of morality are introduced, is to quote (English author, art critic and social reformer) John Ruskin, who said: “Taste is the only morality. You tell me what you like and I’ll tell you what you are.”