Arts, Rights Groups Protest Removal of Nude Sculpture

A federal official’s decision to remove nude figures from a new government building in downtown Los Angeles prompted protests Wednesday from arts and public interest groups who contend that the move suppresses freedom of expression and may violate a landmark law protecting artists’ rights.

“A lot of people in the arts community are really upset about this,” said Adofo V. Nodal, general manager of the city’s Cultural Affairs Department. He added that his agency plans to file a complaint with the U.S. government over the move.

“The federal government thinks that within their property, they can cancel all laws. They say they’re concerned about this work being a magnet for vandals,” Nodal said. “But the people who are vandalizing this art are the ones who are desecrating it. . . . We have to stand up against this.”

Museum of Contemporary Art Director Richard Koshalek and Associate Director Sherri Geldin issued a joint statement Wednesday denouncing the removal of portions of the sculpture and urging the General Services Administration to reconsider the move.

“Concerns arising about the piece should be aired in a truly public exchange of ideas, in which all interested parties--including the artist--are given an opportunity to be heard,” they said.

They said objections to the work’s nudity “imply that the naked human body has no place in art.”

An attorney for sculptor Tom Otterness said the artist hopes to see his work restored rather than resort to a lawsuit under the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990. The complex law protects artists from alterations of their works. A key issue is whether the law covers government projects.

Otterness’ attorney, Henry Welt of New York, argued that the General Services Administration action was a violation of the complex and still-untested law.

“Tom was extremely upset and disappointed at the actions taken without any prior notice or respect for his artistic and legal rights,” said Welt, who represents artists and galleries. “But his goal, after a huge amount of creative and physical effort, is to see his work displayed in the public space for which it was created.”

Welt said Otterness was in Germany on Wednesday and would not make a decision on his course of action until returning next week.

The controversy arose after Edwin Thomas, General Services Administration regional administrator in San Francisco, ordered two figures in Otterness’ work removed from a courtyard outside the new federal building Monday night.

Thomas did not respond to requests for an interview. But administration spokeswoman Mary Filippini said Wednesday that the agency is “willing to discuss where we go from here with the artist,” and that no permanent decisions have been made about the future of the artwork.

Her tone was more conciliatory than on Tuesday, when she said Thomas had determined, in consultation with GSA attorneys, that the 1990 artists’ rights law did not require that Otterness be notified because the work was federal property.

Thomas’ action came only hours after he received a complaint from Rep. Edward R. Roybal (D-Los Angeles). Roybal, who chairs a House subcommittee that approves funding for the GSA, said he personally found the two nude figures “an attractive nuisance” that were appropriate for a museum but not for a public courtyard. The new building, to be dedicated next month, will be named after Roybal. Roybal said at least two federal judges had complained to him about the figures, one of which is a stylized sculpture of a woman in a squatting position. The second is a newborn baby girl lying on its back with its legs up, holding a globe. The prototype of that sculpture is on permanent exhibit at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York.

Richard Armstrong, a Whitney curator, described the GSA’s move as a “desecration of the ensemble” that includes a 300-foot-long pergola with a frieze depicting a war between the sexes that culminates in the creation of new life.

A spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Los Angeles chapter also condemned the GSA move and said the group was preparing to help the artist should he take legal action.

Rep. Les AuCoin (D-Oregon), in Los Angeles to deliver a speech on censorship for the ACLU on Wednesday night, accused the GSA “of being indifferent to the moral rights of artists.” AuCoin helped defeat a recent move by Sen. Jesse Helms (D-N.C.) to ban the use of federal funds for certain artworks that are deemed offensive because they display sexual organs.

He said: “When I read about this, my mind went back to a visit I made to newly liberated Prague last August, where I saw a statue of an automobile propped up on human legs with human genitalia. The question of the day for people in Los Angeles is why is there more artistic freedom in Prague?”