NEA Distances Itself From San Diego Project : * Arts: After $12,000 grant, the endowment wants ‘NHI’ to stop acknowledging its support. The works criticize a police murder investigation.

Plagued by controversies and headed by a lame-duck director, the National Endowment for the Arts has taken another stab at distancing itself from a grant it has funded.

Since late February, five San Diego artists have been using a $12,000 grant awarded in 1990 to help produce a multi-part project called “NHI.” Through a series of billboards, performances, a book and a gallery presentation, the artists criticize a local police task force investigating the murders of 45 women who have been labeled as prostitutes, drug addicts and transients. The term “NHI” refers to police slang for marginal murders and means “No Humans Involved.” In all aspects of the project, the artists refer to news reports alleging that the term NHI has been used by members of the Metropolitan Homicide Task force investigating the women’s murders, which have occurred since 1985.

Last week, the National Endowment issued a formal “fact sheet” acknowledging that it funded the project but claiming the artists did not clearly represent the substance of the “NHI” project in their original grant application. The NEA also sent a letter disclaiming the grant to Installation Gallery, the San Diego arts organization that served as a funding umbrella for the grant.

“Installation Gallery’s application did not mention the specific content or the title of the ‘No Humans Involved’ project, and the endowment was not informed about the specifics of the project in advance,” the NEA fact sheet states. “Upon becoming aware of the details of the project, and of the fact that Installation Gallery was crediting the endowment with support of the project, the endowment advised the grantee that it would not be associated with the project, and has directed the grantee to remove all acknowledgment of NEA support for it.”

Jill Collins, director of public affairs at the NEA, said Wednesday: “We felt that the exhibit created by Installation Gallery does not necessarily reflect the views of the National Endowment for the Arts.”

Expressing outrage at the NEA’s statement, the artists responsible for the project--Deborah Small, Elizabeth Sisco, Carla Kirkwood, Scott Kessler and Louis Hock--on Tuesday issued a response headed “The NEA Is Dead.”

Saying that they believe the arts endowment is responding to attacks by presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan in his campaign against President Bush, the artists said the NEA has “finally succumbed to the attack of a ‘sound-bite polemicist.’ ”

NEA Chairman John E. Frohnmayer was forced by the White House to resign in late February after Buchanan began a series of attacks accusing the arts endowment of funding obscene art. Frohnmayer will leave May 1.

Small, who served as project director for the NEA grant, said the artists have followed the intention of the grants proposal and have informed grant officials as the project evolved.

“They are real aware of the kind of work we do,” Small said, referring to past NEA grants for billboards and other public art projects in San Diego which have criticized the city.

The arts endowment is acknowledged in the artists’ published book detailing accounts of the murders and the investigations into them. The artists have no intention of removing the NEA’s name from the project, Small said.

The artists were first notified of the NEA’s objections through a letter sent March 9 to the board of directors of Installation Gallery from Anne-Imelda Radice, senior deputy chairman of the NEA. It asked Installation to remove the NEA’s name from the project but did not rescind the grant: “While we recognize that we cannot at this late date require you to return any grant funds, we are hereby directing Installation Gallery to remove any acknowledgment of NEA support from any materials associated with this project.”

A spokeswoman for Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego), who serves on the committee responsible for funding the NEA, said that staff from the congressman’s office had contacted the NEA about the project earlier this month. In 1990, Lowery had objected to a previous project by the same artists that had used advertising space on bus benches to accuse police of excessive use of force.

“It is not the content of the work that the congressman objects to. You don’t use advertising space for advocacy art and charge it to the American public,” said Lowery aide Tina Kreisher.