No Funds If Art Offends--NEA Boss : Funding: The acting head of the arts agency says she will refuse federal money for projects she believes are primarily sexually explicit.

Warning that the National Endowment for the Arts is in danger of “going down the tubes” from loss of public support, the new acting head of the agency said Tuesday she will refuse federal funding for arts projects she believes are primarily sexually explicit or offend strongly held religious beliefs.

Anne-Imelda Radice, who replaced the ousted John E. Frohnmayer as director of the embattled NEA, outlined her approach to controversial grants in testimony on the NEA’s $175.9-million budget request before a House Appropriations subcommittee.

In those few cases where she must intervene in the final decision, possibly overriding the recommendations of NEA expert panels or the arts council appointed by the President, Radice said she will consider not only artistic merit but also public and congressional sensibilities and the likely effect on the agency’s future.

“We’re talking about public money--taxpayer dollars,” Radice repeated several times. “It’s imperative that we’re very careful with this federal investment.”

Controversial artistic works, like those that have generated criticism of the NEA by conservatives and some religious leaders, should be financed by private groups rather than with public money, she said.

“You might have a high quality work that has difficult subject matter or flies in the face of deeply held religious beliefs,” she explained. “That particular project is best served in the private sector.”

Later, Rep. Sidney R. Yates (D-Ill.), a leading advocate of the agency, asked whether artistic excellence alone should be the criterion for making federal grants.

Radice replied: “Excellence is more than technical ability or trendiness or expression of social concerns. There are the concerns of the taxpayer, the concerns of the Congress, as well.”

Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio) asked how Radice was going to stop providing funds for sexually explicit art.

“I am going to use common sense,” she said. “We are dealing with taxpayers’ money. If a grant application projects sexually explicit material--if that leaps out at you--we just can’t afford to fund that.”

Her testimony indicated that Radice was unlikely to approve a $10,000 grant to the visual arts center of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to support a “Corporeal Politics” sculpture exhibit with depictions of breasts, genitals and buttocks to show a fracturing of the body politic.

The grant request was narrowly endorsed, 6-4, by an NEA peer panel and approved 11-1 by the arts council. Under the 1990 law that reauthorized the NEA, however, the agency’s director has the authority to make the final decision.

“Perhaps if the endowment found itself in a position where there would be controversy, it would be suggested to have two exhibits,” she said at one point. “One (exhibit) with federal support, a second with private funds.”

Yates, chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that handles NEA funds, complained that attacks by the “religious right” accusing the NEA of promoting pornography focused on an “infinitesimal fraction” of the NEA’s grants.