Head of NEA Overturns Two Grants

Acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts Anne-Imelda Radice--who recently pledged to refuse funding for projects she deems to be sexually explicit or which offend strongly held religious beliefs--has overturned two grant recommendations for exhibitions that in one way or another depict parts of the human body.

The two $20,000 grants, which would have gone to the List Visual Arts Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Anderson Gallery at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, had both been recommended by NEA peer panels and the endowment’s advisory National Council on the Arts.

While an NEA statement says that Radice rejected the applications because the applications “did not measure up” to standards of artistic excellence and merit, Katy Kline, director of MIT’s List Visual Arts Center, said Tuesday that she and the staff of the center were “distressed to the point of outrage” and believe that Radice overturned the grant recommendation because of the content of the planned exhibition.

Last week, appearing before the House Appropriations Committee, Radice said the NEA was in danger of “going down the tubes” and that in considering final approval of grants she would take into account not only artistic merit but also public and congressional sensibilities and the likely effect on the agency’s future.

Kline said MIT’s proposed exhibition, “Corporal Politics,” features the works of four contemporary sculptors--including Robert Gober and Kiki Smith--all of whom create their work from fragments representing portions of the human body or body parts to illustrate the “dissolved identity” and “fragmented connections” of modern society.

“I suspected (after Radice’s comments) that the grant was likely to be overturned,” Kline said. “We attempted to speak with representatives of the endowment to make as clear as we could the seriousness of these artists’ work . . . it’s not sexually explicit, but we were unable to speak with anyone directly.”

Kline said the List Center still plans to proceed with the exhibit, but will have to pare down its educational outreach program and its brochure because of the budget cut.

Representatives of the Anderson Gallery were not immediately available for comment, but a spokeswoman described the project that would have been funded by the NEA as an exhibition featuring photographers Genevieve Cadieux of Montreal, Thomas Florschutz of Berlin and Annette Messager of Paris and video artist Gary Hill of Seattle. She said that all the artists portrayed enlarged images of the body and body parts “which become anonymous forms” because of the enlargement. “Some body parts are discernible,” she said.

Peter Hero, president of the Community Foundation of Santa Clara County and a member of the National Council on the Arts, said he was “disappointed” at the reversal of the MIT grant, which the council had approved by a vote of 11 to 1.

In late April, Radice assumed the duties of John E. Frohnmayer, who was forced out as director of the embattled NEA in February by the Bush Administration after repeated attacks on endowment grants by presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan. The organization remains under scrutiny from conservative religious communities and members of Congress for funding sexually explicit works of art and performances.