Three NEA Program Directors Resign Posts; One Cites Politics

Within the last few weeks, three program directors of various arts disciplines at the National Endowment for the Arts have resigned their posts. Although two of the directors say their departures were not motivated by recent controversies, one of them--Susan Lubowsky of the visual arts program--said that increasing politicization of the NEA figured into her decision.

Lubowsky--who resigned along with theater program director Ben Cameron and Joe David Bellamy, director of the literature program--made no reference to politics in her June 12 resignation letter to acting chairwoman Anne-Imelda Radice.

In a phone interview Tuesday, however, Lubowsky said her decision to leave the endowment to become director of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, N.C., was in part motivated by ongoing conflicts over freedom of expression that have made it “sometimes more difficult for me to do the job I was hired to do.”

“I have been disturbed over the last couple of years by the infusion of politics into this agency,” Lubowsky said.

“I think it would be fair to state that many people in the (visual arts) field are terribly disturbed by recent developments at the endowment, and are expressing their upset in various ways--by making public statements or, in certain cases, feeling that they simply couldn’t continue to serve as panelists.

“It’s terribly unfortunate that there seems to be a polarization between a certain segment of the American public and the arts community. I think it sets the artist up in an adversarial position.”

The North Carolina arts center that Lubowsky will head is the same organization that presented Andres Serrano’s controversial work “Piss Christ” in 1987 as part of an exhibition funded by the NEA, launching protests against the endowment from political and religious conservatives.

The most recent battle was waged last month over Radice’s decision to overturn two recommendations for grants to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s List Gallery and Virginia Commonwealth University’s Anderson Gallery.

Both exhibitions included depictions of body parts and genitalia. Radice’s decision resulted in two endowment peer panels--overseeing fellowships for theater performance artists and sculptors--refusing to serve, as well as several individual protests.

NEA spokeswoman Jill Collins said that the resignations were not unusual and that there is a high turnover because the posts carry two-year contracts. She added that none of the three who resigned had been forced out of their jobs.

Bellamy, who is on leave from St. Lawrence University, said: “I think there has been a lot of negative publicity about the NEA that’s not true, and I think if the public knew the truth, they would support the NEA. . . . It has become part of a larger conversation that the public is having about values.”

Cameron--who is taking a job with Theater Communications Group--was unavailable for comment, but in his May 21 resignation letter said that his decision was not precipitated by recent events.