Museum Sues New York After Funding Threat

The Brooklyn Museum of Art sued the city on Tuesday, seeking to stop the mayor from making good on his threat to freeze millions of dollars in funding because of an exhibit that includes a dung-decorated portrait of the Virgin Mary.

The museum’s Board of Trustees voted to proceed as planned with the exhibit that opens Saturday. They said Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has no right to freeze funding because he did not like the exhibit’s content.

The federal lawsuit asked that the city be barred from punishing the museum--either by withholding its funding, replacing its leaders or seizing its building, as Giuliani had threatened.

City Hall immediately criticized the board’s action. “We will be stopping funding to the museum starting tomorrow,” said Deputy Mayor Joseph Lhota, the mayor’s representative on the board.

Giuliani had threatened to evict the museum from its city-owned home unless the board agreed to change the exhibition of British art, “Sensation,” which he has called “sick” and “disgusting.”

Meanwhile, the leaders of two dozen city museums and cultural institutions--including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum--warned Giuliani in a letter that his actions set “a dangerous precedent.”