THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 10, 1994 TAG: 9407080033
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
At the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis recently, ``performance artist'' Ron Athey carved up an assistant with a scalpel, sopped up the blood with paper towels and then ran the bloody mess over the audience on a clothesline. This show was made possible, in part, by your tax dollars.
Athey is one of hundreds of ``artists'' who receive money from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency that will dole out about $140 million in tax dollars this year.
The NEA, you recall, sponsored such artists as the late Robert Mapplethorpe, who specialized in homoerotic photographs. There was also Andres Serrano, who used his funding to create a photo titled ``Piss Christ,'' which consisted of a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine.
The controversy generated by those grants prompted the Clinton administration to pick actress Jane Alexander to head the NEA, hoping she could steer the agency clear of such troubles.
But sponsorship of Athey seems to show that not much has changed at the NEA. Alexander showed how sensitive these matters are by claiming initially that the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, which reported the incident three weeks after it happened, had gotten the story wrong. In fact, the story was written by an art critic friendly to the NEA.
Congress seems to be waking up to the fact that funding artists such as Athey, Mapplethorpe and Serrano with tax money is not popular with the public. As a result of the uproar caused by Athey, the Senate Appropriations Committee recently recommended the NEA's budget be cut by $7 million.
Few Americans would likely conclude that Athey's ``art,'' which also included the artist having his scalp pierced with acupuncture needles, represents the ``best art America has to offer,'' which Alexander claimed was her goal.
Cutting the agency's budget is a starting point, but maybe the Congress that voted to raise taxes because of the size of the budget deficit should ask if going through these controversies every few years is worth the candle. Maybe if Congress left the money in peoples' pockets to begin with, then citizens could support the artists of their choice. by CNB