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NEWS
Battles Continue Over Censorship
of Feminist and Homoerotic Art
by Cliff O'Neill and Andrea K. Brown
Ceramic vaginas enrage
right wing legislators
Washington—The U.S. House of
Representatives decided in late July to cut
$1.3 million from the University of the
District of Columbia's 1991 budget in
response to UDC's decision to spend $1.6
million in private bonds to display feminist
artist Judy Chicago's critically-acclaimed
piece, "The Dinner Party" on their campus.
"The Dinner Party" is triangular in shape,
covers almost 1,000 square feet and symbol
izes the achievements of women throughout
history in a series of place settings where the
the ceramic "food" is suggestive of women's
genitalia.
The UDC budget cut came in the form of
an amendment sponsored by Rep. Stan
Parris (R-Va.); members of the Senate com
mittee to whom the funding bill now goes
for approval have already indicated their dis
taste for the controversial piece. Lobbyists
who had only 24 hours notice before the
vote in the House, are hopeful they will be
able to defeat the funding cut in the Senate.
Amendment sponsor Rep. Stan Parris (R-
Va.) said, "I have no desire to censor this or
any other work, no matter how offensive.
But I do have a quarrel with those who
would insist that we use public funds to pro
mote and proselytize their own special inter
ests on an unsuspecting public."
But the piece, given to the University as a
gift, is being cleaned and transported with
privately-generated funds. Those funds are
also being used to renovate the University
library where it will be displayed.
Rep. Ronald Dellums (D.-Calif.) sug
gested that if Parris thought "The Dinner
Party" obscene, other government-financed
objects "that look like phallic symbols"
should be similarly stripped of funds.
"I think that it is pornography to see a
nuclear weapon standing erect with only
one function, and that is to destroy human
life on this planet," declared Dellums.
A UDC trustee announced that he would
ask the University Board to reconsider fund
ing the display, in reaction to the possible
passage of the Parris amendment.
Patsy Lynch
D.C. activists protest N.E.A. decision
to postpone decisions on five
controversial grants.
"Rubberman " Campaign
Evades Opponents
San Francisco—Attempts to ban the San
Francisco AIDS Foundation's "Rubberman"
posters from the Municipal Railway in San
Francisco were quashed late last month
when the Public Utilities Commission
refused to review the ad campaign. Thomas
Elzey, general manager of the P.U.C.
brought the request, challenging the appro
priateness of the posters for display by a
public agency.
The "Rubberman" campaign also
includes billboards, bus shelter posters, ads
in gay newspapers, nude photo layouts in
adult magazines and a safe sex pinup calen
dar, according to a recent article in the San
Francisco Chronicle.
At the end of July, costumed "rubber-
men" were scheduled to make rounds to the
city's gay bars, handing out condoms and
safe sex information. The campaign is
designed to provide positive reinforcement
for the maintenance of safe sex practices.
Activists Disrupt NEA
Council Meeting
Washington—A group of angry gay and
lesbian activists disrupted a meeting of the
National Council on the Arts here on August
4, protesting the panel's decision to defer
votes on grants to two controversial perfor
mance artists until November.
The Council, an advisory committee of
the National Endowment for the Arts, held
their quarterly meeting August 3-5 in the
shadow of ever-growing controversy sur
rounding censorship and federal funding for
the arts. More than 300 protesters gathered
both inside the meeting room and outside
the building where the Saturday council
meeting was being held.
NEA Chair John Frohnmayer announced
that the agency was postponing votes on five
grants in an experimental art category
because of a possible conflict of interest
involving the peer review panel that recom
mended the applications. Holly Hughes sat
on that committee; she and Karen Finley
were among the recommended applicants.
The two had also been denied grants in June
by Frohnmayer, after having been included
in a recommendation by the Solo
Performance Fellowship Panel.
Nine protesters disrupted the meeting,
generally making noise, and reading sexual
ly explicit poetry from gay and lesbian
artists. Frohnmayer had them removed by
police; they were released without being
arrested. Once outside, the group joined the
crowd, chanting, stomping, and blaring
horns to aggravate the council members.
While Frohnmayer insisted the postpone
ment was designed to avoid the appearance
of bias, other sources cite a different reason.
Funding the grants now—immediately prior
to September's expected congressional bat
tle over NEA reauthorization—could endan
ger the agency's survival.
During the first day of meetings, the
council voted to recommend that NEA
abandon a requirement that grant recipients
sign an anti-obscenity pledge, but
Frohnmayer did not indicate if he would fol
low the committee's recommendation.
In its final meetings on Sunday, August
5, the advisory body rejected a proposal by
council member Jacob Neusner to bar sup
port for any project that "advocates or pro
motes a particular political, ideological, reli
gious or partisan point of view."
Instead the committee adopted a proposal
by Frohnmayer that reaffirmed a commit
ment "to bring quality art to the American
people," maintaining an opposition to
obscenity.
4
Southern Voice/August 16,1990