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No More Evil in the Guise of Art Hot on the heels of stripping President Clinton of his line-item veto power and turning down Kenneth Starr's attempt to acquire the late Vincent Foster's White House notes, the Supreme Court has upheld an ambiguous law making it possible for the NEA to take "decency and respect" into consideration when handing out grants. The decision in the NEA vs. Finley 97-371 was 8-1 in favor of the NEA's quest to retain the right not to fund controversial artwork. This means that the NEA is authorized to decide, based on clear-cut terms like "decency" and "respect," what is good for us to read and see. Of course, this really means nothing except a kind of purely subjective control over publicly funded art. The most likely effect is that people and groups seeking grants will be less willing to take risks on works or artists that might be turned down due to being "indecent." I can't help but wonder if there are any compromising photos of Monica Lewinsky out there that will never see the light of day as a result of this ruling. Suppose someone like Kenneth Starr or President Clinton had access to secret photos of Monica Lewinsky. If these imagined photos qualified as works of art, perhaps the president or the prosecutor could previously have acquired grant money to show the photos publically. This money could then have been used as a replacement for lost Chinese contributions to the Democratic Party, or perhaps to supplement the meager millions Kenneth Starr is forced to subsist on while pursuing indecent acts for American consumption outside of the realm of art. Reactions to Mapplethorpe's original photographs, which are often cited as being part of the cause of the recent NEA hoopla, would not even compare to the reactions to possible compromising photos of Monica. And what about Linda Tripp? But maybe the ruling is a blessing in disguise. Mapplethorpe foolishly maintained the unpopular term "art," which allows all kinds of criticism as being elitist, antisocial, and generally un-American. Possible photos of Monica Lewinsky would avoid this stigma by being referred to as "in the public interest." The NEA alone would call the photos art, while the politicians and lawyers go about the business of protecting the American public from the hidden unknown. Newt himself could do nothing against this, and we would all get to see all kinds of kinky things. Come to think of it, why didn't Mapplethorpe simply become a politician? Then we could have seen all kinds of his photos in some sizzling expose. Politics as art; art as politics. Now there's something we should take before the Supreme Court. -Chris |
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