THE TIMES POLL : Government and the Arts : Americans Back U.S. Funding but Split Over Curbs, Poll Shows

Americans approve, by nearly 2-to-1, of government funding of the arts, but they are evenly split in their reactions to Sen. Jesse Helms’ (R-N.C.) effort to ban public money for “obscene” or “indecent” art, according to The Times Poll.

A total of 49% believe artists receiving government funding have no right to be daring or sometimes offensive in their work, while 40% said they did, whereas 11% didn’t know or wouldn’t say.

The poll, conducted Sept. 14-19, comes as a U.S. Senate subcommittee prepares to hold a confirmation hearing today on President Bush’s nominee to be the National Endowment for the Arts new chairman, Oregon lawyer John E. Frohnmayer.

The poll results were tempered by the finding that three-quarters of Americans haven’t heard about the controversy that has enveloped the endowment. Large proportions said they didn’t know enough about other issues in the controversy to respond.

A House-Senate conference committee is expected to begin deliberations next week on a compromise version of the endowment’s 1990 appropriations bill, which was amended in the Senate to include the Helms restrictions, as well as provisions blacklisting two private arts groups for five years for organizing controversial exhibitions.

Helms did not respond to calls from The Times seeking his reaction to the poll results.

Poll findings on artistic-freedom issues found Americans generally unaware of details of the endowment controversy and related issues. Some arts observers said, however, that the lack of awareness of key issues in the controversy wasn’t as high as they feared. But they said it reflects a reality the arts community has been reluctant to face--that the security of artistic freedom and the future health of the federal arts program are not issues that have excited widespread public concern.

Anne Murphy, executive director of the Washington-based American Arts Alliance, said she found the results overall to be “a rather encouraging set of statistics.” She said the division over the right of government-funded art to be daring or offensive may be the most significant finding of all. “Obviously, the majority of people are not even aware of what Mr. Helms is doing,” Murphy said.

“The poll seems to have captured the level of awareness the American public has about the endowment and issues that are surrounding the controversy,” said Richard Koshalek, director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. “I don’t think the vast majority of the public is aware or concerned at this time.”

“I guess it’s not as bad as it could have been,” said Robert H. Reid, director of the California Arts Council. “The censorship part is not as bad as I would have expected, except for the bizarre response on the Bill of Rights. Whenever you get religion, sex, the flag and politics all rolled into one issue, you’re bound to get a tremendously emotional response.”

Although there was a nearly equal division over the Helms amendment--with 25% of respondents approving of it and 23% disapproving--the largest proportion of all, 52%, said they didn’t know enough about the issue to have an opinion or hadn’t heard of the controversy at all.

A similar division appeared in public opinion over whether government money should be spent to promote the arts. While 40% said they favored such expenditures and 21% said they opposed, 39% had no opinion or were not aware of the issue.

But while an overwhelming majority of Americans--66%--agree with First Amendment guarantees against government-imposed restrictions on freedom of speech or the press, 16% disagree that such protections should exist and 18% say they don’t know.

Those observations are among findings of a new Los Angeles Times Poll based on telephone interviews with 2,217 Americans 18 and older. The national sampling included respondents in all 50 states and is subject to a sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Among the poll’s other observations were these:

While an overwhelming majority--61% versus 27%, with 12% saying they didn’t know--opposed government censorship of the arts, 49% of Americans said they think artists who get government money have no right to be daring or offensive in their work. Another 40% supported such work and 11% didn’t now or refused to answer.

More people--39% versus 31%--thought government support should be withdrawn when a controversy develops over a publicly funded artwork--specifically work alleged to be distasteful or profane; 15% said the response depended on the situation and 15% weren’t sure or wouldn’t say.

Fully 76% of the respondents had heard either nothing or very little about the controversy enveloping the national endowment. Only 6% said they had heard “a lot” about the issue.

A majority of people believe arts support should be at either the state or federal level, with about a quarter favoring each level of government.