NEA Rejects Grants for 4 Performance Artists : Arts: The move is condemned as political appeasement. The endowment's chairman personally intervened in the grant selection.

By ALLAN PARACHINI

June 30, 1990 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

In an unprecedented action, the National Endowment for the Arts on Friday turned down fellowship grants to four controversial performance artists--but awarded money to 14 others.

The move seemed certain to ignite a raging new protest within the nation’s arts community where the grant-rejection decision was immediately condemned as an attempt by the NEA to appease its political opponents.

The action by NEA Chairman John E. Frohnmayer came after weeks of rumors and speculation over the fate of 18 solo-performance fellowship grants that entered the NEA controversy in early May.

At that time, the endowment’s advisory board voted to delay a decision on whether to approve the grants in the wake of attacks by conservative columnists and print journalists on the content of work produced by feminist New York performance artist Karen Finley, one of the recommended fellows.

The issue had also attracted the attention of an internal NEA theater overview panel, which urged Frohnmayer to resist growing political pressures--which, according to sources familiar with the situation, came both from the White House and Congress--to reject the grants.

Those whose grant were rejected include Finley and performers Holly Hughes of New York City, John Fleck of Los Angeles and Tim Miller of Santa Monica. Finley, Hughes and Fleck had previously been targeted publicly by NEA opponents.

The appearance on the rejection list of Miller, an anti-AIDS activist whose work includes strongly political elements, was something of a surprise. Miller said he believed he may have gotten on the rejection list because a personal statement he filed with his application attacked Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), a leader of the anti-NEA forces in Congress.

In his statement, Miller said, “Look here, Sen. Jesse Helms, keep your porky pig face out of the NEA.”

In a statement announcing the names of the 14 winners of the fellowships, the NEA acknowledged that Frohnmayer had taken the extraordinary step of intervening in the fellowship situation after the May meeting of the National Council on the Arts voted to defer action on the grants until early August.

In Washington, a spokesman for Helms issued a “no comment” statement on the NEA announcement Friday. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Lomita), another leader of conservative opponents of the NEA in Congress, did not respond to requests for a statement. In the past, Rohrabacher had condemned the content of work of some of the artists in question, including Finley, whose performances have sometimes included segments in which she appears on stage naked from the waist up, smeared with chocolate and covered with alfalfa sprouts.

The costuming, Finley has said, is intended to symbolize various aspects of the oppression of women. Finley, Hughes, Fleck and Miller have all been extensively reviewed by critics across the country and are uniformly perceived as prominent artists in their medium. Miller received an NEA choreography fellowship last year.

In a telephone interview from her home near New York City, Finley said she learned of her fellowship rejection Friday in a fax from the NEA.

“I am being punished because I am a morally concerned artist,” Finley said. “We as a nation are now in an era of blacklisting, as during the 1950s, called McCarthyism. Today is a sad regressive day in our national history. Today begins an era of American history not strong in its cultural diversity, but weak in not allowing our cultural diversity a right to speak.

“Those who have written libelous articles on me have never seen me perform. Is Mr. Frohnmayer listening to those who have not seen me and not listening the peer panel that recommended me and knows my work? Nor does he listen to the many positive, thorough reviews of my work. This is the man who is in charge of the National Endowment for the Arts?”

Reached at her home in New York, Hughes said she had been rejected twice before for NEA grants--because, she contended, she is a politically activist lesbian. “I think that Frohnmayer is bowing to political pressure from a far-right minority that thinks they can redirect the hatred and prejudice that used to be directed at people’s color and . . . at Jews in Nazi Germany.

“Now they think it’s open season on feminists and openly gay artists. Since my work is very popular, I’m saying he’s going to lose. People are not going to allow these artists to be blacklisted. We’re just the scapegoats du jour. Wasn’t our government founded on the principle of freedom of expression, including Holly Hughes and Jesse Helms? They’re not just censoring me, they’re censoring my audiences.”

The endowment and sources familiar with the situation said that Frohnmayer began early last week to poll the 24 members of the council individually and that the chairman sent the council members materials describing the work of the 18 proposed fellows. As a result of the poll, said an NEA statement, 14 of the 18 grants were approved.

Separately, The Times learned that two of the rejected fellowship applicants have also been recommended by a different NEA review panel for grants under still another NEA program. Those grants are expected to come up for consideration by the National Council on the Arts at its scheduled early August. It was not certain which two artists or what NEA program was involved. The endowment statement was silent on the simultaneous action rejecting the remaining four applicants. “Long-standing endowment policy precludes the agency from commenting publicly regarding any application rejected in any category,” the NEA said.

Philip Arnoult, chairman of the NEA review panel that screened 90 applications for solo performance fellowships and recommended the 18 proposed winners, said Frohnmayer notified him of the decision to approve 14 grants and reject four about noon Friday. Arnoult is founder and artistic director of the Theatre Project in Baltimore.

“I am convinced that Mr. Frohnmayer has taken what he believes to be the only action open to him,” said Arnoult. “I believe that the decision on these four artists was based on perceived political realities. But I disagree with that decision.

“The larger debate on these issues will take place in Congress over the next weeks and I am personally saddened by the politicization of support for the arts in this country. I believe that terrible damage has already been done to these artists and to the endowment itself.”

The announcement by the endowment came two days after Frohnmayer reportedly intimated the decision to reject grants in an attempt to thwart political opposition. On Wednesday, Frohnmayer met with 12 community arts leaders in Seattle. He reportedly told the closed gathering that the status of the 18 performance fellowships was under review in an attempt to contain the controversy over the NEA and pacify Helms and other conservatives in Congress while stemming growing concern in the White House over the NEA crisis.

Reaction to the NEA announcement within the arts community was immediate and overwhelming.

“The chairman (Frohnmayer) and others are in essence acting to quote, save the endowment,” said David Chambers, a Yale School of Drama professor who is chair of the NEA’s prestigious theater overview panel that urged Frohnmayer not to cave in to political opposition to the grants earlier this month.

“The question really arises, ‘What are we saving here?’ To see (these grant recommendations) overturned is, indeed, disturbing,” said Chambers, who is also an associate artist with the South Coast Repertory Theater in Costa Mesa. “One has to wonder about the overall expediency of these political actions.”

Susan Wyatt, director of the New York gallery Artists Space, which was the focus of an NEA controversy last year over Frohnmayer’s abortive attempt to cancel a grant for an AIDS-related art show, condemned the grant-rejection decision.

Last November, Frohnmayer revoked a $10,000 grant to Artists Space in the midst of a raging controversy over the overtly political and sexual content of some of the work in the show, “Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing.” But when a counter-protest developed in the arts community, Frohnmayer recognized the situation threatened to tear the endowment apart and restored the money within a few days after revoking it.

“I discovered that, with Mr. Frohnmayer, that the withdrawal of a grant is a mistake and he recognized that it was a mistake (at the time) and that one thing about an error is that it can be corrected,” Wyatt said. “Clearly, the basis of this decision that he obviously felt he had no options, or very few options. He seems to be basing his decisions on the same rationale for withdrawing our grant--which was the current political climate. That is no basis for a decision about a grant.

“I feel that he is igniting a powder keg. He is buying into a panic mentality and scare tactics.”

“Political expediency is a horrible way to make judgments about art and the public’s access to it,” said Charlotte Murphy, executive director of the Washington-based National Assn. of Artist Organizations. “These artists are being punished for having their names appear in the press. It is as simple and chilling as that.”

“I clearly feel that, on this issue, artists are the ones being the moral leaders,” said David Mendoza, director of Artists Trust, a Seattle arts group.

NEA AWARDEES The 14 Winners of 1990 Solo Performance Fellowships:

Rachel Rosenthal, L.A.: $11,250

Kedric Wolfe, L.A.: $6,500

Nina Wise, San Raphael: $8,500

Ernesto Sanchez, Bolinas: $5,000

Eric Bass, Putney, Vt.: $11,250

Lenora Champagne, N.Y.: $6,500

Clara Crockett, N.Y.: $5,000

Fred Curchack, Dallas: $5,000

Richard Elovich, N.Y. :$5,000

Roman Paska, N.Y. :$8,000

Sara Ransom, Taos, N.M.: $5,000