Artist says 'Good taste is the enemy of art'

In a lecture full of phallic images, guest speaker Anita Steckel discussed sexual art in the 1970s and the battles of censorship that ensued.

"The whole concept of an artist is freedom," said Steckel. "And what is freedom? Being able to go all the way."

Steckel is a feminist artist who has been dealing with sensitive issues such as race, sex and gender for over 40 years. She led a lecture at the Institute of Contemporary Art yesterday, organized by visiting professor Richard Meyer of the Sachs Forum in Contemporary Art."

Steckel's work has often been greeted with controversy over its sexually explicit nature.

"Good taste is the enemy of art," she said. "It's wonderful for curtains, but in art, it's suffocating."

Upon entering the lecture hall, the about 60 attendees were greeted with a work called "Giant Woman Over New York," depicting a nude woman straddling the Empire State Building. It was one of the more tame images on display.

"The entire [Giant Woman] series is nude because nude is one of the of the things we work with in art," Steckel said after Meyer asked if the nudity represented sexual liberation. "That's all."

Steckel said she has had firsthand experience with censorship. In 1971, a county legislator tried to shut down an exhibition of her work at Rockland Community College in New York.

"I wasn't clever enough to know how to take advantage of it," Steckel said. "I was just horrified my art was being attacked."

The event did, however, motivate her to create the Fight Censorship Group in 1973, she said, which brought sexually frank artwork to college campuses in order to spark debate about censorship.

Steckel is still causing a stir, but is now confronting the Bush administration with her work.

There were several such works shown, one called "The Oil Pump," which depicts President Bush performing oral sex on Saudi leader King Abdullah.

Another, "Macho Christianity," showed Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with crosses superimposed on their crotches.

Steckel also commented on censorship in contemporary art.

"There is an atmosphere of fear and repression," she said. "We are living in a time when these people will really come after you."

"It was absolutely refreshing," said Fine Arts graduate student Milana Braslavsky. "She was humble and hilarious."

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