David Lei | Retrospective debate

This year marks the 20th anniversary of a famously controversial free speech incident involving Penn. No, I'm not speaking of how FBI agents observed club meetings during the 1970s or the theft of an entire run of The Daily Pennsylvanian in the early 1990s - it might be hard to imagine, but Penn was once a recurring backdrop for national debates about free speech. There's another one.

I'm referring to a traveling exhibition hosted by Penn's Institute of Contemporary Art in the late 1980s - Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment.

The show, for which the ICA received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, was a retrospective on the photographic artist Robert Mapplethorpe. While it was received with quiet fanfare here, the show generated quite a stir as it moved onto other cities.

That's because Mapplethorpe's work included, along with mainstream still lifes, what many considered graphic and homosexually erotic depictions of men. The controversy eventually reached Congress, sparking a heated public debate about government sponsorship of the arts. For many, it was the apex of the culture wars.

The culture wars are long over, but the questions inspired by that entire episode have never been adequately settled.

First, some background.

After other cities expressed concern about the content, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington cancelled its display of the exhibition on concerns it would be punished for it by the NEA, and the art community erupted in protest. That, of course, got Congress' attention.

That same year, Senate conservatives Jesse Helms and Alfonse D'Amato had already made the NEA appropriations bill a signature issue after public outrage over $15,000 in taxpayers' money that was awarded to Andres Serrano for Piss Christ, a photograph of the crucifix submerged in the artist's urine.

The NEA was forced to require that its artists sign "obscenity pledges," promising not to tackle certain undesired subjects in their work.

In addition, the director of the Contemporary Arts Center of Cincinnati Dennis Barrie was prosecuted on obscenity charges for displaying the exhibit at his museum, the first such case in the nation.

For many, Mapplethorpe and Serrano became rallying calls against either the censorship of the arts or the government sponsorship of the arts. But the issue isn't quite so simple, especially in retrospect.

I came of age after the culture wars ended, and while I wouldn't hang one of his more-explicit portraits in my living room, it's difficult for me to find Mapplethorpe's work offensive - I've seen "worse," so to speak, and indecency standards seem, well, inappropriate.

But I can certainly imagine art for which I would consider government sponsorship completely unacceptable. How would you feel if the NEA funded a radical, right-leaning exhibit with works created by a known neofascist and racist? It's a question I asked myself. And it's a question I asked Claudia Gould, currently the director of ICA.

On whether or not she would even put on such an exhibit in the first place, Gould said, "If it's a really right-wing artist and someone who supports the Klan, I probably would censor myself and not show it, but it depends on the curatorial thesis." She added that she would not object to the art being funded by the NEA and shown at some other museum.

That's where I'd disagree. While I would never advocate for prosecution against any form of expression, I would find it unconscionable to support - through my tax dollars - art I believe condones hate or violence, which Mapplethorpe's did not. But that's my standard. It would be impossible to devise one that everyone in this nation could agree to.

That leads me to, in essence, doubt the legitimacy of the NEA intrinsically, even though I wholeheartedly support government sponsorship of the arts in many areas. In short, I'm conflicted.

Nearly two weeks ago, the ICA put on a two-day conference to commemorate the 20th anniversary of these events, with Janet Kardon, the Mapplethorpe exhibit's curator, returning to offer her perspective. The continued discussion of culture-war topics, especially from our modern vantage point, is refreshing. We won't know we're in the midst of the next cultural debate until it arrives, so it's important that we continue to study the past.

David Lei is a Wharton junior from Brooklyn, NY. He is the former Executive Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. The Lei-bertarian appears on Mondays. His email address is lei@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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