I am working out my thoughts on this issue, which affects my institution
directly, as the New York Hall of Science gets money from the City under
the same terms as the Brooklyn Museum.  Those terms have rarely, if ever,
before included the Mayor vetoing an exhibition.

I fear that I have an outlier's response to this whole Giuliani thing.  I
never have voted or will vote for him, but I am at least bemused at the
unquestioned concept that there are "rights" of freedom that somehow inhere
to art.  I am much more comfortable with the idea that there is a
constantly negotiated dialogue between artists and their communities,
however community might be defined. If a artist sets out to piquer les
bourgeoisie, it is churlish for the artist to get up in arms when the
bourgeoisie is well and truly piqued (though I haven't heard a word about
this imbroglio from the artists...I suspect they are calculating the rise
in value of their current and future work...)

From the little I understand of law, the current state of negotiations
between artistic freedom and the community is represented by the Supreme
Courts decision when a group of artists challenged the NEA for taking away
grants that had been provisionally awarded (if I remember correctly, the
panel had decided to award the grants, but the head of the NEA rescinded
the decisions.)  The courts decision, to the extent that I understand it,
was that a government funding agency can refuse a grant to support artwork
that is considered defamatory, derogatory, insulting, obscene...but it
cannot rescind funding based upon these criteria.  And furthermore, govt
funding cannot be used punitively to punish an institution that shows art
that is objectionable by any criteria.

That is clearly what Giuliani is doing, and to that extent, he is clearly
wrong and outside the law.  But I think that it is at least silly and maybe
more offensive than that when some abstract "right to artistic freedom" is
trundled out.  There is simply no right like that in the abstract (is there
any right in the abstract?) and when artists set out to make a living
through transgression (as at least some of these YBA's seem to be doing),
then it seems just absurd for everyone to clamour for protection from the
institutions that the artist is working to transgress.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for transgressive art (I even kind of like
Damien Hirsts stuff that I've seen in pictures), and I'm all for artists of
all stripe struggling to get a few bucks or more.  I just find it silly
that people cluck over Giuliani's action in this regard when there are so
many societal offenses with victims that didn't set out to tell the society
to screw themselves.

Duck and cover....

I speak for myself, and not for my institution or anyone else.

Eric Siegel

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