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The Works Themselves
The Rest of the Works
What's the Point
Entartete Kunst
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The Christian Action Network Art Protest
by Kevin Lambert - Washington DC
 On the 1st of July, the Christian Action Network, another splinter of the True Cross out of rural Virginia, met in front of the largely unmarked headquarters of the National Endowment for the Arts. They put out 3-foot photos of NEA-funded art and invited President Arthur Hiller to come out and comment, which he declined to do. "Millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on 'art' that offends the moral and religious sensibilities of the majority of Americans," they said. "Why have we allowed one renegade agency to wreak so much havoc in the United States?" They passed out their newsletter, full of pictures of what they were crusading against. Posession of that newsletter would certainly wreak havoc in Saudi Arabia.
It was a lovely, sunny day, but a little too windy and the photos kept getting blown over. Every time they'd put one aright a gust of wind would push it over again. One of the pieces, replicated on the front page of their journal, was a photograph of their favorite man-they-love-to-hate Robert Mapplethorpe, sticking a leather bullwhip up his rectum. I'd never seen it before, along with almost everything else. I never would have seen it, along with the rest of the world. Leave it to a bunch of farm-fed yokels to bring advanced art to the big city.
There was a big sign that explained their presence, with their name and each piece's claim to degeneracy, but it was too windy to stay up, so all they had were the indecent exhibitions. Passersby, therefore, thought that it was a real art exhibit, and they did what all Americans do in such a situation: they ignored it.
Look what they missed:
A painting of Christ with breasts.
A photo of an arm fuck (The successor to fist fucking).
A photo of a skull fuck (The successor to the arm fuck).
A bloody Santa Claus.
"Testicle Stretch With The Possibility of a Crushed Face"
A whole lot of separate homoeroticism, including a drawing of Jesus giving Lazarus a hand job.
Perhaps because it was out on the street, it produced the best audience reaction for an art exhibition I have ever seen. A group of big, cheerful sistahs, coming out on lunch break, looked at the stuff and went into a giggling fit that lasted for a good five minutes. "Euuuuk! Two minz!" They kept coming back, though, laughing some more each time.
That's how you have a good time with art.
The Christian activists tried to make sure that children would not see their exhibit, and posted a blue-suited goon on each side of the street to route them around it, as though it were a gas leak. One kid, about 13, did sneak past. He took a look at a few of them, wondering what the fuss was about. As soon as he saw that it was supposed to be art, he shrugged, put an exquisitely bored look on his face, and walked away.
Every time anything is held for free outside the homeless are the best audience. They grin broken-toothed smiles, start dancing during the sound check, and yell out loud, incoherent remarks about almost everything. A couple of them passed by, checked the stuff out, and broke into wild laughter. They would go back and back, yelling, "Check out da ho' widda bone! Check out da ho' widda bone!" One of them declared that he wouldn't nevah touch no ho' wid no bone. The first replied that his behavior during their most recent jail bit implied otherwise. Both laughed. Every time the wind blew the exhibitis over they ducked and yelled, as if expecting lightning.
That's how you have a good time with art.
The Works Themselves
 There was one work that really impressed me, called "The Kiss" by Joel-Peter-Wilkin. This guy had gone to the morgue, taken the unclaimed corpse of an elderly derelict, severed the head, and cut it clean down the middle. Then he faced the two sides to each other and put the lips together, causing the dead old man to be kissing himself. It was quite eerie and disturbing, and it satisfed one requirement of real art: it upset you and made you think.
When it was exhibited, one of the old man's relatives happened to see it, and apparently had a fit of hysteria. (That's another way to have a good time with art) She communicated to Wilkin, who allowed her to claim what was left of the corpse. Then he destroyed the negative. The C.A.N., to their credit, included that information in the exhibit.
I suppose that shows that Mr. Wilkin has a caring heart, which is quite possibly the last attribute an artist needs. Furthermore, his going all touchy-feely about some relatives who couldn't even call the morgue when the old guy went missing deprived us of a highly original piece of art. But a copy survives, and all of DC got to see it.
Don't thank me. Thank the Christian Action Network.
The Rest of the Works
As far as the rest of the works went, an aggressive celebration of freedom of speech is the only conceivable reason for funding any of them. But as far as I'm concerned that's plenty. What nicer compliment can you bestow on a country than it tossed a few coppers at some of its artists and let them do whatever they wanted with them? Even in the face of protests by its nattering righteous? Isn't that a sign of strength? What kind of a government allows itself to be pushed around by the simpering religious? (Answer: Iranian. Medeival Spanish.) Is that what we want in our elected officials? People afraid of Pat Robertson?
The NEA costs each of us about 60 cents a year. The DEA, which is ruining the country, runs into the billions. One of the creepy little guys - they all looked like Alabama high school principals -- asked me how I felt about my tax money supporting things like this. "I can think of a lot of other things my tax money does," I replied, thinking of how many friends I've had doing time on dope charges. I wasn't hostile, and certainly not witty, but he turned away as if I had 666 tatooed on my forehead. Then he scurried away.
What's the Point?
Why would a bunch of grown men, giving their real names and everything, go make a long bus journey to act like little old ladies? Well, these people, like the Taliban and the Nazis, are Puritans. Puritans hate art. Puritans actually hate all kinds of things, but artists are going to be sent to an especially dank and smelly corner of their Shining City. Art is frivolous, art does not bring in the crops, and art gives people the excuse to paint their faces and wear bright colors. Every flowering of the arts, even the mildest renaissance, has been followed by a grim-faced wave of Puritans, sourly hacking away at the remains.
Puritans, of course, also hate paying taxes, preferring to kick in for televised prettyboys who describe fiery pits. (That's how THEY have a good time with art) Because of the NEA, here they are paying taxes (ech!) to create artists (gaack!). Never what you'd call merry in the best of times, it's not hard to figure how they feel about that.
So, what did they do? Confronted with the horrors of spending their tax money on degenerate art, they spent their money to put on their own art show, one that culminated in Robert Mapplethorpe ramming a bullwhip up his ass.
Is this another example of politics making strange bedfellows?
There were some activists from False Witness Watch and The National Campaign For Freedom of Expression, passing out sheets saying that the NEA didn't even fund about half of the stuff that was out there. Since they were denying complicity, they took pretty much the same tone toward the art as the protesters. They, apparently, didn't like it any more than the Christians did. Then there was me. I didn't like either. I didn't like it because it sucked. With the exception of "The Kiss", everything on exhibit was stupid, self-indulgent, meaningless and pretentious.
And this is true of a huge percentage of subsidised art. It basically eliminates the editorial process, just as commercial art amplifies it. There's a line to walk between mass tastes and your own innermost dreams, and grant artists fall on the wrong side of it. Of course, commercial artists fall on the other wrong side of it. But both of these, pushing at each other, can come to a crest in people like Picasso. Not often, I'll admit, but at least once. But if we don't shore up non-commercial art, we'll drown in a sea of Elvis velours.
Entartete Kunst
Actually, this is not the first event of its kind. In 1937, Joseph Goebbells set up a "Degenerate Art" exhibition, showing Germans the sort of decadence that the Nazis had saved them from. They showed works of (confiscated) art by people like Kandinsky and Kokolshka, among hundreds of others, for the first and last time in the Third Reich. Instead of sharing their National Socialist moral outrage, however, the burghers of Munich couldn't get enough of it, and the lines were around the block. It became so embarrassing that the Limping Lecher closed it down after three days.
Did the Christian Action Network know of this historical parallel? I don't know, because I didn't ask. Even though I was wearing press ID and Martin Mawyer was right in front of me, hungrily waiting for a question. I've interviewed some reprehensible people - from Austrian Nazis to rappers who weren't aware that music is something done by musicians playing instruments, and were distinctly uncomfortable with the idea -- but I couldn't do it. The thought of hearing their smug, flat-voiced certitudes made me cringe. Those self-righteous, sanctimonious twits had, in essence, no business being news. And before I'd assume a normal conversationl relationship with one of them I'd jump headfirst into "Piss Christ."
So I stalked off, fighting a physical revulsion, vowing to change my life so I'd never have to see them anymore.
THAT'S how you have a good time with art.
False Witness Watch can be accessed at: pfaw@pfaw.org. Christian Action Network at: PO Box 606, Froest VA 24551. The National Campaign for Freedom of Expression can be reached at: ncfe@artswire.org
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