If David Wojnarowicz were alive to witness his video, Fire in the Belly, attacked by the Catholic League and removed from the National Portrait Gallery, he probably would not have been surprised. Wojnarowicz’s work received its share of controversy during the culture wars of 1989-90. His essay Postcards from America: X-rays From Hell caused National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) [...]
Last Wednesday NCAC and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School were joined by Bill Ivey, Beka Economopoulos, Magdalena Sawon, Nato Thompson, Martha Wilson, and moderator Laura Flanders of GritTV, to discuss public funding of the arts, free speech and self-censorship, and the impact of the Decency Clause. (Check out their bios here.) In an [...]
When it was founded in the 1960s, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a central part of its mission was to support individuals and institutions producing edgy and innovative artwork. Twenty years ago, as a result of pressures on behalf of Republicans in Congress and the religious right, Congress amended the statute governing the NEA to require that it [...]