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Jesse Helms and Company have their six-guns loaded, pointed, and ready
to fire, and their bullets aren't blanks. Congressional recommendations
to punish organizations that have funded and exhibited artwork by Andres
Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe are extraordinary acts of ex post facto
censorship, but no more dramatic than what is happening in San Diego.
The abuse of power by politicians who restrict and control art that is
controversial, provocative, and critical is already the status quo locally.
In San Diego,
politicians have what Helms can only dream of-final approval on funding
to artists and art organizations. San Diego doesn't need six-guns, not
with Mayor O'Connor and her eight City Council cohorts who approve or
reject funding to protect the city's corporate agenda and tourist industry.
In May, the San Diego Council's Public Service and Safety Committee (PSSC)
"just said no" to a recommendation by the city's own Commission for Arts
and Culture to fund San Diego's Installation Gallery. The PSSC withdrew
$42,000 in funding intended for Installation, hoping to punish the gallery
for sponsoring a controversial work of public art, our billboard addressing
San Diego's relationship to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Later,
when the full council narrowly overturned the PSSC's decision and restored
$37,500 to Installation, the Council still restricted the use of those
funds, thereby retaining control over the arts.
II
Politically, the crusade against the NEA [National Endowment for the
Arts] displaces scandal and charges of dishonesty from the attackers
to those attacked.
—Carole S. Vance, "The War on Culture," Art in America
(Sept. 1989)
The Helms
Amendment is not about censorship vs. freedom of speech. It is about adding
to the level of censorship that now exists. Congressional attempts to
limit artistic freedom of expression constrict participation in already
narrowed debates. (Witness, for example, the absence of social critic
Noam Chomsky from the editorial pages of major American newspapers, or
the continued banishment of novelist Gore Vidal from network television
twenty years after his on-the-air skirmish with William F. Buckley, Jr.)
Our access to information will be even more limited in the near future.
According to media analyst Ben Bagdikian, five to ten corporations will
control production of most of the world's information, including newspapers,
magazines, books, data bases, broadcast stations, movies, recordings,
and video cassettes. The people who would limit artistic freedom of expression
in the name of decency, morality, and the American way are the same crew
who support the corporate agenda of maximized profits. Helms finds "evil"
in government funding for the arts, but "good" in government subsidies
for the tobacco industry. Anyone who suggests otherwise-that what's good
for corporate America is not necessarily good for the community-is automatically
labeled disloyal and subversive.
We live in
an era when it is far more respectable to restrict constitutional rights
than to defend the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. But pointing
the finger exclusively at Helms suppresses inquiry into the social climate
that makes the elimination of First Amendment rights possible. It absolves
Helms' congressional partners of their complicity in undercutting freedom
of expression, their responsibility for eroding democratic values, and
their culpability for undermining institutions like the NEA. Freedom of
expression is already diminished by the censorship implicit in corporate
funding for the arts. Now the government, in lock-step with corporations,
wants to tighten the noose of censorship by eliminating funding for dissenting
voices.
The ease
with which we focus on the point man for the conservative agenda can blind
us to the need to look critically at the very institutions we are supporting
against congressional attack. Museums and galleries are already in the
business of censoring art. Demonization of Helms diverts attention from
the fact that museums and galleries are not bastions of free expression.
Museums still promote racial separation, social hierarchies, and cultural
hegemony. The challenge to artists is not merely to defeat the Helms Amendment,
but to restructure cultural gatekeeping institutions so they fully represent
the diversity of our society.
III
I kept giving them credit for being our kind of people, but they're
dictators! They're people who will try to hold power even if they have
to poison the town to do it.
—Dr. Stockmann in Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People
In San Diego,
the narrowing of diversity at the national level is mirrored in the local
trend toward homogenization of thought. City promoters aim to further
the entertainment model of discourse, viewing all issues through the twin
lenses of public relations and consumerist marketing strategies. City
officials rationalize existing social, economic, and political relationships
by constantly referring to San Diego as "America's Finest City," a rhetorical
mantra that sanctifies the status quo. Thus art that is critical of San
Diego, according to city officials, subverts America's Finest City. The
city council wants to promote civic pride and consensus through fabricated
postcard images of San Diego rather than through extended discussion about
pressing local issues.
As public
artists, our work seeks to preserve and expand constitutional liberties
in general and freedom of expression in particular; in addition, we aim
through our work to expose the local power structure that subverts these
rights in favor of corporations and the tourist industry. We insist on
participating in the definition of our city rather than accepting the
fantasy image conjured for marketing. As part of our commitment to the
real issues San Diego confronts, both as a major border region and as
a growing metropolis, we have created a series of public artworks. These
artworks have had broad repercussions, including censorship by the city.
1987 was
a pivotal year in San Diego. The city began construction on the West Coast's
largest convention center. It also won the bid to host the following year's
Superbowl, to be held on January 31, 1988. On Januarv 4, 1988, our poster
with the greeting "Welcome to America's Finest Tourist Plantation" appeared
on the back of half the buses operated by San Diego Transit.
This appropriation
of the city's self-aggrandizing slogan was superimposed on a triptych
of photographs. The central image was of a Border Patrol agent handcuffing
two Mexican men arrested on a San Diego Transit bus. To the left and to
the right of this image were photographs of the hands of a dishwasher
and a chambermaid, representing the undocumented and invisible workers
of the tourist industry.
The image
was unavoidable. Clearly intended to provoke controversy and media scrutiny,
the poster was delivered to people's homes via television, and radio,
and the daily newspaper. San Diego's self-promotion apparatus exploded
with criticism and the news media jumped, fueling the controversy and
activating the artwork.
The poster
served as a catalyst for public debate. Our intention was to focus this
debate on the racism implicit in building a tourist economy by exploiting
an undocumented labor force. However, in San Diego, the city hotel-motel
tax is used to fund works of art; the fact that our work was in part sponsored
through this tax created the loudest protests from the warden's of San
Diego's official image. "I have trouble using taxpayers' dollars to put
down this beautiful city of San Diego," said Councilwoman Gloria McColl.
The city's
repressive apparatus was mobilized through a series of behind-the-scenes
and public actions designed to censor our examination of the underpinnings
of the local economy:
1) Pressure by the mayor's office on the Metropolitan Transit Development
Board (MTDB) to remove the poster.
2) Calls from San Diego Channels 8 and 39‹broadcast over each station-demanding
that the MTDB remove the poster.
3) Reassurances from the city council that, through the establishment
of a Commission for Arts and Culture, city money would never again be
allocated for such artworks.
4) Revision of MTDB policies to allow the rejection of any images critical
of any law enforcement agencies.
5) Investigation by the California Legislative Council, at the request
of State Assemblyperson Larry Stirling (R-San Diego), to determine whether
public funds could be used to support opinions critical of the city. (No
illegality found.)
In April
1989, with a $100 budget from Installation Gallery in San Diego and billboard
space donated by Gannett Outdoor Advertising, we created Welcome to
America's Finest a) City b) Tourist Plantation c) Convention Center.
The project addressed the city's inability to find a fitting tribute for
the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. City officials proposed that the new
convention center be named after King, but later changed their minds when
their Port Commissioners voted against it. In this effort to avoid controversy,
city officials clearly demonstrated whose voices matter-certainly not
those of the African-American community or those who want the city to
acknowledge its diversity.
In our effort
to contribute to this public debate, we experienced
yet another attempt by the city to stifle controversy, and we were threatened
with corporate censorship. Declaring that the billboard was not art, Gannett
tried to get Installation Gallery to remove the artwork. Two months later,
city officials voted to defund Installation. When City Council member
Ron Roberts was asked
by The San Diego Union if Installation's money was cut because of budgetary
problems or because of his opposition to the billboard, Roberts replied,
"I guess I would have to admit to both. I'll be stupid enough to do that."
In the debate surrounding the denial
of funds to Installation, Roberts stated, "The First Amendment says that
there should be free speech... It doesn't mean that the City Council has
to be paying for that."
Although
part of the funds slated for Installation were eventually provided to
the gallery, the fallout from this project has blanketed the art community
with worry over future funding and self-censorship. Asked by the Village
Voice if he would work with us on a billboard project in the future, Hugh
Davies, director of the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, stated that
if "[they] don't get anyone to pick up their next billboard, it'll be
because we're all cowed by the prospect of censorship."
IV
The lords of the global village have their own political agenda. All
resist economic changes that do not support their own financial interests.
Together, they exert a homogenizing power over ideas, cultures, and commerce
that affects populations larger than any
in history.
—Ben
Bagdikian, "The Lords of the Global Village," The Nation (June 12, 1989)
We see ourselves
as participants in a democracy, not as an audience in a San Diegoland
version of our city. We feel that a multiplicity of voices and perspectives
are basic to the health of any democracy. But instead of a dialogue contributing
to the planning of upcoming San Diego events, we hear the single voice
of Mayor Maureen O'Connor. In keeping with the trend toward cultural engineering,
the Mayor has taken it upon herself to become lord of the city's cultural
village.
For the San
Diego Arts Festival, local politicians have gone beyond censorship. Censorship
restricts the right of expression. In San Diego, the arts community has
not been restricted, but eliminated. The Mayor, as corporate raider, has
appointed herself the board of directors, the museum administrator, and
the curatorial staff for the entire upcoming Festival, which will celebrate
the "Treasures of the Soviet Union." She did not seek approval for the
Festival from the City Commission on Arts and Culture. She used the machinery
of her office to establish a separate corporate entity, San Diego Festivals,
Inc., and convinced the city to give this corporation $3 million of taxpayer
money, and gained a commitment from the city to raise a matching amount
from local corporations. O'Connor also appointed all festival executives,
who report to her. She has extended this bureaucratic purview by incorporating
the staffs of all cultural institutions that will participate in the Festival.
And finally, she has assumed dictatorial authority in decisions about
which events will or will not be a part of the Festival. She has formed
her own San Diego Ministry of Culture to centralize and control the content
and character of a festival that should involve full community participation.
V
In the year of a Soviet arts festival, it's particularly ironic and
depressing that a form of censorship we associate with totalitarian regimes
should be visited on a San Diego institution [Installation] that has pioneered
free speech in our community.
—Hugh
Davies, "America's finest censors or just plain budget cut?," The San
Diego Union (June 5,1989)
Some politicians
want us to believe that because they are able to appropriate funding for
the arts, they should be able to appropriate the rights of artists. We
must resist the sophisticated organizational tactics of those who would
impose a conservative agenda. In San Diego we must take concerted actions
to eliminate the abuse and censorship that exists within the local process
of public funding for the arts. The City Council of San Diego must get
out of the censorship business, and must trust their own Commission on
the Arts and Culture to establish a fair and equitable process of review
which avoids politicization. The Commission should evaluate the problems
created by Mayor O'Connor's San Diego Festivals, Inc., and individual
politicians must be discouraged from forming their own cultural apparatuses.
Finally, the arts community must define its rightful place in the creation
of San Diego's cultural identity. Democracy untested is democracy denied.
In keeping
with our commitment to participate in San Diego's cultural identity, we
applied for and received a 1989 Inter-Arts NEA grant to create a series
of works addressing San Diego's historic struggles for freedom of expression.
In the first of these works, the full-page advertisement for a street
performance was censored by San Diego's largest newspaper, The San
Diego Union. It subsequently ran in a local weekly paper, with a new
headline declaring: "THE AD THE SAN DIEGO UNION DOESN'T WANT YOU TO SEE."
The performance went on as planned, drawing 200 people out into the streets
of downtown San Diego to commemorate the 1912 Free Speech movement. In
the fall of 1990, our group will address the relationship in San Diego
between migrant labor and urban development.
Shortly after
the ad was censored, Elizabeth Sisco, a member of the collaboration, resigned
from an NEA Visual Arts Organizations panel review, claiming that the
peer review process had been subverted by internal censorship of so-called
controversial grant applications. In an effort to expand community awareness
about current NEA practices and to foster a climate hospitable to dialogue
and debate, we recently organized a forum in San Diego to discuss censorship
issues. (This forum included Philip Brookman, curator for the Washington
Project for the Arts, the gallery that sponsored the Robert Mapplethorpe
exhibition after the Corcoran's cancellation.)
To continue
to participate in the community's cultural identity, we, like people in
all communities, must develop strategies to address the censorship of
ideas, the stifling of diversity, and endemic racism.
Deborah
Small, Elizabeth Sisco,
Louis Hock, and David Avalos
Published
in:
Exposure, The Journal of the Society of Photographic Education
Summer 1990, Volume 27, Number 3
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