On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Congressional decision to require the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to consider "general standards of decency and respect" in awarding grants, the National Coalition Against Censorship and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School collaborate on two panel discussions and a video interview project evaluating censorship and arts funding today.
Prominent artists, non-profit arts organization directors, art dealers, and founders of alternative spaces examine issues related to how the introduction of the decency clause in particular, and the culture wars in general, have affected funding, free speech and self-censorship, and how attitudes towards notions of decency and respect for the values and beliefs of the American public have changed over the past twenty years.
Panel Discussion II
Decency, Respect and Community Standards: What Offends Us Now?
This panel looks at changing attitudes towards notions of decency over the past twenty years. It addresses how representations of nudity and sexuality have changed in contemporary art, and proposes a redefinition of what is considered offensive or inappropriate under our current political climate. The panel brings together artists whose work provoked the culture wars twenty years ago and those who deal with taboo topics today.
Moderated by Laura Flanders, GRITtv.
Participants:
Wafaa Bilal, artist, censored in Iraq and the U.S.
Holly Hughes, one of the NEA4
Trevor Paglen, provocateur and experimental geographer
Carolee Schneemann, pioneering feminist artist