Author: Tannenbaum, Judith

Publication Year:

Media Type: Periodical (article)

Summary:

Abstract:

The author discusses the book Arresting Images by Steven Dubin and concludes that the backlash or chilling effect from recent controversies are still with us.

Four years have passed since the brouhaha about public funding for the arts erupted over the National Endowment for the Arts' support of exhibitions featuring work by the photographers Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe. Unfortunately, the effects of these battles, waged in the media and in Congress, are still with us today - as evidenced by public skepticism and the loss in government and private funding for the arts. However, the heat of the debate about a range of complex issues - what is (or is not) obscene or blasphemous, what constitutes censorship, should the government be in the business of funding the arts in the first place and, if so, who should decide which artists and arts institutions are worthy of receiving that support - has abated considerably.

In Arresting Images Steven C. Dubin reminds us that the Mapplethorpe and Serrano incidents are only two chapters in the much more extensive literature of culture wars dating from the late 1980s. Using a thematic rather than chronological approach, the book considers incidents (both highly publicized and not so well known) that occurred in communities as diverse as Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, Miami and smaller cities that involved artists working in different disciplines (photography, painting, performance, music, literature, film) including popular culture as well as high art; and artists who confront a wide range of subjects - local politics, patriotism, race, religion, sex, homosexuality, and AIDS.

[For other articles from the symposium on Arresting Images: Impolitic Art and Uncivil
 Actions in this issue of The Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society, see
 Arresting Images: Impolitic Art and Uncivil Actions; Arresting Images: Why We
 Need to Recast the Debate; and Contemporary Art, Society, and Public Policies.]

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Arts Education