To judge from some of the recent headlines in art journals, popular periodicals, and newspapers, one would think that the American art world was under a censorship siege. A 1989 Art in America headline screamed, "Congress Votes for New Censorship." The New Art Examiner ran an article titled "Against Intimidation: Museum Directors, Curators Speak Out Against Government Censorship of the Arts." An Afterimage essay was titled "Congress Enacts Censorship Legislation." U. S. News and World Report posed the headline question, "Should Congress Censor Art?" High Performance's "Images of Censorship" included reproductions of work by American photographers Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano.
Indeed, many of these recent headlines deal with the controversies surrounding Mapplethorpe and Serrano. Controversial works by these two artists were indirectly supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). These federal grants aided in the exhibition, not production, of works by these artists--works that many American taxpayers found inflammatory and offensive. The most vocal detractors of so-called obscene art were conservative politicians and religious leaders, although some members of the art community also expressed concern over the merits of funding art that so combatively disparaged the beliefs of many Americans. In defending itself, the art community denounced all those who protested NEA grant recipients, and characterized all criticism directed toward the agency as "censorship." Steven Mannheimer, writing about the art community's reactions in the New Art Examiner, noted that the "art world, sensing the end of civilization as we know it, drew itself up in the regalia of righteous indignation and informed the nation that the very foundations of freedom were being sapped."
Yet amid all of the accusations of obscenity and censorship, there has been little, if any, examination of what constitutes censorship. As the art writer Nicols Fox observed recently in the New Art Examiner, "Analysis of the [censorship] issue from a historical and social perspective has been almost nonexistent." Fox's observation is largely correct. By addressing the historical occurrences of art censorship in the twentieth century, and by examining the social context in which accusations of American art censorship are made, one can hopefully better evaluate the validity in applying the term "censorship" to the postwar American art scene.
The process of examining art world concerns within a historical context is common art historical methodology. Whereas art critics tend to approach contemporary art with the intent of describing and evaluating, they also often take a position of advocacy on behalf of the artist. However, this position is rarely detached or unbiased. By contrast, art historians are somewhat more separated from the machinations of the art world and tend to evaluate artistic developments within the historical framework. This is not to say that all critics are mere advocates serving as loudspeakers for artists, nor that all art historians lack a grasp of current events. However, the approaches and methodologies of each are different to a degree.
In this thesis, it is the art historian's methodology that will be employed. That is, the alleged presence of art censorship in the United States will be examined not only in terms of its own self-referential arguments, but also against historical instances of undisputed art censorship in the twentieth century, such as have occurred in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Indeed, many art advocates frequently refer to, and invoke, the censorship visited upon these two countries when referring to American art "censorship."
While the definition and presence (or lack thereof) of art "censorship" will be examined in the course of this thesis, it would be useful to briefly define "art" as it will be used in the course of this study. A liberal, Duchampian definition will be employed here; that is, whatever the artist says is art, is art. The artist need merely designate an object or action as art for it to be art. However, as any art professional who has served on the NEA's application review panels can attest, to posit something as art is not the same as declaring it worthy of government funds.
Furthermore, the notion that a denial of a federal grant is tantamount to censorship is a problematic supposition. Yet as will become clear, in discussions of alleged art censorship in a democratic country where freedom of expression is highly valued and protected, there is much that is problematic. Among the questions that will be addressed here is the difficulty in defining what constitutes censorship. Also problematic is the formulation of a definition of obscenity. The rights of taxpayers and the responsibility of the government must also be factored into the debate. As will be seen, all of these ingredients make up the complex stew that is the American art censorship debate.