Word: nea
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Performance artist Karen Finley, who recently lost a Supreme Court case on a law requiring NEA grants to adhere to decency standards, has a new show, The Return of the Chocolate-Smeared Woman...
Today's Supreme Court ruling upholding Congress's "decency" requirement in NEA arts funding will come as a relief to the arts organization. "This allows the NEA to move beyond a controversy over a handful of artists which threatened to destroy the institution," says TIME correspondent Daniel Levy. "Most NEA money is spent funding uncontroversial local art projects, and people trying to eliminate the NEA will find it more difficult to whip up emotions over that...
...Justices ruled today that by instructing the NEA to consider decency as well as artistic merit in making grants, Congress had not infringed on the First Amendment rights of artists. In other words, while the government can't interfere with complainant Karen Finley's right to smear chocolate over her naked body in the name of art, it's not obliged to pay for her Hershey bars either...
...Hunter, a professor at City University of New York (CUNY) Law School, explained how the Supreme Court case emerged from the denial of NEA grants to four performance artists, including Finley, in 1990 due to the content of their work...
...denials were issued under a congressional law enacted in 1990 requiring artists to maintain certain "standards of decency" to qualify for NEA funding. The law was challenged by the four artists and the National Association of Artists Organizations, and was ruled unconstitutional in district and circuit courts...