Sensation

...Lawyer control-financial and artistic-exercised return, the museum dropped its First Abrams won his case in court...

...But that's another piece of poStill, not even the cognoscenti are al- with the financial arrangements made by litical theater...

...The city agreed to pay Catholic League found some new mem- tors, and Saatchi exposed the extensive all it owed the museum ($3.5 million...

...saw the show (I did not) insist that Ofili's were shocked turn out to be naifs, peo- David Strauss of the University of Chica- picture was 'lyrical...

...The bottom line: If shaped to look like angel wings, in fact, to the general public, which has little government bodies cannot censor art, they are photos of female genitalia from opportunity to understand its inner they are free to decide not to fund art at behind and below-the kind featured in workings...

...The congressional budget cutting at pornographic magazines and on little lated...

...Now pornographic photos and one...

...The picture may look lyrical from a lectors, dealers, museum directors, and The Chicago conference, though less distance but it strikes me as pornocurators-cultivate an air of exclusive- colorful than the New York controversy, graphic kitsch embodying the oldest ness, and, at times, of sanctity and Gnos- was more illuminating...

...Art is not licensed or regu- all...

...Gilbert Edelson, vice president of Charles Saatchis of this world will not Was there a conflict of interest in the mu- the genuinely for-profit Art Dealers As- support museums, except when it is in seum's showing of Saatchi's collection and sociation of America, dropped the latter their own interests...

...tle over government funding of dis- that the Catholic League lacks subtlety in Exactly how much business was ex- turbing or unconventional art is going its many campaigns against "Catholic pansively explored at a conference or- to have to be won in the court of public bashing...

...Was he truly ethical lines were crossed by the muse- practical and political counsel: Con- offended by the Ofili picture or was his um and its director...

...practitioners-rich and newly rich col- sy was never far from this discussion...

...I certainly thought seemed indifferent to the ethical lines that B mains, at least, one unanso as I read the detailed account by New the public assumes separate aesthetic swered question...

...bition...

...about exhibits and their content, and case is over, but there rePretty shocking...

...then there is transgressive art seriously...

...When They royally entertained New Yorkers there...

...The Holy Virgin Mary was arguably not the most offensive offering at the exhibit (that award could have gone to the Chapman brothers for their child mannequins deployed in various sexual poses with human genitalia as part of their facial features...

...But other curators for his investment policy...

...Its following the Mapplethorpe controver- customers to call for a good time...

...It was his great good luck that it gives their work meaning...

...for Religious and Civil Rights and Floyd the picture to its owner, Charles Saatchi, Last fall, New York City Mayor Rudolph Abrams, the First Amendment lawyer as offensive as when it arrived and cerGiuliani demanded that the picture, The who orchestrated the museum's case tainly more valuable...

...They think that the ple who don't understand that the busi- go Law School put it this way: "The bat- mayor is a bully and/or a philistine and ness of art is, well, business...

...the same business as profit-making gal- readily acknowledged the power of colleries, why should taxpayers help fund lectors over the decisions museums make ack in New York, the court it...

...People who want wrong, and the mayor (and the Catholic ruary, "Taking Funds, Giving Offense, to resist government efforts to reduce League) are probably right...

...it is not sued for malpractice...

...ut the story does not end because it was offensive to Catholics...

...But best of all, shortly MEd 1 before the show dosed a seventy-two-yearMargaret O'Brien Steinfels old retiree and devout Catholic, Dennis Heiner, threw white paint on Ofili's picture...

...cial and artistic arrangements...

...Memos and between city and museum was finally set- Museum admissions skyrocketed...

...Many audience members of the ue...

...But in a perverse way, taking money from him...

...But her appari- ing, etc.-was meant to repulse, and Robert Mapplethorpe, and Ofili are nothtion in the Brooklyn Museum of Art left thus attract, as many viewers as possi- ing without their controversies...

...Holy Virgin Mary by British artist Chris Ofili, and defended it in court, are master be removed from the "Sensation" exhibit polemicists who enjoy a good fight...

...Such is their insularity except ma of public tolerance and funding for the whore...

...All the focus on the elephant dung fensive...

...Or is it just and artistic integrity...

...Jed Perl, writing about the Whitney 2000 Biennial in the New Republic (April 3, 2000), made the point neathe Virgin festooned with named "Sensation" if it does not cause ly: "Once art provoked controversy...

...When the museum the Brooklyn Museum director, Arnold until the show closed in early January...

...stand, promising, if elected, to scrutinize from Christie's, the art auction house, and For many New Yorkers the controversy was not a fight about tax funds or the First Amendment, but a form of political theater...

...But for Director Lehman it made little difference which work was found transgressive just so long as one of them was...

...There were the mayor who attacked his picture and talk, as at the Chicago meeting, of edu- few, if any, defenders of Rudolph Giu- not the feminist brigade, which should cating a benighted public too ignorant liani, but Arnold Lehman had no cham- have been even more offended than to recognize great (and valuable) art...

...strenuously to Heiner's sensational demoney and the smug arrogance of an art Lehman and Giuliani, along with facement, museum staff quickly removed world ready to offend but surprisingly William Donohue of the Catholic League the offending white paint and returned unreceptive to being offended itself...

...that's what behind disquieting information, not ble...

...Andres Serrano, and gone...

...B went to court, it was obliged Lehman, failed to oblige, the mayor with- But for all the fireworks, it has come to to reveal the exhibit's finanheld city subsidies...

...I usi ally agree with them...

...It took the dilem- stereotypes of women, the virgin and ticism...

...His marketing of the exhibit- it seems that controversy can give anyelephant dung has come broadsides promising vomiting, faint- thing the aura of art...

...Ofili is lucky that it was only when tax funds are needed...

...And today, by Saatchi, the man who owned all the Amendment case against the mayor...

...If the museum is in vard, on the panel...

...Both Lehman and Giuliani are showmen who know that nothing entertains the citizenry more than a dispute that appears to shake the foundations of constitutional order and deeply offends religious sensibilities...

...But we who a strategy with diminishing returns...

...The courts have declared that once (and the pretentious gloss on Ofili's "arts community" in Chicago expressed a government body provides funds, it African roots)-partly encouraged by the astonishment at the astonishment of the cannot withdraw them to censor offen- museum's advance publicity-allowed citizenry...

...The of the artists represented in "Sensation...

...There were deep uneasiness Catholics...

...the the National Endowment for the Arts stickers pasted in phone booths, inviting press rarely scrutinizes its practices...

...Not only was this a fitting finale, it VIRGINS NO MORE was a bona fide certification that this was What Satitchi's 'Sensation' really exposed really, really art...

...Like all little enclaves, espe- sive art...

...in London, it was a portrait, made up of children's hand prints, of "Myra," a child torturer and murderer...

...My liberal Catholic friends who of collectors and dealers...

...Mayor Giuliani's motives in waging war cember 6,1999) showing how and where The panel of lawyers offered more on behalf of the Madonna...

...In addition, financial battle of Brooklyn may be over, but the war paign literature about his courageous contributions were solicited and received over tax funds for controversial art is not...

...in bers and garnered more publicity...

...The museum's aes- stantly defending trangressive art by re- protest a play for the Catholic and conthetic and educational mission was sub- course to the First Amendment, though servative vote in the coming senatorial verted in favor of the financial interests an argument likely to win in court, was election...

...O ways aware of the financial arrangements the Brooklyn Museum and serious like those at the Brooklyn Museum or the doubts raised by its legal strategy...

...The e-mail between Lehman, museum curatled in federal court...

...This Margaret O'Brien Steinfels is editor of commercial deals that some museums was an audience that clearly understood Commonweal...

...Objecting about religion and art, but about art and was the mayor who was offended...

...Though knowledge, the art world is a mystery titled to tax funds...

...The Ofili picMaking Money: The Brooklyn Museum funding of certain kinds of art will have ture is pornographic, as even a cursory of Art Controversy and the Dilemmas to persuade their fellow citizens why it examination of the catalog illustration of Arts Policy" (a title Lehman found of- is important that such funding contin- shows...

...In March the dispute look like a win-win situation for everyone...

...pions either...

...But no more than newspapers reporters and the public to overlook the cially ones that lay claim to specialized or book publishers are art museums en- cutouts surrounding the Virgin...

...What use is an exhibit Commonweal 2 3 May 19, 2000 various gallery owners, who, like Saatchi, make, for example, in taking commission how dependent most arts institutions are would directly benefit from future sales for a work sold as the result of an exhi- on tax funds and public generosity...

...In allowing him news in a panel discussion and truly there appears to be more respect in the a significant role in mounting the exhibit, seemed to shock the directors of the two art world for the tastes and judgments of did the museum surrender its autonomy academic museums, Chicago and Har- a Saatchi than for the public's...

...But in ganized by the University of Chicago opinion, not in courts of law enforcing this case, I think liberal Catholics may be and the Art Institute of Chicago in Feb- the First Amendment...

...Commonweal 24 May 19, 2000...

...The Rudolph Giuliani brags in senatorial cam- works in the show...

...What were York Times reporter David Barstow (De- judgment and commercial calculation...