Word: giulianis
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...greater than the aesthetic or moral shock of the exhibit may be its political repercussions. Here New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has raised a stink of his own. The mayor cut the museums municipal funding of $7 million annually, citing his belief that public funding should not subsidize the establishment or desecration of religion...
...Giuliani's position is simple enough, and right on the ball. But it masks a simmering brew of constitutional, moral and even religious questions. Sound a lot like "Piss Christ" or Robert Mapplethorpe all over again? The same issues boiled over then, and the same issues continue to define America's bitter culture war today. While it may be tempting, therefore, for those of us who support the mayor to just render due kudos and go home, perhaps we should take advantage of this fresh opportunity to explain why he was right--maybe even to propose a just accommodation...
...wisdom greater than that possessed by any single individual might perhaps be heeded. But democracy should not be able to marshal public funding in those cases of work either intended to, or reasonably construed as, desecrating the symbolic moorings of another's historical and cosmic identity. Mad props to Giuliani for recognizing that...
...furor made its way to Washington as well, where the Senate passed a nonbinding resolution sponsored by New Hampshire Senator Robert Smith that called for an end to federal funding for the museum. Trying not to alienate either camp, Hillary Clinton, Giuliani's likely opponent for New York's Senate seat, chided the mayor for threatening to shut down the museum but added, "There are parts of this exhibit that would be deeply offensive. I would not go to see this exhibit...
...more remarkable aspects of this whole affair is that "Sensation" has gained more attention than any marketing campaign for it could possibly have achieved. The furious outcry came before practically anyone had actually viewed the art. If Giuliani and Mrs. Clinton had bothered to go, they would have seen an exhibition that trades shock for shallowness with all the easy insouciance of youth. It has long been a vogue of contemporary art to focus on social issues at the expense of classical ideals of beauty, and the art here follows that vogue with a vengeance. That...