A Louisiana congressman is up in arms over a federally subsidized exhibit featuring a photograph of a plastic crucifix submerged in a container of urine.
”I am enraged,” said Rep. Richard Baker (R., La.), adding that there`s
”a marked difference between the right to self-expression and governmental support of views that are offensive and contrary to basic tenets of the American value system.”
The photo won artist-photographer Andres Serrano a $15,000 award given jointly by the federal National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Equitable Foundation.
The award is for ”accomplished artistic achievement.”
National Endowment officials said an outside panel of judges chose the picture for the award and a tour that ended in January.
Serrano, 38, in a telephone interview from New York, said he`s been pilloried from various pulpits.
Baker said he is demanding that National Endowment policies be changed.
Hugh Southern, the National Endowment`s acting chairman, said the federally funded agency supports the right of panels of experts to choose the works of artists ”even though sometimes their work may be deemed controversial and offensive to some people. We at the Endowment do, nonetheless, deeply regret any offense . . .”
