Hence, whether waived proudly from a post above a Veteran’s memorial or displayed on the floor of a museumⁱ, the flag alone contains such symbolic power that its presence conveys a message.  The message, in any context, is thus protected by the First Amendment and the ability to practice free speech.

      All in all, the age of this case and its apparent frivolity may seem strange to invoke today, especially after living through the eighties, which saw numerous articles of clothing, from bikinis to biker jackets, with U.S. flags or flag designs upon them.  However, this case is important for it illustrates the sort of reactionary response that arises when our nation goes to war.  Like those struggling with the contentions and support raised by our military presence in Vietnam, citizens today are finding themselves on either side of a divisive line which splits those of us who support or condemn the United States occupation of Iraq.

      This line is often illuminated by art and the public’s response to it.  In a country where our politics are divided by a few key issues, controversial art in the past fifteen years has been primarily concerned with images (or messages) addressing homosexuality, abortion and religion.  The censorship that develops from such subjects is predictable and often containable.  Yet, in the tides of war, when artists and activists alike focus upon the agencies that regulate the politics of choice, the evolving censorship takes on strange and somewhat unpredictable actions.

      This essay explores the ways in which art censorship changes under different political conditions.  Specifically, the art produced and censored when either right-wing or left-wing majorities dominate in the House and Senate, when a liberal or conservative President is in office, and when our country is at war.  After examining a breadth of cases under the aforementioned conditions, we will end by contemplating the role and function of government-sponsored art (such as the NEA), the influence of politics and politicians on “acceptable art”, and the sway the Patriot Act exerts on forms of art and protest.

      The Goguen v. Smith case mentioned previously remains an influential decision affecting artists’ freedom of expression.  Cited by lawyers defending The School of the Art Institute of Chicago against an onslaught led by Republican senators and conservative private citizens in 1989, the Goguen v. Smith decision illuminated the necessity of reviewing existing statutes regarding the treatment of a national icon when that treatment and subsequent punishment may infringe upon an individual’s civil liberties.  Though the Supreme Court stated, “what is contemptuous to one man may be a work of art to another,”³ this did not deter Senator Walter Dudyez from decrying an installation in an art museum that featured an American flag lying on the floor.

      Prompting Dudyez’s front was The Flag Protection Act (FPA), initiated in 1968 in response to the numerous flag-burnings taking place at protests against the Vietnam War.  Though the lower courts acknowledged this act, the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional and overturned all of the cases they reviewed pertaining to it.  In fact, after the Goguen case (finally settled in 1974) the Supreme Court spent virtually fifteen years ignoring the FPA.  That is, until 1989, when the Supreme Court once again found the FPA unconstitutional and overturned the lower courts ruling.

      Their judgment was in response to a case against a protestor who was arrested after burning the flag at the Republican National convention of 1984.  While in any other case their ruling would have been the end of the story, this was a year in which Americanesque egos and patriotism were at their greatest.  Instead of submitting to the law of the land, Congress enacted The Flag Protection Act of 1989, which states that “intentionally mutilating, defacing, physically defiling, burning, maintaining on the floor or ground, or trampling upon the flag of the United States” ⁴ is a criminal offense.

      This is the first example, of many to follow, where art and politics coincide.  The wording of the act makes clear Congress’s knowledge of the artwork created by “Dredd” Scott Tyler and attempts to make his expression illegal.  Though they did not initiate the act in time for it to affect Tyler’s installation, and the Supreme Court continued to overturn convictions in which the FPA was invoked, the exhibition holding Tyler’s piece was closed early and state funding for The School of Art Institute of Chicago was cut (about $64,000) as well as numerous private donations cancelled.

      The same year, Rev. Donald Wildmon, on the behalf of the American Family Association, instigated a concentrated attack on the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for allocating a grant to Andres Serrano who in turn created Piss Christ.ⁱⁱ  Republican neoconservatives jumped on board and used the installation as a springboard for promulgating a politically minded right-wing agenda.  The assault quickly spread to Robert Mapplethorpe’s retrospective, The Perfect Moment ⁱⁱⁱ and, suddenly, the culture wars entered the House and Senate.

      With Senator D’Amato (R-NY) claiming the issue is “not a question of free speech” but a “question of taxpayers’ money,” Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) deeming the art in question “obscene” and “morally reprehensible”, and Rep. Richard Armey (R-Tex) writing, “there is a very clear and unambiguous line that exists between what can be classified as art and what must be called morally reprehensible trash,” the concerns of the right-wing moralists took on a very concrete form.  Within months, the House and Senate agree to the ‘Helm’s Amendment’ which cut NEA funding by $45,000 (the amount granted to Mapplethorpe posthumously and Serrano), put a five-year injunction on any public funding for the museums which featured the work of Mapplethorpe or Serrano, and banned grants for “indecent or obscene” works.

      It may seem amazing that in a Democrat-controlled Congress such a bill would ever be passed, but 1989 proves to be one of those pivotal instances in which art and politics clash for several reasons.  For starters, Reagan’s administration had just ended and George H.W. Bush was newly elected, continuing the third term of Republican leadership.  After nearly thirty years of Cold War struggles, we finally saw the decline of Communism through the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Eastern-European nations (such as Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Romania and Lithuania) overthrowing their Communist governments and replacing them with Democratic governments and free markets. As the Whitney Biennial curator, Lisa Phillips, wrote in an exhibit’s accompanying brochure, the absence of a focused threat (i.e. Communism and specifically the Cold War with Russia) created “a site where unfocused anxieties could be directed.  In the realm of culture, pornography and obscenity replaced Communism as the new threat to American values.”⁵  Similarly, when countering the ideological apparatus of Communism, it became necessary for politicians to support nearly all venues of free expression in order to demonstrate the superiority of a ‘free’ democracy versus our ‘oppressed’ aggressors. Additionally, residing in the wake of the Moral Majority movement, but at a numbers disadvantage within Congress, the Republican Party members chose to focus upon issues that would incense the public and provide platforms by which to espouse their ethical convictions.

      While they could not directly counter or affect Supreme Court decisions such as Roe v. Wade, government funded arts programs created a loophole for politicians to essentially put their speech into practice.  This proved to be a highly effective method to promote traditionally ‘Christian’ values, successfully fulfilling the expectations of their constituents and major campaign contributors.  Following their triumphs in 1989, the GOP centered politicians effectively intimidated the NEA, its donors, and museums / venues that displayed government funded exhibits.  Though a federal court invalidated the Helm’s Amendment, the bullying and subsequent damage had already been done.  In 1990 the newly appointed NEA chair, John Frohnmayer, pulled funding from several controversial exhibits, most containing AIDS awareness messages.  He then vetoed already-awarded grants to Karen Finley, an artist whose works deal with feminist issues ^iv, and various homosexual artists.  In the resulting suit, Congress passed an amendment that echoed the Helm’s Amendment but created recourse for the “diverse beliefs and values of the American public.”⁶

      Much of the following controversy that year mimicked this behavior; with grants being repealed or not given at all, venues denying ‘controversial’ art or exhibitions, and numerous raids, arrests, and convictions for ‘obscene’ artists and their banned art.  In 1991, with the Soviet Union officially dismantled and the U.S. fully entrenched in the Gulf War, it seems as though both private citizens and politicians alike were more focused on world events than the issues knocking on their own doors and for a brief period there was a respite within the culture war.  Considering the politicians’ stronghold in the controversy was that it was taxpayers’ money funding these ‘obscene’ pieces, perhaps they quieted down once more of the taxpayers’ money was funding the war.  Likewise, late 1990 and early 1991 saw a surge of American patriotism that needed little reinforcing through the collective denouncement of ‘immoral’ art.

      Surprisingly, after the end of the Gulf War, the attacks and attention paid to controversial art stayed fairly quiet.  Of course, there were still instances of censorship, primarily focused on AIDS, gay and lesbian, or women’s rights issues, but none of them reached the heightened state of agitation as witnessed in 1989 and 1990.^v  1991 saw around seventy cases of art censorship, about half of which involved debate surrounding NEA grants.  However, following the controversy of 1990, NEA chairman John Frohnmeyer defended the allotted grants stating, “The Endowment does not blacklist nor does it give or refuse grants on the basis of sexual orientation." ⁷  Yet neither Frohnmeyer’s rhetoric nor his selective funding efforts could silence the Religious Right and various conservative action groups whose constant focus on ‘obscene’ art led to the closure of several art exhibits that featured NEA funded installments and may have had a role in numerous PBS member stations pulling an award-winning film entitled “Tongues Untied.”  However, the real effect of 1991’s controversy was the heightened awareness that such cases created within the population.  While most cases until this year featured politicians and neoconservative activists creating a hullabaloo, the following years saw a rise in citizen-sponsored art censorship.

      During the election year of 1992, eighty cases involving art censorship occurred in the second half of the year, just prior to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions and following elections.  Interestingly, only one of the cases in question had received NEA grant money.  Perhaps the reason for a decreased focus on the NEA is President George H.W. Bush’s dismissal of chairman John Frohnmeyer.  Under the new administration of Bush appointee Anne-Imelda Radice, the NEA denied over 5,000 grant applications on the grounds that they violated the 1990 amendment requiring the art in question “take into consideration general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public."⁸  Hence, though actual censorship dropped in 1992, art production that might have otherwise occurred, assuming that the artists would have had the means by which to create it, halted before production could even begin.  The art that was censored or, in the case of the X-Girlfriends billboard in Chicago, destroyed, happened at the hands of private citizens who voiced concern over the content of the art and lobbied politicians into joining their cause.  As noted earlier, most of these occurred just before elections and all involved Republican candidates, yet the loophole awarded for politicians to put their speech into action through the vehicle of the NEA was pragmatically tightened with the appointment of Radice, who shared many of the views of those who would otherwise abhor the institution she commanded.

      However, the appointment of Bill Clinton to the presidency in 1993 afforded liberal optimists the hope of a new NEA chair.  Within a year of his presidency, Clinton appointed Jane Alexander, a former actress and arts advocate, to chair the NEA.  Grants awards increased and Alexander encouraged disbursement to otherwise controversial art.  However, with the Republicans still a minority in the House and Senate, and having lost control of the presidency, a new flurry of agitation arose surrounding the art world that resulted in over one hundred cases of noted art censorship.  Likewise, 1994 maintained a similar trend with one hundred four cases of art censorship, but with Alexander battling for the freedom of artists, few of these cases grasped the sort of national attention and controversy as seen in previous years.

      But, in 1995, a landmark occasion occurred. For the first time in forty years, a generation encountered its first Republican congress.  The 104th Congress, led by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, provided the Right Wing with voting power they had hitherto been denied.  One might think that a conservative Congress would be preoccupied with enacting ‘major issue’ legislation, but to their credit, the neoconservatives found time to attack the NEA.  These attacks were primarily centered around NEA budget cuts—which were successful—and attempts at regulating the content of NEA funded art—which succeeded by proxy—the less money given to artists, the fewer the opportunities for artists to create ‘obscene’ works.

      Art was suffering in the private sector as well.  According to Volume 4 of Artistic Freedom Under Attack, out of 137 documented art censorship cases, 73% were successful, and 20%^vi stemmed from art sponsors who “challenged work they had already agreed to display” (7).  Interestingly, now exerting considerable influence in the House and Senate, incidents involving censorship from the political, Religious and Far Right organizations actually fell, resting at twenty-one percent of the total cases reported.  Yet, of the censorship cases spearheaded by individuals, over 60% were associated with politically right-minded “hot” issues such as depictions of homosexuality (without explicit sexuality or nudity), abortion issues, and Christian values (works depicting the cross, Jesus or any religious figure in a non-traditional manner).  Hence, although the politicians themselves may have been using their newfound power in Congress to work on issues more pertinent to their political platforms, individuals certainly seemed more secure in their right- wing solidarity.  This is best demonstrated by the rise in incidents that reached the courtroom.  Whereas a censor may back down if the artist challenges their impeded freedom of expression under the law, this sense of security in public mindset was exemplified by the number of cases that involved the law, up two percent from the previous year.

     The outlook of artists and left-minded individuals and groups was bleak at the close of 1995.  With an election year coming up, many feared an increase in censorship as politicians used controversial art for political gain with their conservative minded constituents.  Unfortunately, their fears were not unfounded.  Wildmon and others, representing Far Right organizations beefed-up their direct mail campaign, targeting specific artworks and artists as morally destructive to a values-minded public.  Their campaigns were successful, and though Clinton maintained the presidential seat, the House and Senate retained their Republican majority.  From this point on, until the end of the Clinton administration, the battles over controversial art remained the same.

      The Culture War was efficiently waged both in and out of Congress, with conservative groups successfully countering exhibits and local funding for the arts and Congress cutting NEA funding by over forty percent.^vii  New guidelines were forcefully imposed on the NEA’s grant-making decisions, inhibiting state and local awards for controversial content and nearly abolishing individual artists’ grants.  Politicians began realizing that fighting on the ‘wrong’ side of the battle was political suicide.  With the Child Pornography Prevention Act and Communications Decency Act of 1996, and ensuing regulation of obscene, objectionable, or indecent material, politicians clearly voiced their concern over values that threatened American families.  Though the Supreme Court eventually overturned this act and others which regulated content, the Conservative Right’s dominance over American values has been solidly established.

      Censorship battles continued during the Clinton administration and though cases of arts censorship slightly decreased, self-censorship by artists may have increased.  Additionally, debate concerning government (and taxpayers) funding of art erupted in the decision to shut down the NEA by the fiscal year of 1998.  Though the Senate overturned the Congressional decision, the NEA’s influence and reputation was hard-hit.  Countering the attack, Clinton appointed a new chairman, William Ivey, who attempted to encourage democratic patronage of the arts.  Notably, with many left-wing politicians jumping on the ‘Family Values’ bandwagon, the U.S. saw an increase in ‘politically correct’ jargon that allowed for censorship from either side of the political spectrum.  Thus, while not necessarily touting Christian or conservative values, leftist politicians and advocates jumped into the censorship fray by defending sectors’ of the public rights to censorship.  Often this occurred by attacking artworks that debased religious values or could be construed as ‘damaging’ to minors.  This newly constructed space for censorship manifested in the removal of pieces that were considered “racially inappropriate,” “demeaning to women,” and “harmful to minors.”

      While the NEA funding was under attack, many state and local agencies increased their arts funding throughout the late 1990’s throughout 2001.  While the country waged a war over decency, local institutions fought to keep the arts funded.  Private organizations also contributed but, as noted by Robert Hughes in his article, Why America Shouldn’t Kill Cultural Funding, “we no longer ‘support’ the arts.  We use the arts in innovative ways to support social causes chosen by our company.”⁹  However, much of this controversy has been eclipsed in recent years.

      In 2000, George W. Bush was elected to the presidency.  For the first time in years, controversy surrounding the arts dropped dramatically.  With the exception of Mayor Rudolph Guiliani’s continuing attacks on ‘indecency’ in the arts, censorship of individual artists briefly ceased, with the few cases that arose centering on ‘politically correct’ issues rather than the typical right wing agenda topics.  A question arose of self-censorship among artists, were producers simply producing ‘quiet’ art?  Nervous of stirring the pot when conservatives ruled the White House and Congress?  It actually seems unlikely.  It seems as though ‘political’ or ‘marginalized’ art may actually decrease when artists see themselves as aligned with their representatives.  For example, when the presidency and 103rd Congress were Democratic, AIDS activism and art decreased substantially as noted by David Deitcher, “contributing to the erosion of the mass movement of AIDS activism by 1993 was the election of a President who had campaigned on a platform that included gay-friendly pledges.” ¹⁰  Hence, it seems more probable that cases of censorship merely decreased as the Right was restructuring itself for leadership under a like-minded president.  In addition, many conservative groups had found a new forum by which to advocate their views and subsequent censorship.  The media industry and Internet, as mass mediums for the dissemination of controversial content attracted more attention from the Right, than the mere and limited forum of fine arts.

      However, this quickly shifted after the World Trade Center attacks in September of 2001.  Immediately following 9-11, censorship of artists’ projects skyrocketed.  Some of the first targets were seemingly innocuous—a piece entitled “Terrorist” removed from the Baltimore Museum of Art, the cancellation of a Adams opera about Palestinian hijackers, a charcoal drawing of President Bush, part of an exhibit entitled “Secret Wars,” just to name a few.  Following these initial incidents a flood came, with downpours concerning not only politically sensitive art (such as anti-Bush or anti-war content) but also the ‘standard’ controversial art—nudity, sexuality, etc.  Works such as Alex Donis’ exhibit, “War,” evoked multifaceted forms of censorship, with patrons and show sponsors concerned over the sensitivity of the title and conservative action groups attacking the sexual content of the work. ^viii

      In the months that followed, art dealing specifically with the 9-11 attacks and ensuing policy decisions were scrutinized.  While exhibits that honored or memorialized the dead were lauded, installations or exhibits that even dared to criticize the administration or policies were immediately cancelled or never even shown.  For example, a series of Afghanistan photos was cancelled and replaced by an exhibit celebrating patriotism in Daytona Beach, FL; a video art installation in New York City was removed from a show after staff complaints;^ix and numerous comics and cartoon strips such as The Boondocks, Doonesbury, and pieces by Benson and Rall were pulled prior to publication. ¹⁰

      If political cartoonists, whose profession revolves around challenging oftentimes-popular notions and satirizing political leaders, were suddenly under attack; what would happen to the regular artists who happens to make a politically controversial piece?  Well, in post-911 America they were immediately silenced and censored faster than one can say “freedom of expression.”  Across the United States, cases of art censorship flourished like a garden full of weeds. Faster than conservative policy makers could pluck them, there were new outcries of un and anti American art blossoming in every corner of the United States.  This germination has only increased since the attacks, with the creation of the Patriot Act.  Whenever an artist has something negative to say or portray about the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq or contentious issues such as the Bush administration or the continuing portrayal of events connected to 9-11, someone, whether an individual or organization is quickly responding to put an end to the treason.

      In many ways, our actions are emblematic of a country at war.  During the Gulf War in the late 1980s and early 1990s, expressions of patriotism and presumed solidarity of the American public were expected.  When artists stepped outside of these boundaries they were often criticized, yet one would have little luck in finding such cases of a similar nature and in such volume as the incidents of recent censorship have provided us.  One startling difference is the presumed solidarity of the U.S. public during the Gulf War contrasted with the apparent lack of cohesion now affecting the public today.  As the war in Iraq wages on, more and more Americans find themselves on a divisive line that both politically and socially defines our current culture—one is either with Bush or against him.  Like those stuck in the fallout of the Vietnam War, neutral territory no longer exists within the national debate, and like the society of the 1970s, modern day America is divided into two cultures based on (and aligned with) their political stance.

      This division also applies to artists, whose work, while once may have tempted the political boundaries by creating controversy over ‘hot’ issues, now stands as deliberate opinions—condemnation or praise for political viewpoints and parties.  Thus, while Guy Colwell’s painting depicting the Abu Ghraib prison incidents ^xi might have once been considered a mere reflection of current events, it is now tied to deliberate Bush-bashing and Anti-American values.  Such is life, at a time of war.  The increased indignation over ‘political’ art may also be in part due to the different nature of this war to ones in the past.  First of all, the sequence of events that led to our invasion of Iraq began with an attack on American soil.  The terrorists that attacked us were supposedly “harbored” by organizations in Afghanistan, thus we invaded and ‘liberated’ the Afghani people without quite managing to find the specific terrorists we were searching for.  With a partially failed endeavor in Afghanistan, the Bush administration had to keep the pendulum in full force, hence continuing the momentum by employing some of the most outstanding rhetoric of the century and convincing a large number of Americans that Iraq was somehow united with the terrorist efforts that attacked the country on 9-11.  Following this connection, the United States entered Iraq and here we remain, in a war polluted with scandal and failure, mirroring Vietnam nearly to a tee.

      However, unlike the Gulf War, where nearly all of America was supportive of the U.S. invasion as it was to deter the Iraqi takeover of a ‘weaker’ nation, here there was no action on the behalf of Iraq that justified a U.S. invasion.  Although many Americans believed in a connection between Iraq and the terrorists of Al Qaeda, any union of the two parties was quickly dissolved following the release of the 9-11 commission reports in 2004.  Likewise, as information was returned to the U.S. public during our war in Vietnam, unrest exploded among the American populace, which found itself defending its ideological values depending on collective support or disdain for the war.  Political associations and tendencies manifest into outlets that are traditionally non-partisan such as the arts and entertainment sectors.  This is especially prevalent when a bipartisan breakdown occurs and politicians are called upon either to sanction or stifle modes of expression.  In a time of war, such sanctioning can be crucial for encouraging democratic values and for furthering the notions of a free society; conversely, such notions may be damaging to the morale of a nation already damaged by war and thus the stifling of expression may benefit the immediate and extended solidarity of a nation and peoples.

      Usually such issues are left to the artists, their sponsors, and exhibitors alone.  Oftentimes, the state of war provides artists with newly protected space in which they can create and explore issues that would have been previously attacked by conservative citizens and critics.  The Vietnam War was an example of this space, while few artists were creating anti-war pieces; many were able to focus on the other explosive issues of the day, while shying away from controversy generated by a newly distracted political community.  As noted in Art, Politics and Dissent, the events of the 60s and primarily the Vietnam War, created a space where artists could define their “otherness.”  Often, this otherness was “carved out [of] a position, an identity, by some thing or existence that was not the thing mentioned or was not the thinking or speaking subject.” ¹¹

      A similar situation evolved during the Gulf War, as artists found the space to focus their ‘political’ art on subjects such as AIDS, gay and women’s rights, and multiculturalism.  However, at the dawn of the 21st century, with an attack on our homeland, artists found themselves in a completely unfamiliar territory.  Now that these issues have been aligned with party politics and both parties were initially united over war issues, artists portraying condemnations of policy were dangerously affiliated with Anti-American values.

      War breaks down the dichotomy between the ‘Conservative Republicans’ and ‘Liberal Democrats.’  This breakdown directly affects the content and censorship of artists and their works.  The Patriot Act, enacted to protect citizens from internal terrorists, effectively silenced all forms of “dangerous” expression.  What is considered dangerous is thus no longer protected by ‘liberal’ politicians, leaving artists in a vulnerable arena in which attacks can come from any side.  Whereas noted cases of censorship traditionally come from right-minded politicians and activists, now, any attack on conventional conservative values becomes an attack on America itself.  Under the Patriot Acts I and II, we have seen artists and activists arrested and entire exhibitions confiscated not by the hands of local governments or police agencies but by the domineering hand of the federal government itself. ¹²  Once again, we have reached a period in which private citizens can be detained and arrested for ‘politically charged’ messages on their clothes.  While a flag patch on the bum may be seen as patriotic these days, expressing one’s beliefs on T-shirts and in the privacy of one’s home by hanging posters has resulted in federal investigations and arrests. ^xii  The fallout from such incidents has not been appraised as of yet, but one can be assured that such seizures and arrests will eventually have their day in court, and we have yet to see what side the government and courts will take on the issues.

      What arises from this exploration is a question concerning autonomous aesthetics in a world where the formalist division between art and politics is hazy at best.  This indistinct partition is amplified by both the artists and their sponsors, and the political conditions in which they are created.  Typically, when the Republican Party is in a dominated position in Congress, art censorship increases—this is not swayed by whether the President is ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ and seems to gain momentum whenever an election is upcoming and constituents must be sufficiently agitated by ‘hot’ issues to vote for their conservative leaders.  Likewise, a Democratic administration does little to quench the tides of censorship, though artists themselves may feel more comfortable socially and thus return to a sort of “art for art’s sake’’ mode of production.*

      Shaky ground creates a dangerous platform for the content of art when our country is at war.  As we have seen in recent years, the reinitiation of ‘patriotic’ values by politicians directly affects artistic works, previously protected in the uncontested space of bipartisan support, and now fodder for a war between politics and art.  In a country where aesthetics are determined through government agencies such as the NEA and regulated by bills such as the new Flag Protection Act and the Patriot Act, art has wandered into a realm that warrants considerations of the boundaries between art and politics.

      Are artists obligated to contemplate both aesthetics and ethics in their production?  Should government-sponsored artists be obliged to produce ‘government friendly’ art?  Judge Wallace Tashima, presiding over the Ninth Federal Circuit Court, while considering the NEA Four case in 1992 said, “The right of artists to challenge conventional wisdom and values is a cornerstone of artistic and academic freedom.” ¹³  Yet, when this freedom comes at the expense of taxpayers who may have no knowledge of art and aesthetics, or merely a ‘political conception’ of art as defined by legislators and authority figures, expression becomes tangled in a web of obligation.

      Autonomous art, as envisioned by the founders of the NEA, would flourish with the help of government funding that sought to promote the arts regardless of their content or controversy. Yet, the founders failed to foresee political interference.  In the Stanley Fish sense—no art or ideas exist in a vacuum—unless artists are isolated in a bubble, devoid of current events and isolated from politics, their art will continue to reflect the world around them.  In a literal sense—politicians and activists altering the production or display of art—have fostered an unpleasant marriage of art and politics.  In a world suffused with accessible data, in is inevitable that pure aesthetics and controversial content will continue to coalesce.  So far, the marital disputes continue no matter which party acts as therapist, and until we find a new solution, I suspect the battles will continue.

*