Arts Endowment Changes Mind, Funds N.Y. Art Show

NEW YORK — The National Endowment for the Arts today reversed itself and awarded a $10,000 grant to an AIDS art exhibit just hours before the show was scheduled to open.

Endowment Chairman John E. Frohnmayer, who toured the show and discussed the grant with a group of New York City artists Wednesday, announced the decision.

“After consulting with members of the National Council on the Arts, several of whom have also seen the show, I have agreed to approve the request of Artists Space . . . and will release the grant for the exhibition only,” Frohnmayer said.

The endowment said it will not fund the show’s catalogue, which Frohnmayer has called too political to merit federal support.

The show, “Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing,” opens this evening at Artists Space, said Susan Wyatt, the private gallery’s executive director.

Frohnmayer had said at a Wednesday news conference that he planned to discuss the funding issue with members of the endowment and “reflect on what I’ve seen” in a quick tour Wednesday morning.

“The part of the show I’ve had a chance to see lacked artistic merit,” Frohnmayer said then.

The show, featuring works by 23 painters, sculptors and photographers that portray the effects of AIDS on the arts community, was unchanged by the funding controversy, Wyatt said.

Frohnmayer said last week that the endowment was withholding the $10,000 because the show’s content differed from what its grant application said and because the show lacked artistic merit.

The endowment had approved a grant in May for the show, which has some sexual images. But since then, Congress has passed a law putting limits on federal support of art that could be deemed to be obscene.

Frohnmayer objects to the catalogue for the AIDS exhibit for its denunciation of Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), chief sponsor of the anti-obscenity law, and other public figures who have taken a conservative position on the AIDS issue.