Defend Obscene Art!!!!
M. Perry
Defaming Clinton--for a lot of Hollywood liberals and feminists that
must seem like blasphemy.
--MP
Blind Councilman Wants Clinton Paintings Removed
Man Says Trusted Friends Told Him Art Is 'Offensive'
Posted: 3:47 p.m. EDT August 29, 2001
Updated: 3:57 p.m. EDT August 29, 2001
NAPLES, Fla. -- Two paintings satirizing Bill Clinton's affair with
Monica Lewinsky are at the center of a free-speech debate, and the man
leading the charge to remove the art from city property is a blind
councilman who's been told the paintings are obscene.
The debate is expected to rage on at least until Sept. 4, when the
Naples City Council will discuss whether the paintings violate the lease
it has with the private, nonprofit von Liebig Art Center, and if the art
violates Naples' community standards.
The art center is built on city property and operates under a 100-year
lease that allows the city council to remove art it finds offensive.
Councilman Fred Tarrant, 74, is leading the opposition to the Lewinsky
art.
Tarrant, who is blind, said that people he trusts tell him the painting
hanging in the von Liebig's "Pop Art" exhibit, "Famous Tongue Mona Al
Monica," is offensive and possibly obscene.
The work by Naples artist Ted Lay depicts the faces of Albert Einstein,
the Mona Lisa, and Lewinsky with their tongues hanging out.
Critics said that Lewinsky's tongue looks like a penis. Lay said that
the tongue is a tongue and the painting is a satirical take-off on the
Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.
So is another painting in the exhibit by Lay, 73.
"Christmas Card for Monica," shows former President Clinton with coat
and tie, legs spread, and dressed in boxer shorts decorated with the
Stars and Stripes.
Lay said that the shorts are modeled from a pair of Tommy Hilfiger
designer boxers he bought at a department store.
The exhibit is scheduled to end Sept. 1, and the paintings have already
been sold to an art collector.
The paintings were chosen for the exhibit by an independent juror, Kevin
Dean, director and curator of exhibitions for the Selby Gallery at the
Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Fla.
Dean said that Lay's paintings were some of the best work submitted and
that one of the dangers of art is that it can offend people.
To Tarrant, the paintings are more than offensive. He said that they are
clear violations of the art center's lease with the city.
"These artists can paint anything they want," Tarrant said. "I don't
care how far out it is, as long as they display it on private property
and not shove it in our face on tax-supported property."
The lease gives the city council power to decide if art hanging in the
center violates community standards. Those standards are not defined.
Tarrant said that if he cannot address control of the work the center
exhibits through the its lease, he'll propose a law to regulate
"inappropriate" art placed on public property in the city.
Tarrant said that he does not believe his view challenges First
Amendment freedoms.
When the city granted the 100-year lease to the art center to build on
park property in the mid-1990s, former art center leaders agreed not to
exhibit anything "controversial or in bad taste," Tarrant said.
"Well, they've done it," he added.
Mayor Bonnie MacKenzie voted against Tarrant's request to discuss the
von Liebig lease at the Sept. 4 council workshop, but asked von Liebig
officials to move the offending Monica painting out of the lobby.
She also asked the city attorney to contact a state library committee
that can help the council decide just what local standards are for art.
City council member Tamela Wiseman is the only member of the panel to
squarely oppose taking the painting down or regulating other art works.