How Obscene Is This!: The Decency Clause Turns 20 [Panel I - 9/15]

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Congressional decision to require the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to consider "general standards of decency and respect" in awarding grants, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), in partnership with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School and the BFA Department of Visual & Critical Studies at the School of Visual Arts, presents How Obscene is This?, a series of programs about censorship and arts funding evaluating the stifling legacy of the Decency Clause and its impact on our culture.

The programs include panel discussions, film screenings and event-specific videos. For more information, visit: http://ncac.org/How-Obscene-is-This

ALL EVENTS ARE FREE!  Seating is limited, general admission.

Panel Discussion I

Survival vs. Autonomy: Public Funding of the Arts, Free Speech and Self Censorship
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 – 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
The New School, Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12 Street, New York, 10011

This panel examines how the introduction of the decency clause may have contributed to a growing distinction between conservative and avant-garde institutions. Rather than adhere to “common standards of decency,” a number of alternative organizations have sprung up that simply forfeit the potential of NEA funding.

Participants include:

• Bill Ivey, Director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy and former Chair of the NEA (1998-2001);
• Beka Economopoulos, activist and founder of Not an Alternative and The Change You Want to See Gallery, an alternative space in Brooklyn;
• Magdalena Sawon, Owner and Director of Postmasters Gallery in New York;
• Nato Thompson, Chief Curator at Creative Time, author of Seeing Power: Socially Engaged Art in the Age of Cultural Production;
• Martha Wilson, performance artist and founding director of Franklin Furnace Archive.
• Moderated by Laura Flanders of GritTV

Panel Discussion II

Decency, Respect and Community Standards: What Offends Us Now?
Wednesday, September 22, 2010 – 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
The New School, Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12 Street, New York, 10011

This panel looks at changing attitudes towards notions of decency and respect over the past twenty years. Have attitudes towards representations of nudity and sexuality changed? Are religious topics still as inflammatory? What is considered offensive or inappropriate under our current political climate? The panel brings together artists whose work provoked the culture wars twenty years ago and those who deal with taboo topics today.

Participants Include:

• Wafaa Bilal, Iraqi American artist, whose installation Virtual Jihadi was closed down by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York;
• Holly Hughes, performance artist, one of the NEA4;
• Trevor Paglen, Social scientist, artist, writer and provocateur;
• Carolee Schneemann, filmmaker and visual artist who has battled censorship for the last 50 years.
• Moderated by Laura Flanders of GritTV

Film Screening

Indecent Exposure: A Discussion and Screening of Films You Are Unlikely to See Elsewhere
Monday, September 27, 2010 – 6:30 p.m.
**DIFFERENT LOCATION** School of Visual Arts, SVA Theatre, 333 West 23 Street, New York, 10011

6:30 Destricted (2006), a collection of short films by visual artists, all exploring the boundaries between pornography and art. This will be the exclusive national pre-release screening of the film. Destricted has screened at the Tate Modern in London in 2006, Critics Week at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as the Sundance and Edinburgh Film Festivals. It includes films by Marina Abramovic, Matthew Barney, Cecily Brown, Larry Clark, Marylin Minter, Richard Prince, Sam Taylor-Wood, and others.

7:30 Discussion with Destricted's Producer Neville Wakefield and filmmaker Marilyn Minter. Other panelists to be announced.

8:30 Larry Clark's Ken Park (2002), a film about the abusive home life of several skateboarders in California. Ken Park's controversial sexual content has led to the film being banned in Australia and to its very limited distribution in other countries.