The joke about the NEA

From LarkNews:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Endowment for the Arts issued a formal call for "obscene and out-of-bounds art," hoping to revive the reputation it gained in the early '90s as a reckless funder of tasteless expression.

"We haven't had anything like 'Piss Christ' or Mapplethorpe's stuff in years," said director Thomas Clinzing. "Middle America is quickly falling into complacency. That's why we're putting the word out to artists that we're open again for naughty business."

The NEA hewed to safer subjects after Congress threatened to yank its funding in 1994, but in recent years it has quietly cultivated relationships with provocateurs and shock-artists, as reflected in its latest report, "Pig Rectums and Papal Perversions: The Best of Publicly Funded Art, 2002."

It is also forcing present grantees to "enliven" their work with edgier material. James Threshold, a renowned potter, received a renewable grant in 2002.

"I tried to renew the grant in January and they told me they would cut my funding unless I urinated on my vases, or smeared them with excrement," he says.

A playwright who received a grant for her gentle play "Grandmothers and Granddaughters," says she was told she'd lose her funding unless she turned it into "a play about incestuous lesbianism."

Director Clinzing makes no apologies.

"We're not just about art, we're about opening people's minds," said Clinzing, who was on his way to enjoy an exhibition of paintings created with the blood of aborted babies. "And this is our clarion call for another wave of body-function-inspired creativity by America's best artists. Call us. Let's get dirty." •

The problem with trying to lampoon the left is that they keep pushing the envlope so that today's joke is tomorrow's factual observation.