Abstract
This paper analyzes how artistic freedom was problematized in the culture war and reconsiders
what was at stake in the case of those controversial artworks. It was not only the norm of representation
but also the system of classification those artworks tried to challenge.
The culture wars in the United States in the 1990s refer to social as well as political conflicts
between liberals and conservatives concerning the true “American” morals and values. Such issues as
the gun control, pro-choice/pro-life, and homosexuality polarized the public opinion. Art is one of the
controversial fields in the culture wars. It was started by Donald Wildmon, a leader of religious-right
group. He criticized a large-scale photography by Andres Serrano as blasphemous and encouraged
his supporters to write complaint letters to politicians. Trying to abolish the National Endowment for
the Arts, the conservatives took the discourse of the religious-right and modified it to criticize the
NEA, which supposedly supported those controversial artworks. They emphasized that the “tax-payers
money” was used for such works with little artistic merit. This criticism relating art’s quality to public
support became dominant even though they were separate issues. The first law for NEA to restrict the
contents of artwork was introduced as a result.
The Mapplethorpe’s retrospective was canceled while the cultural sector was in turmoil. With
comparing two examples observed in the disputes over its cancelation, there were two types of the discourses
on artistic freedom; one based on art’s autonomy and the other based on human rights.
The target was expanded from art institutions to individual artists. The latter section of this paper
focuses on the case of a performance artist Karen Finley and summarizes how she got involved in
the controversy. Her performance was taken out from the original context and situated as something
“obscene” by conservative columnists. Such gaze towards women was what Finley questioned in her
works. She tried to show the image of woman, which was not allowed to exist in the patriarchal society.
Finley thought the public support of the arts necessary to realize artistic freedom which enables such
works.
The ways of representation and artists’ freedom of expression have been the two main issues to
analyze art practices in the culture wars. This paper reconsiders them from the viewpoint of materiality
and makes it clear that the system of classification defining what art was at the core of the controversy.
