"I hope it works out," THE NEW YORK TIMES quotes Cochran as saying. "Bill Ferris has done a great job, has brought new ideas to the endowment and is popular among the state humanities leaders." The request was to retain Ferris until his four year term ends in September, but Cochran said he would also support Ferris' reappointment for another term.

According to the Times, The White House Office of Management and Budget recently sent out a memorandum which includes the arts and humanities endowments among 40 mostly smaller agencies whose heads will not automatically be changed because there is a new administration -- an indication that neither Ferris or National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Chairman, Bill Ivey will be immediately replaced.

William R. Ferris was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1942. Before becoming chairman of the NEH in November 1997, Dr. Ferris served for 18 years as founding director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

Ferris' scholarship covers the fields of folklore, American literature, music, and photography. Among his books are RAY LUM'S TALES OF HORSES, MULES, AND MEN, (1992) LOCAL COLOR, (1982) and IMAGES OF THE SOUTH: VISITS WITH EUDORA WELTY AND WALKER EVANS. (1978) He also spearheaded the creation of the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SOUTHERN CULTURE, (1989) a major reference work which contains entries on every aspect of southern culture and links popular, folk and academic cultures.

His films include MISSISSIPPI BLUES, (1983) which was featured at the Cannes Film Festival. Among his sound recordings are HIGHWAY 61 BLUES: JAMES 'SON' THOMAS. (1983) and BOTHERED ALL THE TIME. (1983)

Ferris has bipartisan support in Congress, and NEH funding has increased under his tenure. Last year Congress approved a $5 Million increase for the NEH, putting the agency's budget up to $120.3 million.

The Times notes that when asked in an interview whether he was a Republican or a Democrat, Ferris answered: "I'm an educator."

Sources/resources:

Jacqueline Trescott
"GOP Leaders Back Ferris"
WASHINGTON POST -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47271-2001Feb8.html
February 9, 2001

Irvin Molotsky
"2 in G.O.P. Ask Bush to Keep Clinton's Chief of Humanities"
THE NEW YORK TIMES -- http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/09/politics/09ENDO.html
February 9, 2001

THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES WEBSITE --- http://www.neh.gov

"Congress Approves Significant Increases for Cultural Agencies"
Arts Wire CURRENT-- http://www.artswire.org/current/2000/cur101000.html
October 10, 2000

their submissions were "controversial". "This is a great decision for artists all over the country," said David Greene, Executive Director of the First Amendment Project. "Governmental officials cannot simply, based on their individual beliefs or their subjective perception of the public's moral compass, decide that some art is unsuitable for view in public facilities."

Noting that the case is "a study in the politics and law of public art", and that "the parties agree that the art is not obscene or pornographic," the court stated that "We hold that Pasco violated the artists' First Amendment rights by creating a designated public forum and then excluding their artwork without a compelling governmental interest. Therefore, we reverse the district court's grant of summary judgment for Pasco, reverse the district court's denial of Hopper and Rupp's motion for partial summary judgment, and remand for further proceedings."

The case arose in early 1996 when Rupp and Hopper were invited to display their works at the Pasco City Hall Gallery in Pasco as part of a partnership between the City and the Mid-Columbia Arts Council.

According to the Court decision, Rupp agreed to show three small bronze sculptures. The sculpture which was the source of the controversy is entitled TO THE DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS AND BIPARTISANS, DAMN, I'M STUCK, or A WOMAN DRINKING FROM A BROOK.

It depicts a large female torso, spread-eagled against a flat surface with her nude back side facing the viewer. The work was displayed in a glass case along with two other works by Rupp. But after a week, it was ordered removed from display by the city after some viewers complained that it was overtly "sexual" and "offensive".

Hopper agreed to show a series of ten black and white linoleum prints entitled ADAM AND EVE in which a nude couple are depicted in silhouette and outline, in a variety of landscapes and scenes from post-World War II Germany. According to the Court record, none of the prints depict explicit sexual activity, but in two the couple is kissing and in several they are embracing.

Although Hopper had informed a representative of the Arts Council that her work contained nudity and had been assured that the nudity would not be a problem and although previous exhibitions at the gallery had contained nudity, when she delivered the work, it was rejected as "controversial" and "offensive" by the city and was not shown.

The artists, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Washington, sued the city.

"The City broke its agreement to exhibit these artists' works," said cooperating attorney Paul Lawrence, who is representing the artists for the ACLU along with attorney Daniel Poliak. "It's not the business of government to censor art because some people may find the art controversial."

"Hopefully, this decision will bring us closer to eliminating the stigma of the label 'controversial' that is so often attached to artwork targeted by censors," said Svetlana Mintcheva, coordinator of the National Coalition Against Censorship's Arts Advocacy Project. "Throughout history, the best artwork has provoked discussion and debate and American artists should not be afraid to honor that legacy."

In his Opinion, Judge McKeown stated that "The city steadfastly maintains that its exclusion of plaintiffs' works was not 'censorship' since Hopper and Rupp 'have been free to show their art throughout the City, other than [at] city hall.' The art, in Pasco's view, was merely ejected from the parlor, not thrown off the farm. But relegating the art to the barnyard does not pass First Amendment scrutiny."

McKeown continued: "We do not endorse Pasco's cramped view of what constitutes censorship, and we find none of the city's reasons for excluding the art work compelling. Although children may pass through the hallways of the building, the city concedes that the works are not obscene, and it is beyond peradventure that the works have serious artistic value. And the city offered no evidence to suggest that children would be harmed by, or even saw, the works. The mere fact that the works caused controversy is, of course, patently insufficient to justify their suppression."

However, he also noted that "This result is, in certain ways, an unfortunate one. We recognize that city administrators set out to display art, not to censor it -- although in the end, censorship prevailed. We also acknowledge that they walked a fine line as they tried to please the City Council, city workers, the local arts community, and the public at large, all of whom likely had different views as to what constituted art 'appropriate' for City Hall. But while Pasco may have blundered into the controversy that ended its arts program, it could have avoided this problem by establishing and enforcing a clearly articulated policy that would pass First Amendment muster."

The court's decision was released the same day New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani proposed that a "decency committee" be convened to monitor the content of art displayed in museums that receive city funding.

"Unfortunately, it seems courts will have to continue to educate government officials about basic concepts of our democracy," said Executive Director of the First Amendment Project David Greene.

Sources/resources:

JANETTE HOPPER, and SHARON RUPP, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY OF PASCO, and ARTS COUNCIL OF THE MID-COLUMBIA REGION, -- http://laws.findlaw.com/9th/9835795.html
February 15, 2001

"Appeals Court Rules Pasco Violated Rights of Artists" AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF WASHINGTON -- http://www.aclu-wa.org/ISSUES/freespeech/Pasco.Ruling.2.15.01.html
February 15, 2001

FIRST AMENDMENT PROJECT -- http://www.thefirstamendment.org

NATIONAL COALITION AGAINST CENSORSHIP -- http://www.ncac.org

NATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION HANDBOOK -- http://www.ncfe.net/handbook/chapter1.html

New York-based Jamerican photographer Renee Cox creates photographs which recommodify imagery. Cox -- casting herself as a super hero, Venus, Jesus, or Mary, sometimes using other black actors -- addresses issues of race, gender, and Western patriarchal constructs. In YO MAMA'S LAST SUPPER, the large scale color photograph to which the Mayor objected, she is nude and surrounded by black apostles. The work was included in the 1999 Venice Biennale where, in a culture with a Renaissance tradition of integrating contemporary culture and personalities into art works depicting Christian allegory, it was shown in a 16th century church.

According to THE NEW YORK TIMES, Mayor Giuliani, who has not seen the exhibition, called Cox's photograph "disgusting," "outrageous," and "anti-Catholic."

In 1999, the City withheld funding from the Brooklyn Museum of Art (BMA) after Mayor Giuliani vehemently objected to a mixed media work which incorporated elephant dung and was included in the exhibition SENSATIONS. However, a U.S. District court ordered the City to restore all funding withheld -- noting that The museum "has established irreparable harm and a likelihood of success on its First Amendment claim."

Like Cox, Chris Ofili, the artist who created the HOLY VIRGIN MARY to which Giuliani objected in 1999, is a black artist -- as was the Madonna he created. Ofili has lived has lived for years in Nigeria, and he was drawing on a culture in which excrement is often incorporated into religious artwork.

Giuliani is considering filing suit again, according to the Times, which reports that the Mayor might base his argument on a 1998 Supreme Court ruling which he said endorsed "decency standards" for the National Endowment for the Arts.

However, although the ruling he referred to, NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS ET AL.V.FINLEY, affirmed Congressional latitude in setting funding priorities including in National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grants to artists, it did not address art work exhibited in publicly funded places.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) notes that "while it is true that the NEA's decency standards were upheld in the Finley case, the Court's decision contained two important caveats. First, the Court noted that the decency standards were never intended to be a litmus test for government funding; instead, they were merely one consideration among many that the government could take into account in deciding whether to award a grant.

Second, the Court clearly indicated in the Finley case that the government could not use the decency standards as an excuse to withhold funding because it disagreed with the views expressed by a particular artist or a particular work of art. Whether accurate or not, describing a work as 'anti-Catholic' is precisely the sort of ideological judgment that cannot be the basis for funding decisions under the Finley case."

COMMITTED TO THE IMAGE: CONTEMPORARY BLACK PHOTOGRAPHERS, which opened in February, Black History Month, is at the Brooklyn Museum of Art through April 29, 2001. The exhibition features the work of 94 photographers -- including Ernest Wither, Cynthia Wiggins, Salimah Ali, Kwame Brathwaite, Jeffrey Henson Scales, Gordon Parks, Carrie Mae Weems, Albert Chong, Fern Logan, Shen Marc, Budd Williams, and many others -- with each represented by two works.

"The 94 African American contemporary photographers represented in this exhibition have used their cameras as tools of social commentary and personal and artistic exploration, bearing witness to changes in the world over the past fifty years. These uncompromising, thought - provoking, often highly politicized images cover such subjects as the daily lives of people of African descent; powerful moments during the battle for Civil Rights; the history of black musicianship; and the influence of African American art, literature, and ideals on beauty on society at large," the Museum states.

The work in the exhibition was selected by Anthony Barboza, founder of International Black Photographers; Beauford Smith, one of the founders of the Black Photographers Annual; Orville Robertson, publisher and editor of the journal FOTOPHILE and a freelance photographer and cinematographer; and exhibition organizer Barbara Head Millstein, Curator of Photography at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

"While many of these works are beautiful and easy to enjoy, others may be controversial and difficult for us as viewers," the Times quotes museum's director, Arnold L. Lehman as saying."Throughout history, the artist's responsibility has been to make us think."

Sources/resources:

Elisabeth Bumiller
"Affronted by Nude 'Last Supper,' Giuliani Calls for Decency Panel"
THE NEW YORK TIMES -- http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/16/arts/16MUSE.html
February 16, 2001

"The Mayor and the Arts, Round 2"
THE NEW YORK TIMES -- http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/16/opinion/16FRI2.html
February 16, 2001

"Mayor's Proposed Museum "Decency Panel" is Misguided and Unconstitutional, ACLU Says"
THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION WEB SITE -- http://www.aclu.org/news/2001/n021601a.html

BROOKLYN MUSEUM OF ART -- http://www.brooklynart.org/

"Supreme Court Rules That NEA Can Deny Grants on Indecency"
Arts Wire CURRENT -- http://www.artswire.org/current/1998/cur063098.html
June 30, 1998

Arts Wire CURRENT Coverage of the 1999 Giuliani v BMA conflict is indexed under "Freedom of Expression" in the 1999 YEAR IN REVIEW issue, available on the index page at http://www.artswire.org/current/archive2.html

"Napster by its conduct knowingly encourages and assists the infringement of plaintiffs' copyrights," The Ninth Circuit's opinion stated.

"The decision represents a clear victory for the creative content community and the legitimate online marketplace," said Hilary Rosen, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) President and CEO. "We are gratified that the Ninth Circuit agreed with Judge Patel [Chief U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel] that Napster must take steps immediately to prevent further copyright infringements."

The decision is likely to be applicable to future situations in many arts disciplines, in that although many artists may choose to make their work available as public art on the Internet, that is a decision, the Court affirmed, to be made by the artists themselves, and/or, if applicable, by their labels, publishers, or agents -- not by a business which uses their work without permission.

Sources/resources:

THE RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA (RIAA) WEBSITE -- http://www.riaa.com

NAPSTER WEB SITE -- http://www.napster.com

"Musicians, Execs Testify to Congress About Music Technologies"
Arts Wire CURRENT -- http://www.artswire.org/current/2000/cur071800.html
July 18, 2000

"Judge Shuts Napster Down; Appeals Court Grants Stay"
Arts Wire CURRENT -- http://www.artswire.org/current/2000/cur080100.html
August 1, 2000

"Napster Forms Alliance with Bertelsmann; Will Move to Subscription Model"
Arts Wire CURRENT -- http://www.artswire.org/current/2000/cur111400.html
November 14, 2000

OTHER MINDS VII

Presented by Other Minds, in association with the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, The annual new music festival OTHER MINDS FESTIVAL VII is a gathering of composers and performers in contemporary music which offers "an opportunity to hear works by musical innovators who are shaping the sounds of the 21st century."

This year, the festival, presents five world premieres, several of which will be performed by their composers. Public programs include artist forums and three evenings of concerts.

The eight composers invited to the 2001 Festival are:

CHRIS BROWN (Oakland)
Percussionist William Winant of Oakland, featured guest artist for the festival, holds forth in the world premiere of Chris Brown's INVENTION NO. 7 (2001) for networked computers and live musicians, with legendary Sacramento scratch-master Eddie Def, and Brown on Yamaha Disklavier and computer.

GAVIN BRYARS (Great Britain)
The Other Minds Ensemble conducted by Linda Bouchard, and others plus Gavin Bryars, in a rare Bay Area appearance, performing on string bass in his ADNAN SONGBOOK The 2001 Festival closes with a performance of Bryars' ONE LAST BAR THEN JOE CAN SING, (1994) featuring Reddrum percussion quintet. "The underwater-like atmosphere of this astonishing work follows composer Percy Grainger's dictum of employing metal percussion instruments which have the full pitch range of the audio spectrum from tip top to the very bottom."

ALVIN CURRAN (Oakland/Rome)
The world premiere of his new work for solo piano INNER CITIES 8 (2000), written for and performed by Eve Egoyan. Curran describes this work as "the most beautiful piece I've ever composed."

ANDREW HILL (New York)
Legendary Blue Note artist Andrew Hill returns to the Bay Area for a solo piano performance, in the world premiere of "Bellezza Appasita" (Faded Beauty, 2001), from an extended work in progress, PINOCCHIO. Conceived during a fellowship at the artists' residence program Civitella Ranieri, (Umbria, Italy) the work portrays scenes from the life of a fellow resident from Russia, so paranoid that he trusts only trees, and spends his time hugging and talking with them.

HI KYUNG KIM (Santa Cruz, born Korea)
The world premiere of RITUEL (2000) for violin, cello, clarinet, and percussion, dedicated to the memory of poet Ok-koo Kang and ethnomusicologist Marnie Dilling. Shamanistic dancer-drummer Eun-Ha Park of the Korean National Classical Institute "combines the energy of a folk dancer with the precision of a percussion virtuoso" in her U.S. debut, appearing with percussionist Winant and others.

JAMES TENNEY (Los Angeles)
Sabat/Clarke Duo returns to the stage to perform "surprising" works by the festival's senior composer James Tenney, including DIAPHONIC TOCCATA (1997) and DIAPHONIC TRIO FOR VIOLIN & PIANO, (1997) both commissioned by Sabat/Clarke, and CHORALE (1974) and 3 PAGES IN THE SHAPE OF A PEAR. (1995) For two of the works, the piano is re-tuned in just intonation.

GLEN VELEZ (New York)
ANCIENT WORLD (2001) for frame drums and voice, featuring Velez in a solo performance on bendir, (Moroccan frame drum) bodhran, (Irishframe drum), voice, and riq. (Egyptian tambourine)

ALEKSANDRA VREBALOV (Ann Arbor, born Yugoslavia)
STRING QUARTET NO. 2 (1996-7) by young composer Aleksandra Vrebalov of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, "whose music, which blends Eastern European and avant-garde influences, is filled with the drama of upheaval reflecting the recent plight of her homeland" - written for Kronos, performed by the Onyx Quartet.

In addition to works by living composers, this year's festival also looks back at musical individualists of the past century with an opening night concert tribute to the late Armenian-American composer Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000), on the 90th anniversary of his birth. Other festival highlights include a program of musical works by poet Ezra Pound, who transcribed into music the rhythmic patterns and cadences of poetry; and a work by George Antheil, self-styled "bad boy of American music," whose Centennial celebration, presented in association with Other Minds, was a high point of the San Francisco Symphony's AMERICAN MAVERICKS series last summer.

Free artist forums feature pre-concert talks by the composers on Thursday and Friday evenings, and a Saturday morning panel discussion on the music of Ezra Pound.

The Opening Night concert is preceded at 7:00 PM by a free panel discussion on the Cowell Theater stage with Eve Egoyan, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Gavin Bryars, Glen Velez and Chris Brown.

Dedicated to new and unusual music in all its forms, Other Minds was founded in San Francisco by Executive Director Charles Amirkhanian and Board President Jim Newman in 1992. The first Other Minds Festival was presented in 1993. Other Minds Festivals are known for their international scope, incorporation of new technologies, multidisciplinary collaborations, and tradition of encouraging relatively unknown but gifted young composers. Presented in association with the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the festival concerts are preceded by four days of private sessions at the Djerassi Program in Woodside, giving the composers a rare chance to discuss critical questions in depth and to get to know one another on a more personal basis.

For complete program, visit http://www.otherminds.org
Tickets are available through the Cowell Theater Box Office tel: 415-441-3687 and online at http://www.ticketweb.com

METU CONTEMPORARY DANCE FESTIVAL

With the objective of extending the boundaries of contemporary dance as a dance practice, and as an art form in Turkey, The Middle East Technical University (METU) CONTEMPORARY DANCE FESTIVAL aims to bringing amateur/professional individuals and groups who practice contemporary/modern dance in Turkey on a common platform as well as to provide an opportunity for the Turkish audience to get in touch with contemporary dance; to show that contemporary dance could also become an 'everyday thing' like other art-forms; to share what is already limited on a common platform: educational knowledge, experience, perspective, resource.

This year, the festival will question the role of the choreographer in a contemporary dance performance. In addition to the emergent role of the choreographer as a "coordinator and inventor of the rules that organize interaction of autonomous co-workers' creative energies", (Eda Cufer in En-Knap) the program will also concentrate on non-corporeal aspects of choreography (sound, light, set, and costume) as choreographic elements; on choreography as a design process; and on production.

For more information, send email to Safak Uysal, METU Contemporary Dance Festival General Coordinator at Email: dansgunleri@hotmail.com

CD RELEASE CONCERT:
R!G - A NEW CD BY CURTIS BAHN

Curtis Bahn, "vertical" upright bass and interactive electronics, will perform solo and with computer extended improvising musicians Scott Smallwood on electric steel pan drum and Joel Taylor on shakuhachi, suling, and assorted percussion -- marking both the new release of Bahn's R!G on the EMF Media label and a recent recording of the trio on Wavelet records.

"....the musical power of extended performance together with responsive electronics is formidable, and in this case it allows him to mix sounds, follow algorithmically-generated shapes, process the sound of his own performance on string bass, and do it all so fast aspeakers."

Curtis Bahn -- http://www.music.princeton.edu/~crb -- is a composer, improvisor and string- bass player who specializes in live electronic performance using gestural controllers. His music has been presented at the International Computer Music Conference, (ICMC) Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts, (ISEA) the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, (SEAMUS) Performance Studies International, (PSI) Mobius in Boston, and Context and the Kitchen in NYC, among many others. Recently he has been involved in the creation of a family of spherical speakers and sensor-speaker arrays (SenSAs) with Dan Trueman and Perry Cook, as well as the design of numerous gestural controllers for dance and live multi-media performance.

He is currently Assistant Professor of Computer Music Composition/Performance, and Assistant Professor of Information Technology and the Arts in the Integrated Electronic Arts Program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. (iEAR studios)

R!g is available through EMF Media -- http://www.cdemusic.org/

Information about BAHN/SMALLWOOD/TAYLOR: ISP72-2K (Wavelet records) -- " An involved and beautiful journey deep into a strange and evocative musical wilderness which encompasses the distant past as well as the unknowable future. With Curtis Bahn on sensor-bass and electronics, Scott Smallwood on steel pan, percussion, and electronics, and Joel Taylor on shakuhachi, suling, kaen, serge synthesizer, and electronics" is available at http://www.ir-music.org/wavelet/ Impulse Response -- formerly the Albany Improvisation Laboratory, (founded by Seth Cluett) which presented performers including Ken Vandermark and the Vandermark 5, Jaap Blonk, Jack Wright, The No Neck Blues Band, KK Null, William Parker, Alan Silva, and a host of other great improvisers, experimental musicians, and noise artists -- is now located at the Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy, NY. Under the direction of Scott Smallwood and Joel Taylor, Impulse Response continues to bring the latest in alternative flavors of music and sound to the Albany-Troy-Schenectady region.

For more information, visit http://www.ir-music.org/ tel 518-273-0552