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October ^[[ , ]] 1989) and the recent tradeoff at Artists' Space, those dependent on "sucking the tits of government subsidy" (as one alternate space director so delicately put it) --and we are many-- are squirming in their seats wondering where the pointing finger will next come to rest.

The Artists Space story is a cautionary tale, one more landmark in this complex year, or more, for those deeply concerned about freedom of images, and symbolic as well as written and spoken "speech." It is a long and bumpy story,  but in a nutshell: At the end of October, Susan Wyatt, the director of Artists Space, a high-profile "alternative space" in Manhattan, inadvertently set off the NEA alarm systems when she inquired about the "legality" of an AIDS show and catalogue. Met with threats to cut the $10,000 funding, she went on the offensive and declared it a test case.

It was the catalogue of the exhibition, "Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing," which contains frank, furious, and heart-breaking texts about AIDS, that was finally deemed unfundable by the brand new NEA director John Frohnmayer, a "moderate" lawyer from a very conservative Portland Oregon family. He had not seen the art itself, and he had not yet [[strikethrough]] officially taken office [[/strikethrough]] ^[[been sworn in]] when he took it upon himself retroactively (and thus illegally) to withhold from Artists Space the funds committed by the NEA in the past fiscal year of 1989. This despite the fact that Wyatt had switched the