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catalogue funding from NEA bucks to those received, appropriately, from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Announcing among other absurdities that art had no esthetic merit if it also had politics (which he later revised to "polemics"), Frohnmayer brought down on his head the rage of the arts communities.

The day the "Witnesses" show opened, after a week of front-page press and media attention, much behind-doors diplomacy (a bit too much for my taste), and public organizing through the National Association of Artists Organizations (NAAO), Frohnmayer bailed out of the maelstrom he had created. After Leonard Bernstein refused the White House's National Arts Award, citing the Artists Space incident, and after some nudging from embarrassed Republican moderates and National Council members, he returned the $10,000 (which Artists Space and its Board had refused to relinquish anyway).

Presumably it was all over but the shouting. The shouting continues. The inevitable "Piss-Helms" poster appeared furing [[strikethrough through letter "f]] ^ [[d]] the furor ^ [[,]] [[strikethrough]] and [[/strikethrough]] ACTUP (AIDS coalition to Unleash Power) picketed the opening of the show ("Penises and Vulvas, they're OK, Jesse Helms, Go Away"), still pissed off about the homophobia that inspired the whole mess and kept the catalogue [[strikethrough]] texts [[/strikethrough]] on the censorship hook. The focus was a powerful text by painter/photographer/writer and gay activist David Wojnarowicz, who was a major participant in