How a Mpls. show helped spark mid-1990s 'culture wars'
The brouhaha began over some paper towels.
The towels were tinged with human blood, used in a live act by a radical HIV-positive artist in 1994, a time when AIDS hysteria was peaking all over America.
It didnt matter that the $150 of the federal budget that went toward funding the show was an infinitesimal amount. That any federal money was used to support Ron Atheys Four Scenes From a Harsh Life, presented by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, was enough to outrage conservatives. Sen. Jesse Helms pushed to defund the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and Rush Limbaugh incited listeners to hysteria by claiming that buckets of AIDS-tainted blood had been thrown at audience members who were running for their lives. (In fact, the artist whose blood was on the paper towels was not HIV-positive.)
What became known as the culture wars a heated polarity between supporters of provocative art and conservative leaders who didnt want public money used to fund it didnt begin in Minneapolis. But Atheys notable performance wound up being one of its primary flash points, and tossed the Walker into the middle of the fire.
The brouhaha will be remembered and discussed at events in Minneapolis this week, including a panel discussion at the Walker featuring Athey, a symposium at the University of Minnesota and two nights of performances by local artists at Patricks Cabaret.
Targeting the NEA
Athey, described as a body-modification artist, was presented in 1994 by one of the citys largest cultural institutions, the Walker, at one of its smallest, an avant-garde indie space across town called Patricks Cabaret.
At one point, Athey, who is HIV-positive, cut incisions into the back of another artist, daubed paper towels with his blood and clipped the towels to lines circling above the audiences heads. The scene was meant to evoke a human printing press.
After receiving a tip about a complaint by one audience member to public health officials, the Star Tribune ran a front-page story, which was followed up by news media across the country. Outraged, Helms called Athey a cockroach on the Senate floor, citing him as a reason to defund or cut back on the NEAs then $171 million annual budget. Religious leader Pat Robertson denounced the Walker, and Limbaugh threw gasoline on the fire with his comments.
A few months after Atheys show, the NEAs budget was cut by 2 percent a blow, but nowhere near the more drastic cuts its critics had called for. Like the NEA Four, a group of controversial artists including Karen Finley and Holly Hughes, who also had appeared at the Walker, Athey became a symbol of the fight even though he himself had never applied for NEA money.
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How a Mpls. show helped spark mid-1990s 'culture wars'