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Artistic Freedom: government challenge

By Robert Mansfield

For many artists of my generation who were educated during the 1960s, the meaning and the importance of the First Amendment was revealed by events such as the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, political assassinations, censorship, marches and, of course protests against the Vietnam War.
As these movements grew, the government's reaction against them increased proportionately. Artists and others were threatened, jailed and intimidated for making anti-war statements, while gallery directors and publishing works challenged the government's position and authority.
As an art student of that era, the First Amendment was seldom an issue of concern. It was simply accepted as an axiom. In fact, it seemed that boundaries of expression were governed only by individual creative ability, intellect and imagination. Yet, through the events of that decade, it soon became clear that freedom of expression was not a guaranteed right of this democracy, but a relative condition determined by social and political factors.
Although these events and the repressive reactions against them helped shape social consciousness, it was the massacre at Kent State University on May 4,1970, that galvanized it. This became a tragic example of the extent our government would go in order to silence opposition of its agenda.
It is still a bitter irony to reflect on Goya's painting, "The Execution of May 3,1808" and see in it Kent State University of May 4,1970.
Having had the opportunity to teach in the People's Republic of China in 1986-87 as the first American visiting art professor there since the Communist Regime of 1949, I was able to witness a totalitarian government's control of its students, teachers and artists.
While I was not new to China's history or government, I was not prepared for the degree of its control, censorship or paranoia about art.
In this respect, artists, faculty and students know that the boundaries of expression are controlled exclusively be the government.
Even so one day each year the academy allowed for "free art." This was the day when students were supposed to freely express themselves through their art. The occasion was more pathetic than profound because after years of rigid training, repression and introdoctrination, the students couldn't handle the freedom.
In December, campus protests for democracy spontaneously erupted throughout China, the seeds for Tianamen Square had been sewn. As a consequence of this uprising, my teaching and contact with students became tightly restricted, and I was relegated to teaching art filtered through screens of communist ideology.
Upon returning to San Diego State University in the fall of 1987, I was immediately impressed by the variety of personal and creative expressions in the students' clothing, colors, hairstyles and actions. I had forgotten about the enormous differences of styles, attitudes and expressions endemic to the culture. A vital element of its strength was its commitment to creative expression, and its tolerance of diversity (in all its myriad of forms).
However, it soon became apparent through the media and the courts that beyond all these bright, innocent fashion statements lingered persisting attempts by others to censor art, ban books, dictate political correctness, determine educational content and establish singular moral standards. These objectives set forth by various religious organizations, special-interest groups, politicians and other self-appointed "cultural monitors" constituted the next waves of assault on the First Amendment.
On June 4, 1989, at 4 a.m., the Chinese army rolled into Tianamen Square in Beijing, China. In less than one hour, it claimed the lives of thousands of students and the dreams of millions more. Before the video and photographic documentation of this atrocity emerged to embarrass the Chinese government, it (the government) claimed that the army had only been defending itself from hooligans and thugs.
This report was perilously similar to the one issued by the American media when it reported on May 4, 1970 that the Ohio National Guard had only been defending itself against radical Kent State University students. Yet, the media reports of National Guard injuries and deaths proved to be completely false.
At the same time of the Tianamen Square massacre, the photographic exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., was canceled because of the "moral" objections by Sen. Jesse Helms. Although the same show went on to Chicago and San Francisco without incident, the Cincinnati Museum of Contemporary Art in Ohio and its director were later indicted by a grand jury on obscenity charges. It was a small victory when a jury of local citizens found them innocent.
Unlike the totalitarian regime of the People's Republic of China, we live in a pluralistic society that must embrace different political, ethnic, religious and cultural expressions and values to stay vital and alive. Without the protection of the First Amendment to express ourselves, democracy as we have known it will cease to exist. Unless we accept the responsibilities inherent in this amendment and defend it against special-interest groups and politicians like Sen. Helms, we will have to accept the consequences that our art, music, literature and theatre will be theirs to dictate.

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