Art, Outrage and How the Culture Wars Began
19 June - 34 minsIn April 1989, a newspaper clipping about an art exhibit landed in the mailbox of the Rev. Donald Wildmon, the founder of a conservative evangelical group, the American Family Association.
Partly funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the exhibit included a now-infamous photograph by Andres Serrano that showed a crucifix submerged in Serrano’s own urine. Incensed, Wildmon sent a copy of the photo to every member of Congress, setting off a battle led by the Christian right over what contemporary art could be and who should receive federal funding for it.
Isaac Butler, an author and cultural historian, walks through this and other pivotal moments in the culture wars of the 1980s and...
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