Assisi: An Online Journal of Arts & Letters Volume 4, Issues 1 & 2 | Page 29

views of the Arc, where its curves could be seen in their entirety, was visually compelling.
The plaza was designed with red and gray bricks arranged to form a section of the rings
of a transparent globe encircling and expanding outward from an unused fountain at the
plaza’s furthest end. The Arc’s 122 feet expanse flanked the fountain and transected the
globe across its circumference, arcing in an opposite direction from the globe’s curvature.
At ground level, the Arc, discolored with rust, smelling of urine in spots, stood 12 feet tall.
Its undulating mass ‘tilted’ towards the building’s entrance and those walking within the
shadow of its bulk. The judges feared that the shape of the monument could direct the
blast of a bomb in the direction of the building. In the pre-9/11 world, this fear reeked of
paranoia. After 9/11, as the area around the Court has evolved to resemble a military
encampment, such a circumstance appears increasingly plausible.
On that day in 1985, I listened to a succession of prominent artists, critics and
museum officials arguing that the work was designed to interact with the plaza and that
its removal would effectively destroy it. The public hearing did not stop the removal of
Tilted Arc from the plaza and its eventual sale for scrap metal. The globe has been
replaced by red rectangular tiles interspersed with white marble and the fountain by
shrubbery. The Arc was replaced by rectangular and disc shaped marble that is used as
seating.
When I first contemplated a life in art in the early 1980’s, the National
Endowment for the Arts offered emerging artists such as myself a small stipend to enable
them to launch their careers. I anticipated this benefit as I rested my arms on a banister
and listened as New York’s art community urged the Government not to proceed with the
destruction of Tilted Arc. I did not know it at the time, but the controversy over Tilted
Arc was an initial skirmish in what will eventually be known as the ‘culture wars’. The
culture wars escalated in 1987, when an orchestrated campaign was launched
condemning the National Endowment for the Arts for providing financial support for
‘Piss Christ’, a crucifix photographed in urine, created by the artist Andres Serrano. A
large scale print of Piss Christ had been exhibited in a New York City gallery in 1987 and
Serrano had received an art prize from the National Endowment. After the uproar, artists
receiving the grant I anticipated from the Endowment, were required to pledge that they
would not violate ‘community standards’ in their artistic practices, particularly regarding
sexuality. ‘Civic Virtue Triumphant over Unrighteousness’ could easily be a
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