Arts: The Decency Clause

How can one explore, expose and explicate gay life? How does the government decide to fund artists?

 Tim Miller, a performance artist best known as one of the "NEA Four," four performance artists who, in the late 1980s, had their National Endowment for the Arts funding revoked under a "decency clause," hits Durham this week to explore both of these questions. Tonight he performs his one-man show "US," touching on his childhood love for Broadway and his more recent struggles with home, love and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Tomorrow afternoon he will perform his so-called performance lecture and rant "Sex! Body! Self!" in the newly completed Theater Studies building on West Campus.

 Miller's notoriety began in 1990, when he was awarded an Individual Performance Grant by the NEA. Under the first Bush administration, his funding, along with three other artists, was revoked for "indecency." Miller and his compatriots sued on the grounds that such action was a violation of the First Amendment--and after realizing that three of the four artists were gay. Their suit was successful and earned them the sum of the revoked grants, but the decision was later overturned by the Supreme Court, deciding for future generations of artists that "standards of decency" are viable grounds for considering and allocating artistic funding. This theme, unsurprisingly, has made its way into Miller's work--and loudly. He claims to "continue fighting for freedom of expression for fierce, diverse voices."

 Of late, Miller has been gleaning inspiration from his efforts to keep his partner, an Australian, in the U.S. His 1999 piece, "Glory Box," much like "US," begins in childhood with anecdotes about his upbringing and playground encounters, when he claimed he wanted to marry a boy, and moves through the years as he struggles to define himself within society as a gay man.

 Performance art, often dismissed by cynics as "bad theater," often uses a plotless script, unusual props and packs a dose of shock value, but most of all requires its audience to think. Miller's Durham performance, sponsored by Duke's Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Life's Trans Figurations series, asks such an investment from its viewers--or at least an open mind.

 US opens tonight at 8:15 at Manbites Dog Theater in Durham and runs Friday and Saturday night at 8:15 and Sunday at 3:15. Discount tickets are available at the LGBT Center, $5 students. "Sex! Body! Self!" will be Friday, Sept. 19 at noon in Sheafer Theater in the Bryan Center.

 Admission is free.