The museum under fire for planning to exhibit a portrait of Pope Benedict made from thousands of condoms has regularly sucked on the federal teat.
But any attempt to put a latex barrier between the two might not survive judicial scrutiny, if a similar museum controversy from the late 1990s is any indication.
The Milwaukee Art Museum, which plans to unveil its “Eggs Benedict” portrait this fall, has received about $150,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts since 2000.
The federal connection has apparently escaped notice as the museum pushes back against charges of anti-Catholic bigotry.
The grants went to projects that sound milquetoast, albeit a bit foolish, but grant money is usually fungible.
The most recent grant, from 2008 to 2010, was $80,0000 for “Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography, 1940-1959.”
In 2006, the Museum got $18,680 to fund an internship program for teenage artists.
Earlier in the decade, the Museum got $30,000 for a touring exhibition called, “American Fancy: Exuberance and Delight in the Arts, 1790-1840.”
Accompanied by educational programs the project was charged with examining “a wide range of objects to identify and define `fancy’ in the context of the history of American decorative arts.”
The Museum also received $25,000 to “support a traveling exhibition of the work of American artist Vito Acconci.”
Anybody inclined to advocate for ending federal grants to the Milwaukee Art Museum might find former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to punish a Brooklyn cultural institution for anti-Catholic art instructive.
In 1999, Giuliani tried to cut off city funds to the Brooklyn Art Museum because it featured a portrait of the Virgin Mary splattered with elephant dung. But a federal judge ruled against him on First Amendment grounds.