Abstract
This article examines the controversies surrounding the art world during the culture wars in America in the late 1980s and 90s. It focuses on the cultural context that transpired in the time period by examining the events leading up to the controversies: the genesis of the culture war; the emergence of two political groups, the New Left and the New Right, and the complex history of the National Endowment for the Arts and its role in the culture wars. The paper also analyzes the works of the artists who were at the core of the cultural debate: Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, and the NEA 4. Thus, by analyzing the events that transpired, culminating in the Supreme Court ruling of The NEA v. Karen Finley (1998) it marked the definitive change in how the art world operates, particularly in its relations with the government, that brought significant difficulty for certain artists to receive funding.
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