The War on Art Is Repeating Itself
Isaac Butler’s 2026 book *The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America’s Culture Wars* examines censorship campaigns against artists during the Reagan-era Culture Wars of the 1980s–90s, drawing parallels to contemporary attacks on artistic freedom. The narrative centers on key flashpoints: Martin Scorsese’s struggles producing *The Last Temptation of Christ* amid Reverend Donald Wildmon’s organized Christian opposition; Andres Serrano’s *Piss Christ* (1987), whose catalog reproduction Senator Alfonse D’Amato famously tore apart on the Senate floor in 1989; and the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s preemptive cancellation of Robert Mapplethorpe’s *The Perfect Moment* retrospective in Washington, DC, sparking a broader battle over National Endowment for the Arts funding between Jesse Helms and Democratic Congressman Sidney Yates. Reviewer Martha Wilson, founder of Franklin Furnace, contextualizes the historical precedent against recent 2020 postponements of Philip Guston exhibitions by major museums citing potential misinterpretation of his KKK-referencing paintings, arguing that conservative institutional and legislative suppression of transgressive artistic expression remains cyclical.
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