The Tennessee Arts Commission

"This has always been our policy, because this is a public gallery, and we are a state agency that has school children coming though here." - Rich Boyd, executive director Tennessee Arts Commission

According to its website, "The Tennessee Arts Commission [is] an independent agency of the State of Tennessee...[whose] mission is that the citizens of Tennessee have access to and participate in the arts." One of the many activities that the Tennessee Arts Commission (TAC) undertakes to fulfill this mission is the operation of a 650 square foot gallery, located across the street from the state Capitol, which features work by Tennessee artists.

In the fall of 2001, Knoxville artist Ernie Sandidge submitted slides of his oil paintings as part of his application to have an exhibit at the Commission's gallery. His application was approved and Sandidge sent the gallery his oil paintings. Included in the works was one that depicted a nude character and which the Commission claims was not featured in the slides he had previously sent. Sandidge was told that the Commission had a "no-nudes" policy and therefore the nude work could not be part of the exhibit. When the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) interceded on Sandidge's behalf, the Tennessee Arts Commission Gallery rescinded its invitation to display any of Sandidge's work.

In an e-mail to Svetlana Mintcheva, NCAC's Arts Advocacy Project Coordinator, TAC executive director Rich Boyd stated that the gallery had a no-nudes policy on file but would not fax or mail a copy of the policy, claiming that it could only be read in person at TAC's offices by a Tennessee resident. In a subsequent phone conversation with a researcher for the Free Expression Policy Project (which is affiliated with NCAC) Boyd stated that the state's "obscenity/harmful to minors" statute mandated the policy--a position that Mr. Boyd claims the state Attorney General's office has advised him is legally sound.

Such reliance on the state statute is misplaced. The U.S. Supreme Court has rightly determined that works of artistic merit cannot be considered "obscene" or "harmful to minors" solely because they depict nudity. The depiction of a nude human is a means of artistic expression that has transcended the ages. To eliminate all nudity would rebuke history's most influential artists: Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Manet and Picasso, to name but a few.

Certainly public agencies that often host children need to be careful about public sensitivities. But, as an editorial in The Tennessean argued, the "way to handle the issue is not with a blanket anti-nude policy that supersedes all judgment but with a policy where each piece is considered on its total merit." Despite the many worthwhile efforts of the Tennessee Arts Commission to promote artistic expression, it nonetheless earns a 2003 Jefferson Muzzle for it its blanket prohibition of all nude works from its gallery.