Conservatives Called Her Artwork ‘Obscene.’ She’s Back for More.

Very few visual artists have been the subject of a Supreme Court case. Karen Finley, 67, is one of them. A member of the so-called N.E.A. Four, Finley — along with Tim Miller, John Fleck and Holly Hughes — sued the National Endowment for the Arts in 1990 after the organization withdrew their fellowships.

The federal agency was under scrutiny for financing art — including Andres Serrano’s photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine — that the religious right deemed indecent. A performance in which Finley covered her body with chocolate frosting, red candies and alfalfa sprouts to make a statement about society’s treatment of women was another attractive target. On the Senate floor, the Republican Jesse Helms called Finley’s work “pornographic” and “obscene.” A nationally syndicated newspaper column dismissed her as nothing more than “a nude, chocolate-smeared woman.”

During an eight-year legal battle, Finley and her fellow artists were awarded the value of their vetoed grants but lost their broader challenge to N.E.A. policy. In an 8-to-1 decision, the Supreme Court upheld a law amended in 1989 to state that the agency should not only base its funding decisions on artistic merit, but also consider “general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public.” The decision transformed Finley’s career and the shape of public arts funding in the United States.

In this 25th anniversary year of the National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley decision, the artist is revisiting “Go Figure,” a work she created in the wake of the lawsuit. It is being presented at Art Basel Miami Beach, in a booth at the Convention Center, through Sunday. “I felt that we as the N.E.A. Four were stand-ins for many artists, and the artist was being dismissed,” Finley recalled recently during an interview from her studio in Rockland County, N.Y.