Downtown happenings provoked establishment editorial condemnation

Evidence

Kramer would not be assigned to review the Flag Show, but two days before it opened, and several blocks below Judson Church, the show was upstaged by Love America or Live, a happening by Turkish artist Tosun Bayrak that prompted a scandalized editorial in the Times: … On a recent afternoon on Prince Street, nude exhibitionists put on a nauseating performance that could only be explained as the product of demented minds. It is ludicrous to argue that this degrading spectacle represented an expression of free speech in the cause of political protest. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1632

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The Times editorial denouncing a downtown performance as ‘demented’ parallels the moral-panic framing in ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ — establishment media performing outrage at countercultural dress/behavior as a class and taste signal.