THE ARTS

Arts Leaders Honored: Sixteen artists and arts leaders, including the so-called “NEA Four” performance artists Karen Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes and Tim Miller, will be honored on Wednesday at New York’s Museum of Modern Art for their roles in upholding the principle of freedom of expression. Other honorees include Dennis Barrie, the former director of Cincinnati’s Contemporary Art Center who was tried for obscenity charges for mounting “Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment”; Joseph Papp, the late founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival who rejected a $50,000 NEA grant; the late artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz, who successfully sued Donald Wildmon’s American Family Assn. for copyright violation, and Los Angeles choreographer Bella Lewitzky (appearing at UCLA’s Royce Hall tonight), who scored the first legal victory for artists against NEA contract restrictions.