The End Of Arts Funding?

The reason the economic arguments don't make any difference is because 1) the arts cuts aren't about money, and 2) they're all about money. They aren't about money because saving $5 million or $10 million or $20 million on an arts budget is a puny thing when you're trying to close a deficit measuring in the billions. The arts are a good financial investment--and a cheap one, too, compared to many of the investments governments make. Proposing to eliminate arts funding isn't about recapturing an extra few million that would have been spent on arts--it's about making a statement: politicians demonstrating how serious they are about budget cuts. The arts are a highly visible target, and cutting them is a symbol of political resolve to solve a difficult problem. The cuts are all about money because arts administrators have made them about money. The culture wars of the late '80s and early '90s jolted artists, but more important, they terrified leaders of America's arts institutions, who feared that their ability to raise money was in jeopardy. Republicans made "zeroing out" the National Endowment for the Arts an official plank of the party's election campaign, and the culture wars became an ideological political crusade that seized upon incendiary images of crucifixes soaked in urine and chocolate-smeared performance artists to fuel partisan outrage.

In response, the art world ducked for cover, vowing to cut out the controversial art--at least for public-funding purposes. A succession of appeasement-minded NEA chairpersons traveled the country preaching the Neville Chamberlain doctrine, stressing populism, traditional values and above all, inclusiveness. Grants to individual artists disappeared, and arts funding seemed to become an exercise in PR for the arts.

How then to sell the arts to lawmakers weary of controversy? Back in 1965, Congress created the National Endowment for the Arts, proclaiming that "democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens." Americans have always been distrustful of elitism, but in the early days of the NEA there was a vision to sell: American culture could be the envy of the world (and beat the Soviets, who invested heavily in art and artists). The brash American spirit that had helped win World War II and rebuild Europe could be embodied by a culture that could produce superior citizens. The idea that government could also help bring the arts to every part of the land was heady stuff, and since 1965, some 4,000 state, local and regional arts agencies have sprung up across America.

But by the late '80s--with postmodernism and conceptualism making it difficult (if not impossible) to declare artistic standards that most people could go along with, multiculturalism eroding a sense of traditional cultural canon, popular culture dominating like never before and the culture wars turning entire art forms into toxic Superfund sites--appealing to a sense of excellence didn't seem like an effective strategy.

Instead of promoting culture as a means to "wisdom" and "vision" (the NEA's traditional pitch), the arts were paired up with social "goods"--arts as educational tool, arts working with troubled kids, arts promoting neighborhood improvement. To get an arts grant, an arts organization had to show its chops with whatever social agenda du jour was on the table. At the same time, arts agencies across America began assembling the bricks of an economic argument for the arts that would appeal to politicians.

It was not an unsuccessful strategy. The NEA survived the culture wars, state and local arts funding soared and billions were spent in the '90s on new theaters, museums and concert halls in an orgy of arts construction.