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 the National Endowment for the Arts? Christian Right Develops 'GayDar' for Opposing Art Grants Will Republicans Smash/ Slash? Or will Zealots Take Over? |
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By Bill Berkowitz
Although not many people are paying attention, sometime after September 30, 2001 the NEA will get a new director. The current chairman, Bill Ivey, handed in his resignation in late April, which gives President George W. Bush the opportunity to appoint his successor and reshape the agency. (The NEA was established in 1965 through the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act. Its mission is "to foster the excellence, diversity and vitality of the arts in the United States, and to broaden public access to the arts.") For the past five years the agency's funding has remained at around $100 million, down from a high of $176 million in 1992. Last year, a $7 million dollar funding boost was earmarked for community outreach and arts education projects as part of the NEA's Challenge America initiative. A few weeks ago, the House passed H.R. 2217, an annual funding bill for the Department of the Interior and other federal agencies including the NEA, which added $10 million to the NEA's budget. A modest proposal Mark Gordon is an administrator of the St. Michael Institute of Scared Art in Mystic, Connecticut. In a late-May article in the conservative weekly, the ^National Catholic Register,~ he suggests that "gaining control of the NEA and its $100 million annual budget should be a strategic imperative for Christians who have made this fight their own." He asks, will the new chairman be a "professional 'culturecrat'…or will he be a learned art scholar, committed to upholding broadly held standards of excellence, decency and beauty in the arts?" Gordon recognizes that Chairman Ivey, who came to the NEA from twenty-seven years as head of the Nashville-based Country Music Federation, has steered the agency clear of "the parade of debauchery" that clouded the agency's past. According to Gordon, Ivey exhibited "an appreciation for authentic folk culture, including the role Christianity has had in forming that culture." During the first round of this year's funding the NEA handed out some 800 grants, including: $27,000 to the (Episcopal) Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, for conserving two 17th-century Barberini tapestries; $5,000 to Festiva Navidad, "a California touring concert of mariachi music and folklorico dancing that retells the story of Mary and Joseph's journey to Bethlehem"; $7,500 for a recording of Christmas music"; and $29,000 to the University of Memphis for the "touring exhibition of 'Coming Home: Self-Taught Artists, the Bible, and the American South.'" These grants are a good start, says Gordon, but imagine having a conservative Christian in charge of the whole shebang? Gordon believes that a new director would "minimize the chances of public money being misappropriated for immoral or anti-Christian purposes," and encourage investment in "works widely acknowledged to fit within the Western and American artistic 'canon.'" Money for the "fine arts" - classical music, ballet, theater and the traditional visual arts - would be increased. Grants would be earmarked to those "institutions and individuals dedicated to employing traditional techniques, themes, materials and so on," writes Gordon. And what of those edgy avant-garde artists who insist on yanking society's chain? Fuh-ged-about-them! Gordon allows that avant-garde artists have the right to exist, "but taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill for art-school faddishness or aimless experimentation." The Bush Administration and the NEA According to Jonathan Abarbanel, writing for ^Performink Online, ~the NEA budget appears to be secured. The president's 207-page budget spent only about 100 words on the NEA. It "offers states greater say in how funding is spent," a statement that "has puzzled arts professionals and observers" because "by congressional mandate the NEA already gives 40 percent of its funds directly to state and regional arts agencies in the form of block grants." Another major concern is that "the budget does not call for resumption of grant making to individual artists."
The role of Attorney General John Ashcroft may also be critical to the NEA's future. An ^ArtScope.net~ report in January, "As Bush Assumes Office, Outlook For National Arts Funding Is Positive," pointed out that the Justice Department works with the NEA in several areas. The Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has set up the Arts for Juvenile Offenders in Detention and Corrections program "which gives communities grants to prevent and combat juvenile crime through arts-based programming," as well as the Arts for At-Risk Youth project "which focuses on after school and summer school programming to give participating young people hands-on experience in arts professions." In 1997, 1998 and 1999, then-Senator Ashcroft co-sponsored bills to "eliminate" all funding for the NEA. His record on other freedom of expression issues is also suspect. Consider the following:
In the right's crosshairs In recent years, the embattled agency has also suffered the slings and arrows from religious right organizations and conservative congressional critics. Some advocated cutting off all funds to the agency, while others settled for a nip and tuck job on its yearly budget. Many right-wing critics have developed especially acute gaydar - sniffing out any projects where funds have been given to gay artists or productions dealing with gay, lesbian, bisexual or trangender issues. Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition and now a Bush advisor, said several years ago that, "The government must no longer subsidize agencies and programs that promote values contrary to those we teach in our homes. Taxpayer funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Corporation for Public Broadcasting should be terminated." The Rev. Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association can always be counted on to stir the anti-NEA cauldron. In the April 2001 issue of the AFA Journal, Wildmon, commented on the latest flap at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which involved photographer Renee Cox's exhibit entitled "Yo Mama's Last Supper," that portrays Jesus Christ at the Last Supper as a naked woman. "Even if NEA funds are not specifically targeted for blasphemous art, the monies are fungible," Wildmon said. "That means, for example, they are placed in the Brooklyn Museum's general fund, which then makes other dollars available to give to so-called artists like Cox. Taxpayers shouldn't foot the bill for blasphemy." In this, the dawning of the age of "compassionate conservatism," Wildmon's rhetoric seems as ridiculous as it is strident. However, it's no more so than the comments of New York City's art critic without portfolio, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who for the second year in a row roundly criticized an art show at the Brooklyn Museum. Will Gordon's proposal gain traction within ultraconservative circles? Only time will tell. However, if you hear "compassionate conservatism" or "charitable choice" associated with the name of the next NEA nominee, you know the agency is on shaky ground. Postscript: At the beginning of June, President Bush appointed Bruce Cole to replace William R. Ferris as head of the NEA's sister organization, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Cole, an Indiana University art historian, has served on the National Council on the Humanities, the advisory board of the NEH. (For more on Cole, see http://www.iuinfo.indiana.edu/ocm/releases/cole01.htm). Bill Berkowitz is an Oakland-based freelance journalist covering the Religious Right and related conservative movements. Contact him via e-mail at wkbbronx@aol.com. |
