David -- So you're judging the NEA by whether it has fulfilled its mission statement? That reminds me of the old doctor joke, "The operation was successful but the patient died." In other words, some important larger point is being missed.

Look, the NEA was born amidst blasts of '60s optimism. If we could win WWII, then we could also eradicate poverty, go to the moon, banish prejudice -- and we could also will ourselves a better arts life. (As Kauffman notes, what was really meant by this was a more Northeast -- ie., Euro-style -- arts life.) In other words, the intent at the NEA's founding was to use government to make our artslife better.

So it makes total sense, 40 years later, to ask whether we in fact *have* a better arts life. (Funny, the way that the NEA defenders keep dodging that question ...) In fact, asking this specific question cuts through a lot of chaff, obfuscation, and rhetoric. So, by the way, does the question "Where in the Constitution is it written that the Federal government should be taking an active role in promoting the arts?" But ignoring that particular one ...

By the way, since movies, tv, and video *are* performing arts, no one in the U.S. has been starved for performing arts in a looonnnng while. Hard to drag the kids away from the tube, after all. Oh, you mean *live* performing arts. Well, rock bands at college parties, pop shows at arenas and football fields, and high school musicals are live performing arts, and last I checked they aren't exactly rare outside Manhattan.

So I assume that what you're thinking about are live high-class (as in "classical") type performances?

Numerous questions occur to me about that ... The main one that puzzles me: Why on earth do so many people feel that it's necessary to use govt money to bring such performances to small cities and small towns?

For one thing: These days, some of the best opera and classical performances of all time can be bought for 20 bucks on CD and/or DVD, or found at the library, and thousands of them can be watched/listened-to for free on YouTube.

For another: What's so weird about the fact that, if you want to see live pro-caliber performances of "classical" type material, you might need to go to a big city? Which fundamental human right is being violated?

After all, we "find it necessary to go elsewhere" for lots of reasons. Let's suppose I live in a hick town in the midwest. If I want warmth and sun in the winter, I have to go south. If I want a job in aerospace, I'd better move to LA or Seattle. Even if I want to see the Cubs play in person, well, they ain't coming to Podunk, so I'll probably have to go to Chicago.

Given that live classical music, live ballet, and live opera aren't exactly mass tastes, it isn't a surprise that (like warmth, or aerospace jobs, or major-league baseball games) they tend to cluster geographically, and not be spread out equally. Why is it considered by anyone in any way strange -- let alone in need of addressing by our federal government -- that the inhabitant of a hick burg might need to get off his duff in order to go enjoy them? Why don't we use federal money to, say, ensure that live major-league baseball games can be watched in hick towns all over the country?

Chris -- You were saying? Oh, sorry, just got back from three months out of town ...

Anyway, you might want to learn a little econ. The hundreds of millions that the NEA has distributed and (since many grants and mucho prestige follow NEA recognition) the hundreds of mills that stack on top of NEA money would have been spent on something else instead. Perhaps it would have been invested, perhaps frittered away, perhaps spent on the art that NEA-ers like, or maybe spent on art-and-culturestuff that people prefer to what the NEA sponsors.

In other words, to make your point you can't just point to what the NEA has done, you have to argue that it's better than what might have been done otherwise.

You're also making the basic mistake of assigning credit to the NEA for a lot that might well have been taken care of otherwise.

For example, let's take a small city's symphony orchestra. (And dodging the whole question of why we should think of it as something worthy of intense concern that this particular small city should have a symphony orchestra of its own ... I mean, let's take it as a given that it's a good and desirable thing that this small city have its own professional symphony orchestra.) You really need to investigate the concrete specifics of that small city. Perhaps the NEA-dependent arrangements that it currently has in place are simply how it's dealing with the contemporary world. It's quite possible that, if the NEA weren't around, it would have managed to make other arrangements. Somehow we had a wealth of classical music performances in this country before the NEA's founding ... How on earth was this possible?

In other words, you aren't proving anything other than the fact that 1) the NEA has distributed some money (duh), and 2) some worthy cultural things have been done with some of that money (double duh).

And the answer is we have a far more robust and diverse cultural life beyond the major urban arts centers.

Really? Oh, you must be thinking in terms of something not including movies, photography, design, books, or music, because a wild abundance of those are available in unmanageable numbers no matter where you live in the U.S. So you're thinking of ... Multicultural live mime shows? Displays of installation art?

In fact, given that the ratio of programming costs to administrative costs in the vast majority of arts organizations remains both admirable and relatively constant

Not true, at least not where the NEA is concerned. It had a few good -- as in efficient and open-minded -- years at its outset. At its outset it was distributing 16 bucks of aid for every buck it spent on administration, and it was spreading the dough around a lot of different kinds and styles of art. By the '90s though (I haven't researched the 00's) it was distributing only four bucks of aid for every bucks spent on administration. It also, in the course of that same time stretch, became much more dogmatic and narrowly-focused in terms of what kind of aid and to what kinds of organizations and individuals it gave that aid. That's one reason for the "culture wars" of the '90s.

if we truly do have 'way more in the way of arts bureaucracies than we used to have ...

Yes, Chris, it's true.

that would indicate we have 'way more in the way of arts organizations presenting art for the public than we used to as well

Double fallacy. 1) You're assuming that the whole "presenting and distributing art" thing wouldn't be occurring at all in the absence of the NEA and other govt-funded arts bureaucracies. Given the ease of access nearly all Americans have to the arts these days (magazines, books, music, performing-arts on CD and DVD, etc) you're wrong and/or blind. So I suppose that you're thinking about other kinds of arts than what someone might order up from Amazon.

Which leads to fallacy 2) You aren't considering the possibility that the kinds of art these bureaucracies are bringing to Podunk may not be the art that people either want or are interested in.

All this raises a point I'll get around to in a future posting: In what ways does the presence and behavior of these bureaucracies affect the art that's produced?

For now, let me suggest that y'all click on the link I provided in my comment above. Money sources and administrative arrangements color the water that art grows in. And Tom Mayne-ish gray, jagged deconstructivism (or Richard Meier pristine white abstraction) is the kind of architecture that our government bureaucracies are currently sponsoring and encouraging. Are we happy about that?

Let me venture the thought that the kind of art that the arts administration class sponsors may well often be "art that pleases arts bureaucracies" rather than "art that pleases real people."

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on March 29, 2009 10:11 AM

" So you're judging the NEA by whether it has fulfilled its mission statement?"

Well, yeah. If somebody came up to me and said, "I charge you to do A!" and I go off and do A, and they come back and say, "Idiot! Why haven't you done B, C, and D?!" I would be a bit nonplussed. If they told me "Idiot! You have fubared A!" I'd at least be able to make more sense of their criticism.

You (M. Blowhard) appear to be making two simultaneous arguments: (a) "tax monies shouldn't be used to fund the NEA", and (b) "the NEA is doing a crappy job, as I define its job", and using argument (b) as evidence for (a). I think that (b) is pretty much independent of (a), in that the NEA works about as well as any government program could be expected to work.

If you don't think the government should be in the business of promulgating art or art education to us hicks, that right there is all the argument that you really need, period, regardless of how well or poorly the thing actually runs.

If you think having any Federal-level body supporting arts and art education is bad for the arts themselves, that – by itself – is a separate argument from the tax monies argument, it seems to me.

Personally, I am largely indifferent. I'm outside of the 'arts world', so I have no opinion on whether or not 'the arts' would be better off without the NEA. I assume the non-existence of the NEA would make the 'arts world' become less like PBS and more like the Discovery Channel. I think that that's a bad thing, but I'm not sure it's the business of the government either.

I'd like to see the Federal deficit reduced, but right now the NEA's portion of that is akin to a pimple on the ass of a flea on the butt of an elephant. We're springing so many leaks that this one is relatively inconsequential.

Posted by: David Fleck on March 29, 2009 11:35 AM

You say potatoes, I say potatoes,
You say tomatoes, I say tomatoes ....

Say, these lyrics make no sense, let's call the whole thing off.

Anyone who argues that CDs and DVDs are equivalent to live performances is already on shaky ground in my book.

One can speculate endlessly about what would or wouldn't have happened absent some agent or other. If the NEA were never created we might (or might not) have greater (or fewer) arts available in more (or fewer) places ... Where does this end? I don't know what the national art scene would look like today absent the NEA any more than you do. It is as nonsensical an argument to say that without the NEA we'd have a more robust art scene, as it would be for me to claim that the robust arts scene we do have can be primarily attributed to the NEA. We can only look at the art and culture scene that exists and make suggestions as to whether we find it healthy and robust or not and what we might do to improve it.

Some of the narrowing in focus and other ills that can be found in the NEA stems from a dynamic similar to that affecting medical malpractice. Constant attack from partisans who demand greater accountability and oversight on the NEA and what it funds demands more administrative costs and thinking defensively.

As in nearly all the art and culture threads here the real underlying theme remains this notion that painting or music or architecture would be better if only it pleased "real people" instead of the people it does please. The latter are always depicted as elitists or dupes of corrupt and self-serving elitists. Real people don't like abstraction, real people prefer country music to classical music, real people would rather see an action adventure movie than live drama on stage.

We create various categories and subcategories as we organize our public life. There are different rules and regulations we apply to those various categories. In art and culture there are not-for-profit organizations and for-profit business concerns. How and where these different entities can find the funding to support their activities varies.

There is a good chance that local symphony existed prior to the NEA and began life as an ad hoc, grass roots, expression of local wants and needs. As it matured it recognized that it was never going to be a profitable business. There are many other admirable, desirable, and even necessary entities that will never be profitable businesses. We fund those entities through various subsidies and tax policies that encourage private philanthropy to support them. The private donors want to see the "seal of approval" that the NEA and state agencies confer, so the organizations apply for them.

Ultimately you are right about the basics. A portion of the electorate significant enough to merit attention from their elected representatives supports some of their tax dollars flowing toward the arts. The NEA was created to accomplish that goal, which it has. What more do I need to prove?

Posted by: Chris White on March 29, 2009 12:29 PM

We still do that, in the form of music and arts classes in the curriculum, many of which are being cut left and right recently. Local and state taxes pay for that. NEA funds come from the Fed, so you're against federal funds paying for that?

Cut by whom? Why? So you then pay a dollar to the government to get 30 cents back for arts education from the Central Authority? I guess you missed my point--you would get more if you were taxed less and spent the money yourself. More freedom to do what you want too.

I didn't learn about music or art in grade school--my parents paid for music lessons and I paid for my own art education. Rely on the govt. and you'll be eating crap for life, I guarantee it.

Posted by: BTM on March 29, 2009 4:40 PM

I don't know what its like in the ol' USA but our equivalent body the Australian Council of the Arts has a great tradition of subsidising whatever is currently fashionable in the "Arts Scene". Greatness? No way. But then again how do you cultivate Genius? Despite all the best efforts, picking winners is still a matter of chance.

In principle I'm not opposed to government funding of the arts, however I wish it were more audience focused instead of being focused so much on the artist and his preferred audience. One of the great things about classical art is that it was "accessible" to the common man in a way that most modern abstract art isn't. Its no point having a dance troupe come out to some God forsaken town only to put on something that is "challenging" and typically repulsive. The locals experience of the arts is likely to be viewed negatively from then on. The problem over here is that a lot of what is funded her is "alienating" to the common viewer. If the purpose of the the government arts bodies are to raise the general cultural awareness of the people, then the local body can be thought of as an abject failure, since the art subsidised repels rather than allures. I imagine that a lot of the stuff the NEA sponsors is in a similar vein, Joe Public just doesn't get it.

Joe Public want happy melodic tunes, pretty pictures and noble sculpture, abstract art is well.......stuff his three year old can do at home. Why pay to see that?

Recently we had a fantastic impressionist exhibition over here, lots of the great French works. Packed out exhibition, ques hundreds of yards long and all walks of life. No one thought the show shit or a waste of money. The artistic merit was apparent to all. Same thing with the Carravagio exhibition. Joe Public doesn't do Modernist shit. Michael you are right in that culture that appeals to the masses and can be made at a profit pays, culture which does not withers. Classical sculpture on the other hand is horribly expensive and therefore unlikely to be economically viable, do you have a problem with arts bodies funding classical sculptors?I have this great book on New York terracotta building ornament. A lot of those gargoyles, art deco women, etc were done by classically trained sculptors who had a choice of either starving as an artist or of working as commercial artesean.

If there is a critique then of arts funding bodies is that they seem more keen on funding stuff that the public doesn't like but is percieved positively in the Official Arts community than of giving Joe Public a cultural experience he can connect with. Most men don't like ballet, most people don't like abstract art or stuff that's repulsive or discourteous to others or stuff that looks like it could of been put together by an worker at the local sheltered workshop. Now there may be a place for these "challenging artistic works" but trying to justify them on the grounds that its arts for the masses is just bullshit. It government subsidy to a particular industry and like any other subsidy it has its pros and cons. What offends people with regard to public arts funding is that there seems to be strong political and preferred cultural overtones as to who gets the funding.

BTW, am I the only one who seems to think that a good CD recording is actually better than an actual performance? My recording of Handel's Messiah and others is far better than any performance I have ever attended.

Posted by: slumlord on March 30, 2009 7:18 AM

Michael, it seems to me that a NEA type program could be justified on paleo/Slow grounds.

It ain't doing harm--after all, it's not preventing the explosion of media by which everybody can experience art, which explosion you've described, Michael, in quite eloquent and approving terms. And if it ain't doin' harm, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Change for change's sake...that's not Slow. That's crazy.

The forces of business and technology are EVERYWHERE (for example, via flickering monitors and TV screens set up EVERYWHERE, see your post above). Business and tech together push push push stuff at people based on what they want, just as fast food is. Why not have as an alternative, a small-budget, small-scale, slow-paced, inherently conservative organization that disburses funds that keep the kind of things in existence that don't have any immediate economic justification? After all, it's only an alternative. The NEA is not some centralized massive bureaucracy crushing the efflorescing forms of pop art that you so rightly admire, Michael. Those art forms are doing fine. The NEA is really a kind of conserving, preserving almost antiquarian kinda thing. It has to be, by its nature.

The NEA is small, it's not breaking any budgets, it's not contributing to our financial meltdown. But it and other programs can contribute to the preservation of heritage, culture, the fuddy-duddy stuff that just gets chewed up and thrown out on the garbage heap of history if no-one takes steps to keep it alive. It's nice to have a Village Green Preservation Society because it's nice to have Village Greens. Maybe the disappearance of small orchestras visiting medium towns wouldn't be noticed by almost anybody in America, any more than would the disappearance of that one patch of green in that one little village...but the elimination of every single uneconomical outmoded antique anachronistic aspect of American life would surely be an impoverishment of some kind. These NEA-type programs collectively might add a only little depth, a little colour, a little (dare I say it?) Slowness to the frenzy of 21st century America, but even that little bit, just as an alternative, might be a kind of oasis whose final disappearance would be missed, and by more people than even know the NEA exists.

Posted by: PatrickH on March 30, 2009 11:19 AM

First question; how do recordings of great symphonic works come into existence absent great symphonies to record them? The profitability of CD sales are now questionable at best, save for a tiny fraction of the most popular acts, do we expect commercial record labels to fund the rehearsal and recording of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony out of their sense of civic responsibility?

Second question; is it realistic or desirable to expect that every art object or event that benefits in any way from public funds should appeal to everyone?

Third question; where is the evidence that public funding for the arts supports exclusively or even primarily "challenging" work that "repels" the public?

In an effort to examine that last question I went back to the link I provided above with details about all the actual projects and programs funded by the NEA (as opposed to vague, unverifiable, accusations about the elitist crap some think they fund.)

Here in Maine we received a bit less than a million dollars of NEA support in 2008. Roughly 75% of that was a block grant funneled through the Maine Arts Commission thus ensuring greater local community control of those dollars. Below is the list of funded activities in Maine that got direct NEA grants:

Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, Inc., Brunswick, ME
$10,000 - To support the EuroFest classical music concert series.
$5,000 - To support a residency by the Amernet String Quartet including performances of American chamber works.

Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME
$15,000 - To support a statewide educational outreach program.

Cultural Resources, Inc., Rockport, ME
$20,000 - To support Story Bank. The project will provide community members with training to document local stories and present them to a wider audience.

Figures of Speech Theatre, Freeport, ME
$10,000 - To support the Rural Maine Initiative. The project will include a tour of repertory works and teaching residencies in schools, with accompanying outreach activities

Greater Portland Landmarks, Inc., Portland, ME
$10,000 - To support a convening of historic preservationists, design professionals, and community leaders to discuss successful design principles. The participants will learn tools to aid in the rehabilitation of historic structures and in the creation of new buildings for cultural, educational, and residential purposes.

Maine Fiberarts, Topsham, ME
$10,000 - To support the production of Maine Fiberarts Tour Map: Studios & Farms.

Maine Humanities Council, Portland, ME
$15,000 - To support New Books, New Readers, a program that provides books and organizes discussion groups about the books across the state for adults with low literacy skills. Trained coordinators oversee the discussions and use broad themes to connect literature to the lives of the participants.

Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, Old Town, ME
$30,000 - To support the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program and Maine Indian Basketmakers Gathering/Festival. The project will support basketmakers and apprentices in the traditional ash and sweetgrass basketry of Maine's Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Penobscot tribes.

Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
$34,000 - To support the Summer Institute for Teachers: Winslow Homer and a Sense of Place. Through immersion in a week-long summer workshop on the Winslow Homer's painting, Weatherbeaten (1894), teachers will explore how the artistic, historic, and social significance of a single work of art can be the impetus for sequential, arts-integrated curriculum.

Portland Stage Company, Inc., Portland, ME
$20,000 -To support a production of Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen. The company will collaborate with Figures of Speech Theatre to create a new version of the work that will combine actors, puppets, shadows, music, and movement.

Seal Bay Festival, Vinalhaven, ME
$5,000 -To support a festival of American chamber music.

Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, ME
$23,000 -To support the MudMobile, a van comprising a mobile ceramics gallery and resource center. The traveling services will include visits to as many as 24 schools throughout Maine in support of ceramics workshops at elementary and middle schools and artist residencies in four rural high schools.

The vast majority of the funds went to such cutting edge, nose thumbing, wacky elitist garbage as preserving the traditional basketry of the indigenous tribes, architectural preservation, traditional story telling, and loads of educational outreach, especially to underserved rural communities. Now, it IS possible that a few dollars went toward the performance of a piece of music that "Joe Public" might not think was a toe tappin' hit or possibly to an educator presenting a slide of a work of art that doesn't have a recognizable barn or human figure in it.

Final question: where are all the PoMo Neoconceptualists sucking from the public teat in the list above?

Posted by: Chris White on March 30, 2009 11:39 AM

"Cut by whom? Why? So you then pay a dollar to the government to get 30 cents back for arts education from the Central Authority? I guess you missed my point--you would get more if you were taxed less and spent the money yourself. More freedom to do what you want too."

Cut from the state budget due to declining state revenue and the current economic crisis.

I disagree with your tax less/save more scenario. How much of my tax dollars goes towards art funding in schools? 1%? Less? Probably less. Private music classes cost 30 bucks an hour, minimum. I'd say I'm getting a far better bargain having my kids in school music classes, where they not only learn music but participate in a group setting, make friends, learn how to work within a group towards a common goal, and perform in front of audiences. It's a very similar learning experience that sports provides, and in my opinion, is an experience that keeps giving far longer than sports in that you can actively participate in music into your golden years.

As Chris as demonstrated, the idea behind the NEA is not to nurture geniuses, but to help provide a general arts experience to citizens of the US. If you don't believe the gov't should be involved in that endeavor, then OK.

Posted by: JV on March 30, 2009 7:25 PM

First question; how do recordings of great symphonic works come into existence absent great symphonies to record them?

Re read my original post. I said that Government funding of the arts is in principle OK. But Michael's assertion that CD's, internet, etc are worthwhile arts experiences is quite valid. Not all live performances are great performances, CD's are sometimes a damn good substitute and sometimes exceed the real thing.

is it realistic or desirable to expect that every art object or event that benefits in any way from public funds should appeal to everyone?

It's impossible to appeal to everyone, but the appeal should be pitched towards the mean. I mean looking through you list, who the hell wants to go see Peter Gynt performed by puppets? Joe Average. How many more outreach projects for contemporary art do we need?

Mack: He Joe, going to the game?
Joe: No Mack, Mudmobile is in town!

As I said not pitched to the average man.

Hey, in your grants list why didn't you include Joel Peter Witkin. Have a look at some of his pics NSFW. Proudly sponsored by NEA. This is the sort of shit that shouldn't be sponsored by taxpayers.

Oh and here is a comment from an insider. What would he know?

Posted by: slumlord on March 30, 2009 10:59 PM

slumlord, that picture is grotesque. The "Bodies" exhibit portrayed the human form with much more style and artistry than Witkin's squalid photo. Why would anyone consider that "higher" art than any random drawing of a headless character in a comic book? Not even a graphic novel, just a run of the mill comic book?

Posted by: hello on March 30, 2009 11:40 PM

slumlord – In your "answers" to my questions (which were not directly pitched to you, by the way) you manage to weasel out of actually dealing with most of them and distort those you do.

The experience of hearing a symphony orchestra perform live is vastly different than slapping on the headphones at home. Now, granted, at home you can hear George Szell conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a recording of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which might well be a superior performance to the version done live by the local symphony. But you ignore the rest of that question, where do those recording come from, absent orchestras actually performing the works? One might try to make the case that, since we have numerous recordings of the Fifth by great orchestras available on CDs and even on YouTube that it never needs to be performed live again. Is that the position you are taking? After all, Joe Average doesn't care much for Beethoven, why should he or we care if it no longer has any living musicians capable of performing it live because they can't survive in the marketplace, right?

Have you ever seen a production of Peer Gynt? Ibsen included loads of fantastical elements in the script (call it Nordic Magic Realism) and using the full script means a five to six hour performance. This means decisions need to be made about what to cut or adapt in the script and how to handle the more fantastical elements when mounting a production of it. The Portland Stage collaboration with Figures of Speech used set, lighting, and, yes, puppetry to create the requisite magic. Now, maybe you think of puppets only in a Punch and Judy or Howdy Doody way, but let me assure you, puppets aren't just for kids. The show was sold out for most performances, so obviously there was a significant audience.

Then you have a mobile pottery and ceramics workshop traveling to offer instruction to schools, mostly in rural areas, as competing with a ball game for Mr. Average's attention. This is hardly logical and certainly not an argument against giving kids the chance to learn a bit about the craft by actually doing some themselves.

Unable to find something to really sneer at from my list you hunted and found one grotesque image within an exhibition worth of photography that received NEA funding sometime, somewhere. I did not include it on my list because I was offering the entire 2008 list for Maine, not absolutely every grant ever awarded.

And then you offer a link to an eighteen year old article that appeared in the National Review (who've been gunning for the NEA for decades) rehashing the "Piss Christ" photo controversy. Is that the best you can do? Has anyone dissed Mappelthorpe yet? Now that was also almost twenty years ago, but, hey, it makes for good NSFW links.

You say "the appeal should be pitched towards the mean." Does that mean mean the latest winner from American Idol, or Thomas Kincade exhibitions? The role of the NEA is not to offer entertainment directed at the mean audience, it is to support the arts and arts education, especially through programs that increase the availability of the arts in underserved areas. The mean is where the market works just fine. I can choose from dozens of different rock bands to see most nights in most cities for the price of a beer and maybe a five dollar cover.

At a time when we're spending sums so huge that they defy Joe Average's ability to comprehend them to prop up the financial sector due to the way that sector so ran amok without adequate oversight that the global economy is in jeopardy, I find a debate about the worthiness of the NEA more than a little odd.

Posted by: Chris White on March 31, 2009 9:03 AM

Fun convo, as ever. Whaddya say we cool it on this thread, though. I've got another NEA-ish posting coming along nicely, so soon I'll be tossing some more red meat out in front of us all. Looking forward to seeing you there.

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on March 31, 2009 10:03 AM

Whaddya say we cool it on this thread, though. I've got another NEA-ish posting coming along nicely, so soon I'll be tossing some more red meat out in front of us all. Looking forward to seeing you there.

Oh man, please do. I come in late, find myself agreeing with Chris White, and you put the kibosh on the thread? Get that chum in the water soon; this can't last.

Posted by: Moira Breen on March 31, 2009 11:24 AM

Getting a chance to put Moira on the same team as Chris definitely multiplies the incentives to get that new posting done, and pronto. Back to work on it.

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on March 31, 2009 12:15 PM

I sort of agree with Chris White too, although with one caveat. Here in Canada, our Canada Council is (if I've understood you and Chris) much more directly involved in supporting the arts than your NEA is. That is, the Council gives grants directly to artists in various media, in addition to subsidizing performances across the country.

I have to say that in many instances I don't think that the quality of the work they produce merits public support. My own view is that artists whose work is singled out by committees for praise and support are less likely to reach a high standard (than those supported by private patrons or commercial budgets) because gov't-sponsored committees tend to have reasons for reaching their decisions that may not include the quality of the work in question.

For example: Some committee members may favour populism in the arts; others may prefer the highbrow; still others want to support the avant-garde. After a long battle over who will receive this year's grant money, they finally reach an agreement based not on funding the best artists, but on funding those who least irritate the group as a whole.

All the same, I favour government support for the arts. In an enormous and sparsely populated country like Canada, in which travel is often limited by bad weather, institutions like the much reviled CBC - esp. CBC Radio - make it possible for people to access performances that would be otherwise unavailable to them.

As for the literary arts, I don't think they would have survived in Canada at all without some public support. Our stories and outlook are insufficiently American, in most cases, to appeal to American taste, so that American publishing houses are often closed to us, while our market is too small and scattered to allow writers to support themselves here.

Posted by: aliasclio on March 31, 2009 4:00 PM

Clio -- Yeah, I'd never make the case that government arts subsidies are wrong everywhere and always. Smaller, more centralized, or less powerful countries, for instance -- it might well make sense for them to promote their own culture with their own tax dollars. The U.S.'s NEA doesn't seem to me to have worked out well, but for reasons that in most cases have to do with local conditions.

Funny and apt point, btw, about how committees and panels tend to settle on decisions that no one's really happy with but that have the virtue of being something the panel can settle on. Same happens here -- that's one reason why lit awards often go to authors (for instance) whose work many people as individuals don't actually care that much for.

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on March 31, 2009 4:15 PM

It is a little strange that the federal government has any interest at all in getting rednecks and exurbanites to care about high art, which stems from a highbrow culture that is otherwise almost completely alien to them.

Whether it's good for the artists themselves is certainly debatable... but who is more frustrated in life than an ambitious violinist stuck at a university in, say, Nebraska, surrounded by people who honestly couldn't tell the difference between Mozart and Tchaikovsky if their lives depended upon it?

(the intersection of the federal government and "art" isn't purely a lefty thing, either, though-- anyone ever see a military band? hoo boy, there's a mass of conflicting interests at play, there!)

It is complicated, for sure. Elitism versus populism, central versus local authority, unifying national identity versus diversity, the canon versus the outsiders, leftist versus rightist political angles.

So juicy you hardly know what to want more. But I'm sympathetic to M. Blowhard's vision of the freewheeling, half-deranged, barely classifiable junkyard dog called American Art. And I suspect no official governmental agency can do much with that sort of beast, other than sedate it or put it out of its misery.

(damn, wouldn't the internet SUCK if it were administered by the feds? In fifteen years, we'd be left with a sanitized and barely-readable Wikipedia, dusty forgotten archives of really wild discussions from years past, and Wal-Mart.com.)

Posted by: omw on March 31, 2009 5:40 PM

Christ White:

I'll hold off my reply till Michael puts up his next NEA-related post.

Posted by: slumlord on March 31, 2009 6:24 PM

Bloody Hell, I'm double dyslexic this morning.

Sorry Chris, the Christ White was an honest mistake.

Posted by: slumlord on March 31, 2009 7:08 PM

Not as much of a mistake, slumlord, as when he talks as if he really is Christ White.

Posted by: PatrickH on April 1, 2009 10:06 AM

Easter is coming. I intend to rise to the occasion.

Posted by: Chris White on April 1, 2009 1:44 PM

That Christ guy! Always with the last word!

Posted by: PatrickH on April 1, 2009 8:17 PM






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