You don’t hear much about the National Endowment for the Arts these days, which may be just as well, since in recent years when the NEA made news, the adjective “embattled” was usually placed in front of the agency’s name. But it has been months since any congressman has attacked the Endowment for sponsoring naughty or irreligious art, and the NEA’s 35th anniversary as a federal agency has slipped by almost unnoticed.
For the occasion, however, the John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University assembled a unique forum that brought together, for the first time, the agency’s current chairman, William Ivey, and four former chairs: Livingston Biddle Jr. (1977-81), Frank Hodsoll (1981-89), John Frohnmayer (1989-92) and Jane Alexander (1993-97).
Central to the long, free-ranging discussion was the question of the importance of the arts in American life-and the lack of interest in the arts by many Americans.
From a peak annual budget of $175 million in 1992, the NEA has gone down to its present $98 million. Ivey is asking for a $150 million budget for the new fiscal year, the increase coming mostly in a $50 million “Challenge to America” program that stresses strengthening ties with family and community organizations.
Even with this politically correct agenda, it’s going to be a tough ride.
“Society,” said Ivey at the forum, “devalues art. The arts are still on the fringe. They are in the style section of the newspaper. And yet we frame our most pressing social concerns around art and art-making. The arts don’t matter until they get under our skin; then we realize we use art to talk to each other about a whole range of issues. The arts irritate us.”
Or, putting it succinctly, Ivey said, “The arts are marginal until they’re not.”
Frohnmayer, the most aggressive of the NEA’s chairs, added, “The fact is, unless you’re affected by great literature, you’re not going to care if books are burned.”
Yet in certain ways, the arts and artists do have an impact on a wide band of citizens. During the Cold War, artists such as pianist Van Cliburn were American heroes, displaying our cultural qualities to the rest of the world. They were, as Ivey noted, symbols of democratic freedom. However, he said, “It’s no accident that the notion of the artist as a unique symbol of democracy faded with the fall of the Iron Curtain. And it should come as no surprise to us that a decade of attack on the NEA began just as the Cold War ended.”
The attack was pressed by members of Congress who saw certain avant-garde artists replacing Commies as a threat to American values. Hodsoll, NEA chair during the Reagan administration, argued that it made basic political sense to present the arts as a non-threatening package. “If something is going to cause a problem,” he said, “you can only push it so far.”
But Frohnmayer countered, “The Endowment will always be marginal if it is subject to the whims of representatives in Congress. Offense is our birthright in the U.S. If we are never offended, the First Amendment did not work.”
Brave words, but Biddle, an unprepossessing man, recalled an incident early in his career when he tried vainly to gain support for the NEA from a key congressman. Not until Biddle brought Gregory Peck along with him did he gain admittance to the legislator’s office, and then the Congressman promptly asked Peck for his autograph.
The dilemma faced by all chairs of the NEA was expressed, with some frustration, by Ivey: “Liberals feel the NEA should take the risks and exploit the First Amendment to the fullest, and conservatives feel that is not the role for the taxpayer’s dollar. Are we going to get beyond that paradigm?”
Alexander, a patrician among politicians during her term, suggested one possible solution to the quandary. What we need, she said, are “better minds in government.”
That remark got a huge round of applause.