From: sechrest@z.eecs.umich.edu (Stuart Sechrest)
Subject: Re: Kulturkampf
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 21:09:23 GMT

Two views of the NEA have been expressed.  I disagree with both.

Patrick J. McGuinness (among others) seems to think that the NEA is a promoter 
of liberal projects at taxpayer expense that we would be better off without.

Steve Hendricks (among others) seems to think that the NEA, while predominantly
a supporter of mainstream projects whose ``few instances of cultural 
adventurism'' ``represent a tiny counterbalance in favor of diversity and 
provocation (a critical aspect of art's function.)''

Let us distinguish first between grants to organizations, and grants to 
individuals.  The NEA originally (1965) gave no individual grants.  It paid
for mundane things like new air conditioning in museums, freight and insurance 
for travelling exhibitions, rent for theatres for companies doing 
``uncommercial'' performances.  It continues to do so today.  Travelling
exhibitions would not go a lot of places without this funding.  Without this
support a lot of small museums would close down, and big museums would limit 
their hours (as has happened at the Detroit Institute of Arts.)  A lot of
regional theater and regional dance companies would stay home or fold.

This is imposition of culture at taxpayer expense.  So is teaching Shakespeare
in high school.  It is called civilization, or at least civil society.
I think that a strong case can be made for strengthening and broadening 
this effort.  There are some choices that have to be made.  Not every
theater troupe is worth supporting.  Places like New York City are not
going to suffer if a ``performance art'' venue closes: there will be others.
Other cities are not so fortunate.

On the other hand, administering this sort of agency is not very exciting.
Therefore, in 1970, under Nixon, the NEA became a quasi-ministry of Culture.
It started giving grants to individuals in the range of $5000-$15000.
Now Republicans could give money to their favorite artists.  Generally
the largest grants go to the best-known artists.  They don't ``need'' the
money, but it is considered a mark of recognition by the establishment.

Have these individual grants improved Art in America?  I think not.
Art has a way of enduring whether we have institutions to sanction and
pay for it or not.  (The mass exhibition and dissemination of Art is
something else, as argured above.) The French Ministry of Culture is 
shocked that we have no gov't programs for developing Hip-Hop artists.  
Somebody wrote in the New York Times Op-Ed page in July that we need 
to have schools for Rock artists.  Right.  Individual artistic expression 
doesn't stop without gov't money.  Think for a moment of van Gogh, or
Thomas Eakins, perhaps America's greatest painter.  These men accomplished
a lot more than Robert Maplethorpe, they just couldn't sell their paintings,
or get gov't grants.  

Neither side in the NEA debate deserves much respect in my mind.
Attacks by Helms and Buchanan are nasty and small-minded.  They pick out a
few things that they don't like and propose categories of subject matter
to be denied funding.  On the other side we have those who argue that art
is supposed to be ``challenging,'' that public distaste validates art,
and that any questioning of the value of chocolate-covered women interacting 
with canned yams is simply philistinism.  

By the way, the Robert Maplethorpe grant that caused the original controversy, 
was a ``good'' grant, by my way of thinking.  That is, it was money for
organizing and mounting (freight & insurance) a travelling exhibit.  
Maplethorpe had received an earlier individual grant, not when he was
struggling, but when he was the hottest thing in SoHo.  Andreas Serrano's
grant, was a bad grant.  I have seen some of his photos at exhibitions,
and find some quite arresting, but he's hardly a struggling artist either.

--Stuart Sechrest