National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts
Agency overview
Formed 1965
Jurisdiction Federal government of the United States
Headquarters 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.
Annual budget $146,200,000 USD (2015)
Agency executive
  • R. Jane Chu, Chairman
Website www.arts.gov

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence.[1] Prior to its establishment, giving to the arts served as precedent to the Endowment, and continues as its principal factor.[2] It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. The NEA has its offices in the Old Post Office building, in Washington, D.C. It was awarded Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre in 1995.

Background

The NEA is "dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education".[1]

Between 1965 and 2008, the agency has made in excess of 128,000 grants, totaling more than $5 billion. From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, Congress granted the NEA an annual funding of between $160 and $180 million. In 1996, Congress cut the NEA funding to $99.5 million as a result of pressure from conservative groups, including the American Family Association, who criticized the agency for using tax dollars to fund highly controversial artists such as Barbara Degenevieve, Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, and the performance artists known as the "NEA Four". Since 1996, the NEA has partially rebounded with a 2015 budget of $146.21 million.[3] For FY 2010, the budget reached the level it was at during the mid-1990s at $167.5 million[4] but fell again in FY 2011 with a budget of $154 million.[4]

Governance

The NEA is governed by a Chairman appointed by the President to a four-year term and confirmed by Congress.[5] The National Council on the Arts advises the Chairman on policies and programs, as well as reviewing grant applications, fundraising guidelines, and leadership initiative. This body consists of 14 individuals appointed by the President for their expertise and knowledge in the arts, in addition to six ex officio members of Congress who serve in a non-voting capacity.[6] As of February 2014, Joan Shigekawa is serving as Acting Chair since the departure of Rocco Landesman, while U.S. President Barack Obama nominated Dr. Jane Chu, on Thursday, February 13, 2014, to the U.S. Senate, for potential confirmation as Landesman's replacement as permanent Chair.[7]

Grantmaking

The NEA offers grants in the categories of: 1) Grants for Arts Projects, 2) National Initiatives, and 3) Partnership Agreements. Grants for Arts Projects support exemplary projects in the discipline categories of artist communities, arts education, dance, design, folk and traditional arts, literature, local arts agencies, media arts, museums, music, musical theater, opera, presenting (including multidisciplinary art forms), theater, and visual arts. The NEA also grants individual fellowships in literature to creative writers and translators of exceptional talent in the areas of prose and poetry.

The NEA has partnerships in the areas of state and regional, federal, international activities, and design. The state arts agencies and regional arts organizations are the NEA’s primary partners in serving the American people through the arts. Forty percent of all NEA funding goes to the state arts agencies and regional arts organizations. Additionally, the NEA awards three Lifetime Honors: NEA National Heritage Fellowships to master folk and traditional artists, NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships to jazz musicians and advocates, and NEA Opera Honors to individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to opera in the United States. The NEA also manages the National Medal of Arts, awarded annually by the President.

The NEA is the largest grantmaker to arts organizations in the nation.

Relative scope of funding

Artist William Powhida has noted that "in one single auction, wealthy collectors bought almost a billion dollars in contemporary art at Christie's in New York." He further commented: "If you had a 2 percent tax just on the auctions in New York you could probably double the NEA budget in two nights."[8]

Controversy

1981 attempts to abolish

Ronald Reagan intended to push Congress to abolish the NEA completely over a three-year period upon entering the office in 1981. However, this plan was abandoned when the president's special task force on the arts and humanities, which included close Reagan allies such as conservatives Charlton Heston and Joseph Coors, discovered "the needs involved and benefits of past assistance," concluding that continued federal support was important.[9]

1989 objections

In 1989, Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association held a press conference attacking what he called "anti-Christian bigotry," in an exhibition by photographer Andres Serrano. The work at the center of the controversy was Piss Christ, a photo of a plastic crucifix submerged in a vial of an amber fluid described by the artist as his own urine.[10] Republican Senators Jesse Helms and Al D'Amato began to rally against the NEA, and expanded the attack to include other artists. Prominent conservative Christian figures including Pat Robertson of the 700 Club and Pat Buchanan joined the attacks. Republican representative Dick Armey, an opponent of federal arts funding, began to attack a planned exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe at the Corcoran Museum of Art that was to receive NEA support.

On June 12, 1989, The Corcoran cancelled the Mapplethorpe exhibition, saying that it did not want to "adversely affect the NEA's congressional appropriations." The Washington Project for the Arts later hosted the Mapplethorpe show. This action was highly criticized and in September, 1989, the Director of the Corcoran gallery, Christina Orr-Cahill, issued a formal statement of apology saying, "The Corcoran Gallery of Art in attempting to defuse the NEA funding controversy by removing itself from the political spotlight, has instead found itself in the center of controversy. By withdrawing from the Mapplethorpe exhibition, we, the board of trustees and the director, have inadvertently offended many members of the arts community which we deeply regret. Our course in the future will be to support art, artists and freedom of expression."[11]

Though this controversy inspired congressional debate about appropriations to the NEA, including proposed restrictions on the content of NEA-supported work and their grantmaking guidelines, efforts to defund the NEA failed.[12]

1990 performance artists vetoed

Main article: NEA Four

Conservative media continued to attack individual artists whose NEA-supported work was deemed controversial. The "NEA Four", Karen Finley, Tim Miller, John Fleck, and Holly Hughes, were performance artists whose proposed grants from the United States government's National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) were vetoed by John Frohnmayer in June 1990. Grants were overtly vetoed on the basis of subject matter after the artists had successfully passed through a peer review process. The artists won their case in court in 1993 and were awarded amounts equal to the grant money in question, though the case would make its way to the United States Supreme Court in National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley.[13] The case centered on subsection (d)(1) of 20 U.S.C. § 954 which provides that the NEA Chairperson shall ensure that artistic excellence and artistic merit are the criteria by which applications are judged. The court ruled in 524 U.S. 569 (1998), that Section 954(d)(1) is facially valid, as it neither inherently interferes with First Amendment rights nor violates constitutional vagueness principles.

1995–1997 congressional attacks

The Republican revolution of 1994 cleared the way for House Speaker Newt Gingrich to lead a renewed attack on the NEA. Gingrich had called for the NEA to be eliminated completely along with the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. While some in Congress attacked the funding of controversial artists, others argued the endowment was wasteful and elitist.[14] However, despite massive budget cutbacks and the end of grants to individual artists, Gingrich ultimately failed in his push to eliminate the endowment.

2009 conference call

In mid-2009, the NEA came under controversy again when it was revealed on a website run by conservative activist Andrew Breitbart that then-Communications Director Yosi Sergant had participated in an August 10, 2009 conference call that allegedly directed artists to create works of art promoting President Barack Obama's domestic agenda.[15][16] "I would encourage you to pick something, whether it’s health care, education, the environment, you know, there’s four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service," Sergant said on the call, making reference to the four areas of focus earlier outlined by Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for United We Serve. Suggested areas of focus mentioned in the call included preventative care, child nutrition, community cleanups, trail maintenance, reading tutoring, and homelessness. At another point he said, "This is just the beginning. This is the first telephone call of a brand new conversation. We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government. What that looks like legally. We're still trying to figure out the laws of putting government websites of Facebook and the use of Twitter. This is all being sorted out. We are participating in history as it's being made, so bear with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely. And we can really work together to move the needle to get stuff done."[17][18] Some journalists speculated that this was evidence that Sergant was aware of the possibility he might be crossing the line into advocacy. At the time of the call, the federal government was drafting new policies concerning federal agencies' use of social media; these were released the following month.[19]

The NEA countered the allegations by asserting that Sergant had acted unilaterally and without the approval of then-Acting Chairman Patrice Walker Powell, and that the call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda but rather to inform members of the arts community of an opportunity to become involved in volunteerism through the United We Serve program. They also noted that the call had nothing to do with grantmaking.[20]

Chairpersons

See also

References

  1. 1 2 National Endowment for the Arts. "About Us". Retrieved 2009-03-13.
  2. ↑ Hodsoll, Francis S. M. (1984-01-01). "Supporting the Arts in the Eighties: The View from the National Endowment for the Arts". Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 471: 84–88.
  3. ↑
  4. 1 2 National Endowment for the Arts Appropriations History, NEA
  5. ↑ Patricia Cohen (August 7, 2013) Vacancies Hamper Agencies for Arts New York Times.
  6. ↑ National Council on the Arts, nea.gov.
  7. ↑ "President Obama Announces his Intent to Nominate Jane Chu as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts". Retrieved 12 October 2014.
  8. ↑ Neda Ulaby (Director) (2014-05-15). "In Pricey Cities, Being A Bohemian Starving Artist Gets Old Fast". (NPR). Retrieved 2014-05-31. Missing or empty |series= (help)
  9. ↑ William H. Honan (May 15, 1988). "Book Discloses That Reagan Planned To Kill National Endowment for Arts". New York Times.
  10. ↑ Paul Monaco (2000). Understanding Society, Culture, and Television. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 100. ISBN 978-0-275-97095-6.
  11. ↑ Quigley, Margaret. "The Mapplethorpe Censorship Controversy". PublicEye.org/Political Research Associates. Retrieved 2 October 2009.
  12. ↑ C. Carr, Timeline of NEA 4 events, franklinfurnace.org
  13. ↑ National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, 524 U.S. 569, (1998).
  14. ↑ Hughes, Robert (1995-08-07). "Pulling the Fuse on Culture". TIME. Retrieved 2009-10-03.
  15. ↑ "NEA Reassigns Communications Director Following Uproar Over Obama Initiative". FOX News. 11 September 2009. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  16. ↑ "Audiotape Reveals Artists Being Asked to Support Obama's Agenda". FOX News. 21 September 2009. Archived from the original on September 24, 2009. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  17. ↑ Patrick Courrielche, Full NEA Conference Call Transcript and Audio, Breitbart.com
  18. ↑ "After 'Inappropriate' NEA Conference Call, White House Pushes New Guidelines". ABC News. September 22, 2009.
  19. ↑ "Guidelines for Secure Use of Social Media by Federal Departments and Agencies, v1.0" (PDF). Federal Chief Information Officers' Council. September 17, 2009.
  20. ↑ STATEMENT FROM NEA CHAIRMAN ROCCO LANDESMAN, September 22, 2009
  21. ↑ "National Endowment for the Arts Announces New Acting Chairman," NEA press release dated February 2, 2009 at NEA website.
  22. ↑ Robin Pogrebin, "Saving Federal Arts Funds: Selling Culture as an Economic Force," New York Times, February 16, 2009.
  23. ↑ Robin Pogrebin, "Producer Is Chosen to Lead Arts Endowment", New York Times, May 13, 2009.
  24. ↑ Davi Napoleon, "Mr. Landesman Goes to Washington", The Faster Times, June 13, 2009.
  25. ↑ Robin Pogrebin, "Rocco Landesman Confirmed as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts", New York Times, August 7, 2009.
  26. ↑ "Statement from National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman". The National Endowment for the Arts. November 20, 2012. Retrieved October 20, 2013.
  27. ↑ "Jane Chu confirmed as NEA Chairman after position had been vacant for a year". The Washington Post. 12 July 2014. Retrieved 21 July 2014.
  28. ↑ "Jane Chu Confirmed as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts". Retrieved 12 June 2014.

Further reading

External links

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