Congress Founded the National Endowment for the Arts in

The National Endowment for the Arts: transitions and restructuring in response to Congressional oversight

Daniel R. Parra

The Museum Review, Volume 2, Number ane, 2017

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AbstractSince its founding in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has been ane of the nigh supportive grant making organizations for the arts in the United States. In the years following its inception, the NEA grew within the values and traditions of its founding mission, however that mission has been challenged, forcing the authorities bureau to adapt due to oversight and upkeep fluctuations. This paper explicates the history of the NEA through the 1990s, noting that the bureau remains under threat of termination to this solar day.

KeywordsNational Endowment for the Arts; censorship; politics; gimmicky art

About the WriterAfter military service and working every bit the Plan Manager at the Cummer Museum of Fine art and Gardens in Jacksonville, FL, Daniel Raul Parra is now a doctoral candidate in the field of Education, researching fine art teaching within Stalk undergraduate programs.

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Introduction

Since its inception in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has been i of the virtually supportive grant making programs in the Usa, offering artists and arts organizations the opportunity to create and nowadays new work, fulfilling its mission "dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education." In the by l years, the NEA has supported diverse artists, arts organizations, and arts didactics initiatives: writers, poets, dancers, theaters, museums, musicians, visual artists, etc., across all 50 states, but has struggled to fulfil this mission due to Congressional doubts, questions of censorship, public outrage, and challenges from the media. Such challenges remain today.

The NEA: 1965 to the 1980s

On September 29, 1965, United states President Lyndon Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act, establishing the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Founded by Congress one twelvemonth after the start of the Vietnam State of war, the NEA is a unique and independent agency of the federal government "whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, practise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities." [1] Congress established the NEA to sustain and preserve America's artistic legacy, and to spread artistic prosperity nationwide. At that time, the spread of communism concerned the U.Due south. regime, and Congress sought to confront communism "through an expanded public sector." [two] President Johnson wanted to assert the nation's economic power across all fields, including the arts, yet the NEA was not founded to deliver a political bulletin or align with a socio-political bulletin.

In 1967, the NEA'southward first consummate grantmaking twelvemonth, the bureau had an $8 million budget. Initial museum grant recipients included the Detroit Found of Arts, the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art (Fort Worth, TX), and the Institute of Contemporary Fine art (Boston, MA). Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY) curator Henry Geldzahler sat on the offset review panel that made grants to visual artists. That console not only supported established artists, but made grants to emerging and young artists. Every bit early on equally 1968, the NEA faced Congressional scrutiny and questions regarding advisable oversight, perceived censorship, and whether government-subsidized arts is an appropriate utilise of federal funds.

"A great orchestra or a fine museum is a natural resources, similar a park. Information technology must be maintained."

The NEA budget expanded under the 2d NEA chairman, Nancy Hicks, who ran the agency from 1969-1977.  Hicks was knowledgeable in national arts funding and public policy having atomic number 82 the Arts Councils of America and worked for the Rockefeller family, who helped to found the Museum of Modern Art (New York). She believed that "A great orchestra or a fine museum is a natural resource, like a park. It must be maintained." [3] Congress and the American public witnessed the tangible results from the NEA's work nether Hicks, which funded numerous arts organizations beyond all 50 states rather than serve as a funding body for national or state-sponsored groups. Distributing funds widely generated numerous and diverse supporters who lobbied for budget increases on the NEA's behalf. Hicks "prevailed upon members of symphonies, museums, and state arts councils to entrance hall Congress for college budgets," [4] prompting Congress to expand the agency'south upkeep. During Hicks' tenure, funding multiplied "twelvefold, from $eight,456,875 for financial year 1969 to $99,872,000 for fiscal year 1977." [5]

The budget increases did non go unnoticed and drew business concern regarding possible politicization of the arts. Livingston Biddle, NEA chairman from 1977-1981, noted that during his confirmation process, "there [had] been suggestion that the arts may be subject to politicization… mean[ing]… subject to inappropriate governmental pressures." [6] Biddle instead sought to restrict government intervention in selecting grantees, and insisted that private citizens sat on grant option panels. The advent of the Reagan administration ushered in threats to the NEA, which commenced on the Reagan entrada trail. "During the campaign, Regan issued a statement on the arts and humanities: 'I will end as soon every bit possible the politicization of the National Council on the Arts and so conspicuous during the Carter-Mondale Assistants.'" [7] David Stockman, President Regan'southward managing director of the Office of Management and Upkeep (OMB), sought to downsize the NEA, initially with a 50% budget cut, believing that arts funding represented undue government influence in the public arena. This foreshadowed the liberal and conservative civilisation wars to come up in American public life. "People assumed that the Stockman OMB move was a first step toward eliminating the Endowment – and they answered it with calls for protecting and preserving the agency." [viii]

The proposed NEA cuts created a shockwave in the arts customs. Calls of public support from artists and legislators alike commenced on behalf of the NEA. An histrion himself, Reagan'due south former colleagues and close friends lobbied the President, prompting him to constitute a presidential "Task Force on the arts and Humanities, [which would consist of] a blue ribbon panel of thirty-six citizens to propose him on iii issues: (1) expanding private support for the arts and humanities; (two) involving more nongovernmental opinion (from individuals and individual-sector groups) in federal arts and humanities decisions; and (3) restructuring of federal arts and humanities funding, including the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities, the two endowments, and the Federal Quango on the Arts and Humanities." [9] This team was nether scrutiny from the beginning, yet brought residue to NEA upkeep discussions. The upkeep was not cut by 50%, but Congress appropriated $143.5 million for the 1982 fiscal year, roughly a ten% cut from $159 million budget in 1981.[10]

Civilisation Wars

The NEA faced expanding culture wars in the belatedly 1980s due to grants information technology administered to artists and arts organizations, which led to additional questions of Congressional back up for the bureau. Ii controversies defined the NEA'due south culture wars era in the 1980s: the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania'south Constitute of Contemporary Art (ICA), and a photograph by Andres Serrano included in a juried exhibition.

The NEA did not select the artists included in the AVA-seven exhibition, nor did it curate the Mapplethorpe exhibition.

ICA received a $30,000 NEA grant for a large retrospective of Mapplethorpe's work, which included graphic images. The exhibition traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Fine art Chicago, the Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford, CT), Berkeley'due south University Art Museum, and the Establish for Contemporary Art in Boston. The Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.) cancelled its exhibition participation in June 1989, prompting a 60-person protest exterior the museum, and widespread word over the appropriate utilise of federal funds for controversial arts projects. The second incident, sprung from the NEA'due south $75,000 grant to support the 7th annual Awards in the Visual Arts (AVA-vii), a traveling juried exhibition curated by the Southeastern Centre for Contemporary Art (SECCA). The exhibition opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and traveled to the Carnegie Mellon University Art Museum (Pittsburgh) and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond, VA). Andres Serrano'southward photograph in the exhibition, entitled Immersion (Piss Christ), depicted small plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist's own urine. "When Immersion (Piss Christ) was included in a touring exhibition that traveled the length and breadth of the country, journalists, curators and Christian fundamentalists joined forces to take the work withdrawn because it vilified Christ."[11] Notably, the NEA did not select the artists included in the AVA-7 exhibition, nor did it curate the Mapplethorpe exhibition. The ICA "all of a sudden became a central player in the congressional debate of what taxpayers' dollars should and should not be spent on, and the related issues of censorship and artistic liberty."[12] These exhibitions created a stir of emotions apropos the advisable apply of taxpayer funds.

In response to these exhibitions, four funding amendments were proposed in Congress to the NEA's appropriations bill, each of which threatened NEA funding. One amendment threatened to eliminate all funding for the NEA, another proposed to cut funding by 50%, and a third subpoena proposed cutting funding past 10% for one fiscal year. The fourth proposed amendment passed, cut the NEA's funding by $45,000, the total amount granted to the Mapplethorpe exhibition and the AVA-7 exhibition that included the Serrano piece of work of art. "For a fourth dimension, the question was fifty-fifty raised of introducing a law forbidding the NEA from providing any support to organizations displaying any works of a homosexual character." [xiii] When the NEA budget came up for review in the U.S. Senate, Senator Jesse Helms added linguistic communication that "non only restricted funding for 'obscene or indecent materials' but included another clause prohibiting ICA and SECCA (the Southeastern Center for Gimmicky Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina) from receiving NEA funds for five years." [14] In response, some of those who disagreed with Helms' censorship "cited the small number of 'objectionable' grants it had made. It was, they inferred, only a small portion of art that was troublesome." [15] The last appropriations pecker prevented the NEA from supporting artworks deemed indecent, and required that Congress exist informed of any grants up for recommendation to either the ICA or the SECCA. "Helms offered his reasons: 'A difference exists between an artist's right to gratuitous expression, and his correct to have Government, that is to say the taxpayers, pay for his work… in that location is a fundamental difference between government censorship, the preemption of publication or product and government's refusal to pay for such publication and production.'" [16] Helms' statement echoes the original values and mission of the NEA.

In 1990, twenty-v years after the NEA was founded, "the agency had lost back up in Congress, the White House, the media, and from the public." [17] Congress mandated that an Independent Commission assess the NEA's grantmaking procedures and make up one's mind the appropriate standards for making grants to publicly funded fine art. Exercise those standards differ from privately funding art? In the course of its cess, the Independent Commission determined:

the standard for selecting publicly funded art 'must go beyond' that for privately funded art. With regard to aesthetic or artistic quality, both should be judged only on the basis of excellence. Government support, yet, must bring with it criteria across creative worth; publicly funded art must not ignore the weather condition traditionally governing the uses of public money, and must serve 'the purpose which Congress has divers for the National Endowment for the Arts.' These must include coming together professional person standards of actuality, encouraging artists to achieve wider distribution of their works, and reflecting the cultures of minority, inner-city, rural, and tribal communities. [18]

With this argument, the Independent Commission accounted that NEA-funded art must autumn inside the premises of public appreciation. To verify that it meets this criteria, the grant review process must exist executed past industry professionals.

Restructuring the NEA

In the shadow of the culture wars of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Congress once again threatened the NEA with emptying in 1996. During the 1994 election season, many Republican candidates ran on a political platform entitled the "Contract with America" that included the NEA's termination. At the time, the Republican Party held both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, so "the threat facing the Arts Endowment was no longer but more budget cuts, but the threat of total emptying." [nineteen]  Legislation was introduced in May 1991 that would reduce appropriations for both the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1996, again in 1997, and once again in 1998. Even so Senate Republicans identified the NEA'due south value and acquirement information technology brought to individual states. They were "much more than positive about the endowment, recognizing both the multiplier consequence and the entreatment, for their statewide electorates, of boosterism in federal art expenditure." [20] Rather than terminate the bureau altogether, Senators sought to arrange grantmaking from individual artists to organizations, schools, and universities that created cultural programming for the public.

"Under the new reforms, a symphony orchestra would compete confronting a dance visitor or a literary magazine, whose project fell under the same division."

The Committee on Labor and Human Resources, chaired by Senator Nancy Kassebaum (R-KS), supported the NEA and worked to reauthorize its funding. "At one of four hearings, Chair Kassebaum alleged, 'there is support for the work of the National Endowment for the Arts' and added 'clearly nosotros have to respond some constituent concerns that really exercise however question whether this is a function of federal government.'" [21] Upon NEA reauthorization, the Senate required an operational overhaul and a changed grant approval process. Seventeen subject area-based grant programs were reorganized into iv divisions: Heritage and Preservation; Instruction and Access; Creation and Presentation; and Planning and Stabilization. The NEA no longer made grants to private artists. "Of the grant-making changes undertaken during her tenure, none was more painful for [NEA] Chairman [Jane] Alexander than the Congressional mandate to eliminate all private artist grants, with the exception of the Literature Fellowships." [22] Jazz musicians and folk and traditional artists likewise retained grant funding due to the typically uncontroversial cloth each produced. In creating the iv divisions, the NEA limited the opportunities for controversy and stabilized discussions almost the misuse of taxpayer money. The NEA and grant seekers found these radical changes taxing. The agency's mission had been changed from its original ideology.

The Arts Endowment had previously functioned as a compartmentalized grantmaking trunk, with financing awarded through specific arts disciplines. Under the old structure, for example, symphony orchestras competed with each other for grants from the NEA's symphony upkeep. Under the new reforms, a symphony orchestra would compete confronting a trip the light fantastic toe company or a literary mag, whose project fell under the same sectionalization, such as Educational activity and Access. [23]

The shift was, in part, dictated by the House Appropriations Committee that cut the NEA's budget by 39% from $162 million to $99.99 million for the 1996 fiscal year. As a result, the NEA reorganized and cut its staff by 47%. Following the budget cuts and employment losses, the NEA also had to restructure its grant approvals process The agency added "combined arts panels – a new layer of review – over the four funding divisions." [24] This allowed for varied perspectives to be included in the review process proposal.

Grant applicants were no longer permitted to seek funding for full general operating expenses, because Congress believed this to be within the purview of private funders.

Congress made additional changes to the NEA. Grant applicants were no longer permitted to seek funding for general operating expenses, considering Congress believed this to be within the purview of private funders. With regard to grant making, Congress required the NEA to cap funding to any one particular country at xv per centum (excluding multi-state projects)." [25] It also reduced the number of NEA members from 26 to 14, plus vi ex-officio seats for members of Congress who were appointed past Firm and Senate leadership, providing an boosted layer of government oversight. [26] By October 1998 when NEA Chairman Alexander stepped down, the NEA was a completely new agency.

Despite these changes, Congress continued to work to eliminate the NEA. "In April [1997], [Firm Speaker Newt] Gingrich told a Washington news conference that rich celebrities and entertainment executives should donate their own funds to establish a private endowment, or 'taxation deductible private trust.'" [27] Appalled by this argument, members of the amusement industry and its lobby pushed dorsum. All the same the June 1996 appropriations pecker "was voted out of the Firm Appropriations Commission with $10 million for the NEA, just enough money to shut the agency down." [28] This limited upkeep would accept not been sufficient for the NEA's survival, and would force the agency to terminate grant back up for the arts. U.S. President Clinton, notwithstanding, came to the NEA's defense, "promising to veto the appropriations bill if it did non contain at least $99.5 million for the Arts Endowment." [29] The $99.5 million would permit the NEA to proceed its electric current mission. The final appropriations neb funded the bureau, and included a new provision that permitted the NEA to solicit and accept individual funds. While the NEA survived the storm of political and media turmoil, the many changes forced upon the agency begs the question, does the NEA still maintain an important role for the arts in the United States?

The New NEA

Stepping into the 2000s, the NEA inverse its mission argument to coincide with its new requirements: "The National Endowment for the Arts, an investment in America's living cultural heritage, serves the public good by nurturing human creativity, supporting community spirit, and fostering appreciation of the excellence and diversity of our nation'southward creative accomplishments." [xxx] Blending the agency'due south original ideology with the new Congressionally imposed requirements, the NEA was poised for 21st century success, and its upkeep has remained relatively steady for fifteen years:

Fifty years after its founding, the NEA again faces a threat from lawmakers who wish to eliminate the regime agency. The National Endowment for the Arts has consistently faced this threat through its productive history, and has adapted to the vagaries of political and public opinion over that time. The U.S. museum community has benefitted significantly from NEA grants, which not merely provide financial back up, just also human activity as a postage stamp of blessing for the high quality of work done across the museum sector today. The NEA is a well-established agency with a clear mission to serve the American public past supporting the various arts industry.[31]

Notes

[i] National Endowment for the Arts. 2012. About the NEA. Accessed May i, 2015. http://arts.gov/about-nea.

[two] Saunders, Shauna. Autumn 2005 37(3). "The Case for the National Endowment for the Arts: Federal Funding for the Arts in America in the 1960s and 1970s." In History of Political Economy, 593-616. Durham: Duke University Printing. 599.

[iii] Bauerlein, Mark, and Ellen Grantham. 2008. National Endowment for the Arts, A History: 1965-2008. Washington D.C.: National Endowment for the Arts. 32.

[4] Moen, Matthew. 1994. "Congress and The National Endowment for The Arts: Institutional Patterns and Arts Funding, 1965-1994." EBSCHost Online Database Inquiry. Accessed May iv, 2015. http://spider web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=7387a08b-cefd-4226-b8e5-def61c79d92c%40sessionmgr4003&hid=4107&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=9706064519&anchor=AN9706064519-4.

[5] Saunders, 595.

[6] Bauerlein, 55-56.

[7] Zeigler, Joseph Wesley. 1994. Arts in Crisis. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. 45.

[8] Ibid, 47.

[9] Ibid, 48.

[x] Ibid, 49.

[11] Routex, Diane, and Elea Baucheron. 2013. The Museum of Scandals: Art that Shocked the Earth. New York, New York: Prestel Publishing. 34.

[12] Tannenbaum, Judith. 1991. "Robert Mapplethorpe: The Philadelphia Story." Art Journal 71-76. 71.

[thirteen] Routex, 125.

[xiv] Tannenbaum, 71-72.

[xv] Ault, Julie, David Deitcher, Andrea Fraser, Lewis Hyde, Lucy Lippard, Carole Vance, and Michele Wallace. 1999. Art Matters: How the Culture Wars Changed America. New York, NY: New York University Press. 17.

[16] Zeigler, 79.

[17] Bauerlein, 108.

[18] Ibid, 107.

[xix] Ibid, 117.

[20] Miller, Toby. July 200. "The National Endowment for the Arts in the 1990s, A Blackness Heart on the Arts?" The American Behavioral Scientist 1429-1445. 1437.

[21] Bauerlein, 117-118.

[22] Ibid, 119.

[23] Ibid, 120.

[24] Ibid, 119.

[25] Ibid, 120.

[26] Ibid, 120.

[27] Ibid, 121.

[28] Ibid, 121.

[29] Ibid, 123.

[30] National Endowment for the Arts. 2000. "Most the NEA: National Endowment for the Arts, 1965-2000: A Brief Chronology of Federal Support for the Arts." National Endowment for the Arts. Accessed Apr 20, 2015. http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/NEAChronWeb.pdf. sixty.

[31] National Endowment for the Arts. 2015. National Endowment for the Arts Appropriations History. Accessed May 30, 2015. http://arts.gov/open-government/national-endowment-arts-appropriations-history.

References

Ault, Julie, David Deitcher, et al. 1999. Art Matters: How the Culture Wars Changed America. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Bauerlein, Mark, and Ellen Grantham. 2008. National Endowment for the Arts, A History: 1965-2008. Washington D.C.: National Endowment for the Arts.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2015. Industries at a Glance: Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation: NAICS 71. June 2015. Accessed June 4, 2015. http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag71.htm.

Kimbis, Thomas Peter. Summer 1997. "Surviving the Storm: How the National Endowment for the Arts Restructred itself to Serve a new Constituency." Journal of Arts Management, Law & Guild 139.

Knight, Robert. Spring 1991. "The National Endowment for the Arts: Misusing Taxpayers' Money." EBSCOhost Online Research Database. Accessed May i, 2015. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS576US576&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-viii#q=ebscohost.

Miller, Toby. July 2000. "The National Endowment for the Arts in the 1990s, A Black Center on the Arts?" The American Behavioral Scientist 1429-1445.

Moen, Matthew. 1994. "Congress And The National Endowment For The Arts: Institutional Patterns And Arts Funding, 1965-1994." EBSCHost Online Database Inquiry. Apr. Accessed May four, 2015. http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/item/particular?vid=5&sid=7387a08b-cefd-4226-b8e5-def61c79d92c%40sessionmgr4003&hid=4107&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=9706064519&anchor=AN9706064519-4.

National Endowment for the Arts. 2012. About the NEA. Accessed May i, 2015. http://arts.gov/most-nea.

—. 2009. "Artists in a Year of Recession: Touch on Jobs in 2008." National Endowment for the Arts Web site. March. Accessed May thirty, 2015. http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/97.pdf.

—. 2015. National Endowment for the Arts Appropriations History. Accessed May 30, 2015. http://arts.gov/open-government/national-endowment-arts-appropriations-history.

—. 2012. "The Arts and Achievement in At-Adventure Youth: Findings from Four Longitudinal Studies." The National Endowment for the Arts website. March. Accessed May 30, 2015. http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/Arts-At-Gamble-Youth.pdf.

Peter, Jennifer A., and Louis Thousand. Crosier. 1995. The Cultural Battlefield, Fine art Censorship and Public Funding. Gilsum, N.H.: Avocus Publishing .

Routex, Diane, and Elea Baucheron. 2013. The Museum of Scandals: Fine art that Shocked the Earth. New York, New York: Prestel Publishing.

Saunders, Shauna. Fall 2005 37(3). "The Case for the National Endowment for the Arts: Federal Funding for the Arts in America in the 1960s and 1970s." In History of Political Economy, 593-616. Durham: Dike University Printing.

Shockley, Gordon. 2011. "Political Enviroment and Policy Alter: The National Endowment for the Arts in the 1990s." The Journal of Arts Management, Constabulary, and Gild 267-284.

Tannenbaum, Judith. 1991. "Robert Mapplethorpe: The Philadelphia Story." Art Journal 71-76.

The National Endowment for the Arts. 2000. "Virtually the NEA: National Endowment for the Arts, 1965-2000: A Brief Chronology of Federal Support for the Arts." National Endowment for the Arts. Accessed April 20, 2015. http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/NEAChronWeb.pdf.

Zeigler, Joseph Wesley. 1994. Arts in Crunch. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.

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