Diverse and independent
Agency follows a uniquely American way of funding arts
When the National Endowment for the Arts was established in 1965, organizers had different models to choose from.
They could have looked to the French Ministry of Culture, a cabinet-level institution committed to maintaining France’s cultural heritage.
Or they could have copied the generous and governmentdirected support favoured by some Scandinavian countries, or even the state-controlled art of their Cold War rivals: the Soviet Union and China.
But the NEA, which the Trump administration wants to eliminate along with Legal Services Corp., the Institute of Museum and Library Services and dozens of other agencies and programs, developed in uniquely American fashion: diverse and independent, with a significant part of the budget distributed to state and local organizations. It also collaborates with non-profit and private donors.
“Our system is quite different from any of the other countries,” said Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of the non-profit Americans for the Arts, which leads a network of organizations and individuals involved in the arts. “Most of the other countries use a subsidy system with few or any other sources of funding.”
“I love the NEA model because it was founded on a governmentprivate giving system, and nothing succeeds like having buy-in
from the various communities,” said actress Jane Alexander, who served as NEA chair from 1993 to 1997. “I’m a resident of Canada and while there’s a lot of support for the arts it can be hard to get a project off the ground because there’s not a lot of incentive for private giving.”
From the beginning, the endowment was rooted in American political culture. It was founded when faith in government was high and when advocating for the arts was a popular position for an elected official. Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, elected in a landslide in 1964, had strong public backing to fulfil the goals of the assassinated John F. Kennedy. And the economic expansion of the post-Second World War era had led to a growing appetite for self-improvement and increased money and leisure time
for artistic interests.
Dana Gioia, who headed the NEA from 2003 to 2009, says the endowment has managed to use relatively little money to build a nationwide arts network. But the NEA has endured contentious moments, rooted in a long-term debate over how and whether governments should fund the arts. Conservatives have objected to some of the art being supported – notably graphic photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe and a handful of other works in the 1980s – and argued that the government shouldn’t interfere in the marketplace.
Some on the left have worried that accepting money from the government risked compromising one’s vision, especially after the NEA began asking grant recipients to sign a “decency” clause in the wake of the Mapplethorpe controversy.