Where Have You Gone, Jesse Helms?

White House seeks $18 million increase in '05 arts funding

Worse yet, reports the Chicago Tribune, the money "would be used almost entirely for a special 'American Masterpieces' program designed to showcase largely traditional visual and performing arts around the country." So they will not just be spending extra money, they will be celebrating stuff that is already supposedly deep in the American grain. So deep, it seems, that it needs government subsidies just like farming and steel-making.

Time to dust off all those old anti-NEA rants.

Comments

[nobody]

If you want to see subsidized art taken to its logical extreme, check out that way-cool Soviet-era stuff. Just can't get enough of those tractors and pitchforks!

[mak_nas]

how does the NEA know what to fund?

answer: it doesn't. beauty being what it is -- completely arbitrary and in the eye of the beholder -- and lacking any real standard, it gives money to its friends. kinda like mayor daley in my hometown.

who are the NEA's friends?

answer: people who espouse or represent a certain point of view, generally, either in art or politics.

is it consistent with the principles of a free society for the government to spend tax revenues -- in fact, spend borrowed money -- to promote certain political and artistic points of view over others?

answer: no. but then, this hasn't been a free society in a long time.

[Jennifer]

"Nobody" said: If you want to see subsidized art taken to its logical extreme, check out that way-cool Soviet-era stuff. Just can't get enough of those tractors and pitchforks!

If my college memories are accurate, that Soviet art is pretty cool if you look at it while stoned. How about a compromise: we fully fund the NEA, but pay for it with the taxes collected from the sale of legalized drugs!

[nobody]

Yup, pretty cool until you remember all the "nonconformist", "enemy-of-the-state" artists sent to the gulag for their anti-soviet viewpoints.

NEA recipients here get to go to that somewhat less menacing gulag: NPR.

[Zippy]

Wow. With all that MONEY we could send almost SIXTEEN POUNDS of genuine AMERICAN HIGHBROW KITSCH
to the FUCKING MOON.

[Jim Walsh]

Wait a minute! I thought conservatives were supposed to be against wasteful government spending, not just wasteful government spending that advances non-conservative ideas.

Silly me...

[junyo]

This is one case where I truly believe the private free market is far superior to public government.

The only problem I have with that is the number of people that are recognized as great and influential artists now that were miserable commercial failures during their lifetimes, and the number of people that make a splendid living cranking out crap (sometimes literally) and calling it art. Jeff Koons comes to mind. By the standards of the free market "Dogs Playing Poker" and "Elvis on Velvet" are the masterworks of our age, but I seriously doubt that most people consider either the pinnacle of human artistic endeavor.

I don't have an answer, I just doubt that a completely market driven solution would create great art.

[Warren]

"Fuck the NEA"
Yeah OK fuck em. But this is waaay too gnats ass for all the attention it gets.

FUCK THE FARM BILL
Now There's a rally worthy slogan.

[dude]

Sometimes government art can be weirdly amusing.

I fear with the republicans in charge of all branches of govt that Lee Greenwood and Chuck Norris will be getting most of the funds however.

[dude]

Sometimes government art can be weirdly amusing.

I fear with the republicans in charge of all branches of govt that Lee Greenwood and Chuck Norris will be getting most of the funds however.

[Mark]

Art has always been used as propaganda to further the aims and prestige of the powers that be. It not like our government doesn't piss away money on stupid shit all the time. As much as I disagree with public money being spent in this way, $18 mil probably doesn't even cover the the rounding errors for the Iraq fiasco. Like mak_nas alluded to, Chicago alone spent $40 mil to send patronage buddy trucks out to do nothing. Sure it's a waste, but at least the output of the artists provides some entertainment value in the form of pseudo-controversy.

[dhex]

great art creates itself, by hook or by crook. in a way, i mean, not that the process is painful.

very often it's never recognized until the artist is dead and buried (And their work can be turned into whatever the exploiter of the moment wants it to be)

everything you ever wanted to know about art in america can be summed up by saying that the beginning of the century saw ulysses banned as obscene and the end of the century saw only fisting videos as obscene (neither are, in my more or less obscenity-free book)

jennifer - while i don't disagree, and cringe at the idea of sitting before a group of art school nerds and bureaucrats trying to justify libertarian minimal glitch-techno (if such a thing existed) but i don't see that as particularly more or less crass - or annoying - than vermeer sitting in front of a bunch of rich dutchmen and trying to make their wives look less ugly.

actually, my biggest complaint against the NEA (aside from its existence) is that it tends to fund boring, predictable and more traditional forms of art. add on a bit of multiculti gloss and you've got a pre-built punching bag for conservatives. the amount of gross-out art - which at least was interesting, and i'll be damned if bob flanagan didn't deserve all the grants he could muster - they funded was minimal.

to be fair, if the NEA wanted to hand me and my business partners 10 grand or even five grand to put out a record series or fund my plans for a "24-hour endurance test" -- sell/give away 25 to 50 tickets for a 24 hour, locked-vault style concert, alternating between brutal noise and rhythmic stuff -- i'd probably take it. so maybe i'm a sucky hipocrite, but i can pretty much guarantee that it'll never happen. 🙂

now if i were a lesbian penguin nun in a wheelchair with an eyepatch, i might have something going.

[Andrew]

I said before that I thought this was mostly to create a vehicle to introduce Laura Bush to the public in 2004 (she is largely unrecognised to date). This kind of thing has been going on at least since LBJ had LadyBird "beautifying America". Essentially, it is a given that something like $20 to $200 million of the tax-payer's money will be spent by any administration to profile the First Lady, and at least we get Shakespeare-- instead of something positively malacious like Nancy Reagan's "anti-drug" activities.

Now, all Libertarians...RELAX, take a deep breath, and read the Heritage Foundation or some other source that compares the US with other societies today.

We are doing damn good-- and could be doing a lot better. But a little perspective never hurt.

We rank about 10. We do so much better than most other societies in the freedom to conduct business, secure rights to property and the enforcement of contracts, that others will likely never catch up.

We do rather less well (but still pretty good) on taxation, rather worse on trade (including immigration) and quite poorly on government spending (although most societies are much worse).

If the US NEVER reformed, we would still comfortably remain in the world's top twenty...and we are a much larger culture than most who compare favorably with us.

Mak nas, would you want to emigrate to (even) Great Britain, Switzerland or New Zealand to "live free"? How much difference would it make to you?

[Citiaen]

Junyo said: The only problem I have with that is the number of people that are recognized as great and influential artists now that were miserable commercial failures during their lifetimes...

See, that's ok. Great art comes from great suffering and all of that. Of course, crappy art comes from great suffering, too. So you may not really know if what an artist has done is worth a damn for a long time, as time has a way of seperating the cream from ... whatever cream rises to the top of in the old proverb. Sucks for the artist, great for the art world.

[Kevin Carson]

Either they can fund traditional art, which people are already willing to spend their own money on.

Or they can fund "avant-garde" art that nobody would give a plug nickel for (IOW, crap).

Either way, the money's wasted.

What gets me about advocates for "public" funding of the arts is how self-contradictory they are. They appeal to the objective value of high art to a society, and the educational role of government in promoting an informed taste; and they give examples like classical Athens, where artists acted within a common tradition of shared cultural values, with recognized standards of quality. But when somebody is unkind enough to bring up Mapplethorpe, they'll switch to a moral relativist track, and argue that the government ought to fund a little of everything, because "who's to say what's good and what's crap."

[SteveInClearwater]

NO SMAK ALLOWED against Dogs Playing Poker.

My Top 50 visual artistic creations would be fairly classical, but would definitely include DPP.

ANDREW, only in the past four years have I given significant thought to, "Where would I live if I left the U.S.?"

I agree with your sentiments overall that USA #1 overall place to live, despite all imperfections.
Canada is most tempting society, but way too far north 8 months a year.

But after reading some of Bob Harris's travel journal http://www.thismodernworld.com/bob.html
I've moved Australia up into the potential list of candidates.

[Jennifer]

As a Lite Libertarian I am not automatically opposed to all government subsidies, but I've always been opposed to NEA artist grants on the grounds that they're useless. Show me even ONE American da Vinci or Michaelangelo or Dali paid for by NEA grants and I might reconsider, but I doubt that will ever happen.

[jat]

See? This is why sometimes it is important to have raving loon around to do the dirty jobs no one else wants to do.

[nobody]

I write and record my own music, but nobody will buy it. This doesn't seem fair to me. I'm sure that, once enough people hear my work, I will become very popular and the country will be a much better place. How can I get one of these "Masterpiece" grants? I'll bet it will take the equivalent of only 1/20 of a cup of coffee per American to fund my recording sessions, publicity tour, performing wardrobe, stamps for fan mail responses, and checking account. A very small investment indeed for what I am convinced will be an edifying experience for all Americans.

Won't somebody help?

[dhex]

lots of truly classic art was paid and subsidized by kingdoms past from the body of tribute (taxes) drawn.

if yer ever in manhattan the museum of natural history has dozens of examples. and any other museum around, i would think.

that said, fuck the NEA.

[Fred]

In a previous post I opined that they would set a condition so vile that the intended recipients would not accept it and the money would not be spent. But, hey, if Lawrence Welk and Norman Rockwell are the type of intended recipients, this program is going to balloon into the largest of all federal programs.

Why can't we have normal, clear thinking adults running this country?

[dhex]

because you can't elect a fnord.

[StMack]

Nobody,

Could it just be that all the somebodies out there don't want your music? You offer a product for sale and no one buys it - tough luck. Either write some music that somebody will buy or go work at Starbucks serving everybody their 1/20 of a cup of coffee and stop whining.

Which is just another of saying what dhex said "fuck the NEA"

[nobody]

Gee, St. Mack,
Don't you know satire when you read it?

[Jennifer]

dhex--

You're right about much great art from the past being ultimately subsidized by taxpayer money, but there's a difference between an Elizabethan playwright receiving money from Her Majesty, versus a modern 'artist' receiving money from the NEA: writing in an attempt to please one patron of the arts is very different from writing to please a committee of people who have applied for jobs with the NEA.

Consider: if you personally had a huge amount of money and wanted to subsidize some artists (hoping, perhaps, that the stuff will be so great that future art historians will refer to now as the "Age of Dhex" or the "Dhexian Era"), you will probably end up with some good stuff, though I personally might not like it. Likewise, you personally may not like the Jenniferian art I pay for, but that's your option.

Now imagine instead a committe consisting of you, me, and this bitchy art major I knew in school. I hate your taste in art and you hate mine, so we can't agree on anything; meanwhile, the art major disqualifies any artist who can't draw a perfect freehand circle. And we all end up with crap.

This is one case where I truly believe the private free market is far superior to public government.

[kevrob]

Regarding St Mack's comment, the *$'s in the building where I work is going to start hanging the work of local artists, and making a market for it. I'm sure a bunch of it will be pretentious crap, but it will be unsubsidized pretentious crap, and that's important!

Kevin

[dj of raleigh]

> lots of truly classic art was paid and subsidized by kingdoms past from the body of tribute (taxes) drawn.

[dhex]

and yet that art filtered back down and influenced other artists, and became available itself to the public. sure, it took a few hundred years, but...

[Syl]

"But when somebody is unkind enough to bring up Mapplethorpe, they'll switch to a moral relativist track, and argue that the government ought to fund a little of everything, because "who's to say what's good and what's crap.""

It's called freedom of expression. Be against funding because you're against funding, but not because of 'what' might benefit from it.

[Brendan Perez]

Instead of giving the money to the NEA, why not reduce the taxes on art supplies? And only iff absolutely necessary, replace the money "lost" with the money that would have gone to the NEA?

[dj of raleigh]

>he was just recently awarded a prize by the Art Critics of America as one of the most underknown living artists. That seems to be changing, partly due to the publicity surrounding the debut run of ?The FBI Files? at PS 1 in New York.

[joe]

Just so y'all know, demonstrating proudly that you don't know anything about contemporary art doesn't make your arguments more credible to those of us who on the fence.

[MALAK]

Steve in Clearwater. Windsor is around the same latitude as San Francisco (don't shoot me if it's actually longitude, I always screw those 2 up).

[dhex]

dj: i think it was either jimbo or jasmine. i don't remember.