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Eminentoes
Art Doesn't Work
Rocco Landesman, the newly minted Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), will soon hit the road to promote "Art Works" -- a six-month fact finding mission that will take the former Broadway producer across the country to remind Americans of the profound importance of art and, presumably, federally subsidizing said art.
The chairman's first stop on this tour of enlightenment, Peoria, Illinois, is instructive though hardly incidental. In August, Landesman, wandering off-script, as the ersatz populist Obama administration occasionally does when ensconced in the friendly confines of Americas' supposed centers of culture, admitted to the New York Times "I don't know if there's a theater in Peoria, but I would bet that it's not as good as Steppenwolf or the Goodman..."
Well. So off Landesman will go to the Midwest to explain himself to Americans inhabiting places without Tony Award-winning theatre companies.
"There is a new president and a new NEA," proclaimed Landesman, on October 21 in a preview of his upcoming voyage, at an arts conference in Brooklyn. "This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists."
Interesting premises. But ones that can be accepted only if you ignore the fact that when he died in 1865 Abraham Lincoln had never published a single book and disregard the penmanship of other president-writers such as Ulysses S. Grant, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Richard Nixon and William Clinton.
Discounting the embarrassing historical ignorance of the head of a federal agency and the unfortunate comparison of the president to the dictator perpetuo, what about this new NEA?
If new is defined as unlike George W. Bush, Landesman and company are off to a swinging start. The Obama team's move into the NEA's offices in the Old Post Office Building earlier this year follows a period of relative tranquility in the agency's stormy existence. After decades as a flashpoint in the culture wars, the Bush-era NEA placated liberals by incrementally increasing the agency's funding and pleased conservatives by promoting programs that steered clear of controversy, effectively detoxifying this once notorious federal entity. From 2001 to 2008, the words "censorship" and "de-fund" were seldom heard in regards to the NEA.
What Bush accomplished in eight years, Obama has undone in little more than eight months. In fact, in little less than a year, the new administration has (inadvertently, one hopes) done everything in its power to re-polarize the endowment and reopen the debate over federal funding for the arts.
The opening salvo was an $80 million chunk of the supposed salvation of the U.S. economy -- the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- for the NEA, $50,000 of which found its way to San Francisco's Frameline film house -- sponsors of "Thundercrack," "the world's only underground kinky art porno horror film, complete with four men, three women and a gorilla." Another $25,000 went to CounterPULSE, weekly hosts of "Perverts Put Out" -- a "long-running pansexual performance series." Stimulating indeed.
When such uses of the public's money generated concern, Landesman, shortly after being sworn in as NEA chief, fumed to the New York Times, "The arts are a little bit of a target. The subtext is that it is elitist, left wing, maybe even a little gay." Why would anyone think such things?
Well, there was that now infamous White House planned NEA-hosted conference call in August during which Yosi Sergant, NEA Communications Director, exhorted the participants (16 of whom had received a total of nearly $2 million from the NEA in the four months prior the call) to use their craft to further the Obama administration's agenda. "I would encourage you to pick something, whether it's health care, education, the environment...," said Sergant. Unsurprisingly, after the call several of the participants signed a public letter supporting Obama's health care reform agenda.
After conservative bloggers pointed out the dubious legality of an independent federal agency leaning on grantees to accomplish political goals and create policy propaganda, Sergant was "reassigned" and eventually resigned from the NEA in September.
These controversies have hardly provoked a rethink or slowdown at the new NEA. In fact, Landesman promises to press on. His goals include an increase in the agency's $155 million budget which, in the middle of a recession, he describes as "pathetic" and a return to individual grants to artists -- the now banished funding formula that paved the way for taxpayer-financed exhibitions of the lurid work of Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano.
He also plans to "lay the groundwork for the most arts-supportive administration since Roosevelt." And if in rejecting the "keep your head down, and build your credibility good grant by good grant" policy of the Bush administration, the NEA reignites the culture wars, so be it.
In the president's parlance, it is an audacious agenda.
But will it play in Peoria?
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Becky| 11.3.09 @ 7:00AM
Most art is crap, and I say that sincerely as an artist, who is just repeating my professor's take.
Maybe South Park could do a show about art crap and rate it with something similar to the Couric rating.
I see no need for taxpayer dollars to go to artists, especially for serious artists. It ruins them, I would think, for then art is not being created so much from an inward perspective, but the outward reward of money, which ruins all creative souls.
macdaddy| 11.3.09 @ 3:35PM
Excellent point, Becky. The full rule, though, is: most art is crap unless there is the possibility of increased government funding in which case all art is wonderful and worthy of 100 times more funding than that evil George Bush tried to cut out.
Pingback| 11.3.09 @ 7:35AM
The American Spectator : Art Doesn't Work | Museum And Art links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.3.09 @ 7:41AM
Art » The American Spectator : Art Doesn't Work links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.3.09 @ 8:01AM
All In One Information » The American Spectator : Art Doesn't Work links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Richard Baker| 11.3.09 @ 9:11AM
If he's comparing the Kenyan to Julius Caesar, my advice to the Kenyan is avoid the Senate on the Ides of March. Et tu, Brute?
Pablo Hussein Picasso | 11.3.09 @ 10:25AM
Where is it in the Constitution that we are required to provide taxpayer funding for the arts? For crying out loud, people who sit on the boards of museums and ballets are worth millions and can use the tax write-off. And I never did buy that early 90's garbage about cutting off NEA funding for trash like "Tongues Untied" was censorship. End the NEA and PBS and let "artists" and Big Bird (and Bill Moyers) suck at someone else's proverbial teet.
Michael Tomlinson| 11.3.09 @ 3:55PM
Time to fry "Big Bird" and seize the profits made by the government funded artists who've leached off taxpayers for decades.
Anthony| 11.3.09 @ 11:20AM
Whoa!! Who did this butt-boy learn his logic from, Joe Biden? How's this one Rocco? If you accept the premise that America is the most powerful country on the earth, and I do, then Sarah Palin is the most powerful woman in America!!
The logic of this will indeed play in Peroia, Rocco, as opposed to the NEA sponsored Piss-Christ. Now Rocco, can you remove Obama's bull whip from your butt, or is this your first artistic offering to "The One"?
Son Of Sam| 11.3.09 @ 2:02PM
First of all, real artists don't slavishly worship tyrants like Caesar or his modern day descendants. In the words of Shakespeare's immortal Cassius, I say: "Speak, hands, for me!"
There should be ZERO government funding for "the arts". Zero, as in nothing. If "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" then it means that ALL taxpayer dollars are being doled out to artists based on the OPINIONS of the people who have control of the money. Who is to say that their opinions are the correct ones? From what I've seen, the "art world" is an incestuous closed circle full of closed minds that all think alike, much more like a cult than almost anything else in American life. They have nothing but contempt for we the people who fund their cushy little lives, much like spoiled children who swear at their idiotically permissive parents.
Time to shut off their allowance!
stand strong until freedom dawns
Son Of Sam
http://www.samadamssos.bravehost.com/
Netstumbler| 11.3.09 @ 2:07PM
"This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln." Obama didn't write that book, Ayers Wrote it. He even admitted to writing it for him. I wouldn't waste a dime on anything Obama wrote - its guaranteed to be self centered and all lies!
macdaddy| 11.3.09 @ 3:38PM
I really like this guy. He makes me feel smart. Even I knew that multiple Presidents since TR had written multiple books. Heckuva job, Rocco!
Michael Tomlinson| 11.3.09 @ 3:53PM
This one more reason why Republicans need to become the majority in Congress next year -- to cut the fat from the "government sow." The NEA, PBS, etc. should be the first to go under the knife or abolished from the budget. Let the rich liberal Democrats fund art. That way there will be less money to fund Democrat politicians.
JimE| 11.3.09 @ 5:33PM
NEA= jobs program for lazy homosexuals
Eichard Baker| 11.3.09 @ 6:20PM
JimE:
Seems as if that's one of the major purposes, doesn't it?
JeffT| 11.3.09 @ 6:22PM
Don't hold your breath waiting for Republicans (DemocratLites) to make any cuts in funding for this or other dubious government handout groups. They had their chance and failed miserably, which is why they can't even get into the executive restroom. They are only slightly less pathetic than those currently ruining (sic) the show.
TParty4USA| 11.3.09 @ 7:13PM
When Landesman says the following, you just know that our educational system has failed to impart an iota of history, logic, or common sense to Landesman's personal development:
"This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists."
First, what book did Lincoln write? Oh, and it's not fair to count inaugaration addresses or proclamations or the Gettysburg Address.
Second, exactly how does Landesman find any basis in the world of logic for asserting that:
"if America is the most powerful nation, then Obama is the most powerful writer"
Now, THAT is a real doozy of a logical deduction, except that it lacks any logic. Nary a smidgen. Less, even, than: "If apple, then orange." At least apples and oranges are both fruits.
Lastly, the non-sensical "sense" of Landesman's praise of the Juliusness of Obama has a very humorous, biting explication at Iowahawk.
Check it out --- http://tinylink.me/Iowahawk-on.....s-of-Obama
Pingback| 11.4.09 @ 10:45AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Art Doesn't Work [spectator.org] on links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Richard Baker| 11.4.09 @ 9:12PM
Would that the Kenyan could pass gas like TR. Writing? No way. Read something that TR wrote and you'll understand.
北京贷款| 11.5.09 @ 9:26PM
The NEA, PBS, etc. should be the first to go under the knife or abolished from the budget.