This idotic type of thinking drives me crazy....
Jonathan Chait, writing in the LA Times submits one of the stupidest ideas I have ever come out of left in ages, if not ever.
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
This idotic type of thinking drives me crazy....
Jonathan Chait, writing in the LA Times submits one of the stupidest ideas I have ever come out of left in ages, if not ever.
F. Lennox Campello is a widely published Washington, DC based art critic, as well as an award winning artist and curator. He is also often heard on NPR and the Voice of America discussing visual art issues. …
Article comments
1 - Mike Kole
Don't sweat it too much. There isn't going to be anything approaching broad support among Dems to sacrifice NEA. And while GOP rhetoric is towards smaller government, they never really get around to reducing programs, let alone cutting them. This article even pointed out how Bush surprised arts supporters by pumping more cash into NEA.
Of course, I would like to see NEA vaporized- not because of the content of the art that is funded, but because I believe that funding the arts is not a proper role of government. Art is too individualized to ever be collectively backed without rightful complaint by those who don't 'get it'. Think about it: the GOP is in control now. They can subsidize whatever art they want to. Got any guesses as to what might get the support?
2 - Harry Forbes
Chiat is correct in that the political right gets great mileage with voters when the NEA (meaning the taxpayer) backs "controversial" work (such as the one mentioned by Andres Serrano).
I think the explanation of the NEA's raison d'etre is simpler though. Artists simply want a better market climate for their work, which growing government commissions provide. That is a perfectly human impulse. Who wouldn't want guaranteed growing demand for work in their field?
This situation reminds me of a witty statement by an economist (I think it was Samuelson, but it sounds like Friedman) who said:
"The greatest threat to a competitive market-based economy comes from big business and from college professors. Business because they want to have socialism for themselves and a free market for everyone else, and college professors because they want a free market for themselves, but socialism for everyone else."
Frost made a doubly ironic comment on the same point in his poem New Hampshire:
...Do you know,
Considering the market, there are more
Poems produced than any other thing?
No wonder poets sometimes have to seem
So much more businesslike than businessmen.
Their wares are so much harder to get rid of.
3 - boomcrashbaby
The NEA does a lot of stuff besides fund contraversial artists. They provide arts and crafts related after school programs for at-risk youth too. It would be a shame to entirely shut them down.
The NEA isn't my strongpoint so I don't want to defend them because I'd be treading on unfamiliar water, but why are we against the government giving an artist money to get his career going, but all for small business owners getting loans from the government? Perhaps the NEA is a big governmental agency full of waste, what agency isn't? But people only focus on crosses in urine and don't look at the overall big picture.
Mike, you do raise a point I didn't think of, using that money to fund religious work and so I thought about it for awhile before responding. Didn't Michelangelo get money from the Queen or somebody so that he could take a few years to paint the Sistine Chapel? The government quitting funding art might save us from having to view a lot of crap, but it would also possibly prevent another masterpiece from ever being created. I don't know how I feel about this. Mixed emotions right now.
4 - Mike Kole
While in retrospect, most people will agree that the work on the Sistine Chappel is amazing and wonderful, imagine the sort of backlash President Bush and the NEA would feel if it were announced today that there would be a commission for that sort of work. It probably wouldn't go forward, and it wouldn't be due to the efforts of Libertarians.
We live in a different world today than Michaelangelo did. Artists are discovered and funded much more easily now than then. Royalty was often the only possible source of funding for something not related to survival. Today, the community of wealthy benefactors for the arts is like nothing any era has ever seen. I immediately think of the New York arts scene and would be willing to put it up against any Royal in history. In today's media climate, when a hot artist is discovered, word travels like lightning.
Art is very personal to me. As such, I think that private individuals should be left to fund the art they choose to, and those who have no interest in the arts should be left on the sidelines as they prefer.
Arts are immeasurably valuable to a society, but saying so doesn't mean that a government should sponsor individual artists, any more than it should sponsor individual churches.
5 - SFC Ski
Rather than saying the author's an idiot with a dumb opinion, I'd rather know why Lenny thinks the NEA as it is should be continued. I don't have a dog in the fight, convince me.
I thought the article was well done, though I hate the assumption that everyone who doesn't devote his time reading the arts section of the LA Times or hanging out in tony gallery openings lives in a trailer with a velvet Elvis on the wall.
BCB makes a good point of the NEA funding school programs, maybe it is the NEA's parameters that should be adjusted. This ties into Mike's statement that artists should be able to find patronage based on their work.
A small business startup, AFAIK, has to present some type of sound business proposal to get a loan, but art is in the eye of the beholder, so it can't really be compared.
I like a wide variety of artwork, and I understand that much of its merit is subjective, but why should I pay for a crucifix in a beaker of urine, for example. I could have done that picture myself for less than $100, how much did Serrano receive?
6 - boomcrashbaby
imagine the sort of backlash President Bush and the NEA would feel if it were announced today that there would be a commission for that sort of work. It probably wouldn't go forward, and it wouldn't be due to the efforts of Libertarians.
Oh, yeah, I can totally see a major backlash. I don't know if it would go forward or not, it would depend on the judges on the benches and I think that aspect is changing soon, from the Supreme Court on down to the city level. So who knows if it would happen, I can see it being hashed out in courts for years if someone does try it. I do see that one side of the issue has a louder voice now than before too. I wouldn't be surprised to see someone attempt it, given the outrageous amendment proposals from the likes of Judge Roy Moore. The NEA would be like child's play compared with trying to subvert the integrity of the courthouse.
Artists are discovered and funded much more easily now than then.
I agree. And I also think there is the internet, ebay, etc. which provides marketing like never before at almost no cost. I have no strong feelings about the NEA, like I said, but I still don't see how funding a small business is different than funding an artist in his career. I wonder what doors that opens or shuts. Selective job placement. Getting your career determined by the government, because you need a loan to start a business usually and if they only offer it in certain areas, how is that different than socialism telling you what career to have? It's different, but only slightly, to me.
Art is very personal to me. As such, I think that private individuals should be left to fund the art they choose to, and those who have no interest in the arts should be left on the sidelines as they prefer.
Interesting. I have to absorb that. You are looking at it from a 'viewer's standpoint, whereas perhaps I am looking at it from a professional/job standpoint. You don't want to fund abortion either, right? So you are looking at funding art from a 'moral' perspective. Correct me if I'm wrong.
If I was against the assault on the forests in the northwest, could I have my taxpayer dollars not go to loans and subsidies to the lumber industry?
Arts are immeasurably valuable to a society, but saying so doesn't mean that a government should sponsor individual artists, any more than it should sponsor individual churches.
It's perspective where we differ. You do equate art with morality, because here you are comparing it to a church.
I don't think I will be able to agree with your equation because I happen to be in a group that falls outside of what the majority considers moral. A lot of the most beautiful art to me would be the first to go. I won't be able to acknowledge why the government should be dealing in morality here. I'm always put at the front of the line on that one. I'm going to stick with looking at it from the professional/job aspect. You'd probably do better to convince me why some jobs should be given start up loans and not others.
SFC SKI said: why should I pay for a crucifix in a beaker of urine, for example. I could have done that picture myself for less than $100, how much did Serrano receive?
I agree with it's lack of worthiness and I'm not sure how much he got for it. I believe the artists would be paid a salary for their time to create a gallery full of stuff and not by the piece. That would come with the sale of the art, and as far as I'm concerned the NEA should get a commission on that, since they paid for you to survive while you made it. Like paying back your school loan. That money could then be recycled into the NEA, decreasing the amount the taxpayer puts in.