Statement of Dr. Alice Goldfarb Marquis Author La Jolla, California Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth and Families Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Committee on Education and the Workforce United States House of Representatives Hearing on the National Endowment for the Arts 10:00 a.m., May 13, 1997 2175 Rayburn House Office Building ¶ 1995 was the 30th anniversary of the National Endowment for the Arts. It was founded in 1965, partly in reaction to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the first president since Thomas Jefferson to take a serious interest in the art. (It was actually Jacqueline.) The Cold War was a major reason for his concern: the Soviets were winning "the cultural offensive." Although the NEA's supporters endlessly repeat that our government gives the arts only 68 cents per person, a variety of state, regional, and local subventions, tax incentives, and postal subsidies raise the total above $13 per person, more than the amount spent in Britain, and about equal to arts spending in Italy. The National Endowment for the Arts is by no means the nation's most generous public funder of the arts. States spend more than the Endowment, while cities and counties spend about five times as much as the NEA to support the arts. By far, the most lavish support for the arts comes from private individuals. In 1991, almost ten percent of American households contributed an average of $194 to the arts. Total contributions to arts, culture and humanities by individuals, foundations, and corporations were almost $10 billion. Because much of this giving is tax deductible, the government actually subsidizes philanthropy through forgiving taxes for charitable contributions. In 1994, tax-deductibility of charitable contributions cost the government at least $2 billion! Less than half of the NEA's budget of $100 million actually goes to arts institutions or artists. More than half goes for administration, consultants, research, and dozens of "service groups," organizations of various art forms e.g., the American Symphony Orchestra League -- or umbrella organizations of state and local arts agencies, large institutions, arts presenters, etc. Almost all of these organizations are headquartered in Washington DC, where they lobby tirelessly in behalf of the Endowment. The NEA's appropriation of $100 million is part of some $13 billion for the Department of Interior This strange arrangement makes the endowment a hostage of Congresspeople from sparsely populated Western states, who predominate on the House and Senate Interior committees. The result? Generous funding for arts in remote places (Montana, whose sole Congressperson for decades chaired the Interior Committee, has 173 museums) at the expense of such arts centers as New York city or Los Angeles. Fact sheet: Art Lessons 2 ¶ Arts funding at the local level is similarly uneven. Operas and symphony orchestras usually get the most generous grants, not because they serve a large population, but because their patrons possess political, economic, and social clout. ¶ Despite hysterical media coverage of a few controversial NEA grants, the long-term effect of government arts funding has been profoundly conservative. Grants prop up ailing institutions, allowing them to continue programming for which the audience is dwindling, for example, the warhorses of 19th century concert music. Public money also fueled a wild proliferation of non-profit theaters, a potent contribution to the decline of commercial Broadway. There is no evidence that Democrats or liberals are more fervent supporters of public arts funding than Republicans or conservatives. Richard Nixon presided over the NEA's greatest expansion and appointed the agency's best chair, Nancy Hanks. While campaigning for the presidency, Ronald Reagan targeted the NEA for extinction. Once elected, he quickly changed his mind. The reason? Republican trustees of major arts institutions, arts patrons, and corporate arts funders convincingly wailed and stormed. 1 The NEA's much-vaunted "imprimatur," supposedly a seal of approval to guide private donors, smacks of a totalitarian effort to dictate matters that should be guided by individual taste. No new art has ever emerged from such systems: the 19th French academy bought thousands of paintings now filling museum storerooms but not the Impressionists, Gauguin or Van Gogh, the Nazis funded arts now considered worthless, and so did the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe and the USSR._The NEA's "seal of approval" amounts to a heavy bureaucratic finger on the scale of artistic judgment. ¶ Over the long haul, the best judges of what is art have always been audiences, not government officials. If government plays any role in the arts, it should concentrate on levelling the playing field, not on selecting the players. It could locate venues for exhibitions and performances -- school auditoriums, churches, parks, recreation centers and facilitate their use by anyone with a creative message. Alice Goldfarb Marquis 8963 Caminito Fresco La Jolla CA 92037 (619) 453-1878 FAX (619) 453-2005 e-mail: amarquise@aol.com May 13, 1997 |