For New Leader of the Arts Endowment, Lessons From a Shaky Past
Although it may be hard to remember now, there was a time when the National Endowment for the Arts seemed to be on solid footing, both financially and politically, and could spend its days quietly financing artists and arts groups at its discretion.
Then came the controversies — Robert Mapplethorpe’s homoerotic photographs, Karen Finley’s chocolate-smeared performance pieces, Andres Serrano’s urine-immersed crucifix and others — and from the late 1980s onward, the endowment seemed to be constantly under siege.
After the Republican sweep of Congress in 1994, it was only a matter of time — just about a year — before the N.E.A.’s overall budget was cut by 40 percent, to $99.5 million for 1996, from $162.3 million, and its ability to finance potentially divisive artists (with the exception of some literary writers) was eliminated. For a while there, it seemed as if the agency might not survive.
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Then came the controversies — Robert Mapplethorpe’s homoerotic photographs, Karen Finley’s chocolate-smeared performance pieces, Andres Serrano’s urine-immersed crucifix and others — and from the late 1980s onward, the endowment seemed to be constantly under siege.
After the Republican sweep of Congress in 1994, it was only a matter of time — just about a year — before the N.E.A.’s overall budget was cut by 40 percent, to $99.5 million for 1996, from $162.3 million, and its ability to finance potentially divisive artists (with the exception of some literary writers) was eliminated. For a while there, it seemed as if the agency might not survive.