I am a supporter of the arts. And I enjoy many of them–painting, sculpture, music, theater, prose, and poetry. I’m not a fan of dance, although I enjoy the athleticism of ballet, and I can’t sit and listen to opera. I had the good fortune to spend some of my youth in England and France where I got to see some of the Old Masters’ work, but my favorite art museum is the Amon G. Carter Museum in my hometown. Any time I return there I am drawn to see what is on display.
Today, as I browsed the archives at Commentary, I came across an article written by Joseph Epstein, What to Do About the Arts (subscription required). As a former member of the National Council for the National Endowment for the Arts, he has the experience to judge how this entity has performed. Although he believes the NEA has its place, he blames it for the mediocrity that the arts in America have become.
Mediocrity, the question of what may be called quality control, was rarely discussed during my time at the NEA. It could not be. Most NEA panelists believed in encouraging the putatively disadvantaged more than they believed in art itself, and this made them prey to the grim logic of affirmative action.
It reminds me of one story I heard (no verification of its truth) that a “poet” had written a “poem” consisting of a single word. When no publication would agree to publish it, he went to the NEA and got a grant to purchase advertizing space in a poetry magazine, and used the space to “publish” his “poem.” Other groups, denied the grants sought, have filed suit claiming censorship–and won.
Poetry is the art which has suffered most. Today’s poets (speaking of the ones I’m aware of who receive acclaim) have no sense of meter or rhyme. Rhyme is not necessary, but a rhythm is essential if we are to separate poetry from prose. Otherwise, “free-verse” simply becomes a new name for short prose. I no longer read poetry; it seems quite mundane, requiring little skill and good marketing. Where are the modern incarnations of Jesse Stuart, Robert Frost, or even Rod McKuen?
I could not help noticing, too, the special obligation which the people who worked at the NEA felt toward what passed for avant-garde or “cutting-edge” art. The cutting edge, almost invariably, was anti-capitalist, anti-middle-class, anti-American, the whole-earth catalogue of current antinomianism. What was new was that the artists who wanted to seem cutting edge also wanted the government they despised to pay for the scissors.
By no means does Epstein want the NEA to go away. It fills the void in some communities by sponsoring touring exhibits or shows to give some culture to those of us in the hinterlands. You know–Red States. But the grant process has become a travesty, and a means for those with lesser talent to make a living in the Arts. In supporting them, the overall quality of our Arts is diminished.
To me, “expanding the envelope” in the artistic world means taking the available tools and using them in different ways–using your mind to create art. Music is a prime example. People who create it use the same eight notes and their variations to create something new–different combinations, different rhythms, different instruments. Stomp is the one dance show that would interest me simply because of the creativity involved. Using urine or feces to create something unimaginative doesn’t make it art. It makes it unimaginative–waste.
I see the NEA getting further and further away from its original intent. In this time of Congressional budget legislation, I think it does us well to question whether the money spent on the NEA is money spent wisely. If not, it either needs to be eliminated, or significant changes made in how that money is spent.