David Hoppe

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:: Arts kerfuffle

The NEA.Again

By David Hoppe

President Obama's critics are saying a recent flap over comments made by a now ex-spokesperson for the National Endowment For the Arts during a conference call are typical of the Obama administration's over-reaching and, as one put it, "politicization of everything." Glenn Beck links it to a plot to brainwash everybody the way he says the Nazis brainwashed Germans in the 1930s.

It takes one to know one, as we used to say on the playground.

But what was wrong about what went down in that conference call has little to do with propaganda or politicization. The real problem is the way that conference call is symptomatic of how our arts bureaucracy trivializes the arts.

The call took place on Aug. 10 - one day, by the way, before Rocco Landesman, Obama's pick to head the NEA, took office. It was apparently organized by Michael Skolnick, who has been called the "political director" for hip-hop entrepreneur Russell Simmons. Skolnick told the call's participants that he was "asked by the folks at the White House and folks at the NEA to help bring together the independent artistic community around the country" to see how they might support volunteer efforts being coordinated by the Corporation For National and Community Service under the aegis United We Serve.

Leave the NEA out of this pow-wow and all's well. In fact, you could go so far as to say that the idea of enlisting the help of the creative community in trying to see how various volunteer initiatives supported by the White House might be advanced was actually a refreshing change. Recognition, that is, of the many ways in which some artists serve as authentic antennae for the places where they live.

But the NEA was present. And, as the government's leading arts funding agency, that presence could easily be construed as sending a message about future opportunities for financial support.

Yosi Sergant, a known Obama supporter and, at the time of the call, NEA's Director of Communications, was on the line that day. Here is some of what he said: "I would encourage you to pick something, whether it's health care, education, the environment- you know, there's four key areas that the Corporation has identified as areas of service. Then my ask would be to apply artistic, you know, your artistic creative community's utilities and bring them to the table. This is a chance for us to partner with the White House."

Naturally, this call was being taped. At least one person took a copy to Glenn Beck and the rest is the stuff 24-hour news cycles are made of.

Sergant's participation in the call was a clueless misstep. But it was a misstep born of our confusing the arts with the administrative bureaucracies we have erected supposedly to aid in their support. Thus, you want to reach out to the arts community? You use the government's arts agency to help you do it. You think: The NEA represents artists. This may sound logical, but it leads to mistaking a tail for a dog.

Even more problematic is the way that arts bureaucracies have tended to make the arts about things other than art. Ever since the late 1980s, when right-wingers discovered they could make hay by, yes, politicizing the grants the NEA made to artists and arts organizations, arts administrators have attempted to find ways to make the arts safer for our corporate cum populist republic. They have done this by proclaiming that the arts make kids more successful in school, that art can help revive declining neighborhoods, contribute to economic prosperity, even make streets safer.

All of this is true - as anyone who really pays attention to their surroundings knows. Piles of research have also backed these claims. So it's no wonder that arts bureaucrats have resorted to them as a way of deflecting the suspicion of many on the right that what the arts are really about is changing peoples' lives by expanding their consciousness - a prospect that makes conservative blood run cold.

Today, public arts funding is hardly ever about the creation of new work. Funding, instead, tends to be about ways the arts can be used for various sorts of "community building." Projects, in other words, that are aimed at new audiences or creating new venues. There's nothing wrong with this - which is why arts bureaucrats think so highly of it.

It's also why I doubt Yosi Sergant thought twice before joining in that conference call. Like most arts bureaucrats, he was trying to be helpful by suggesting some socially constructive ways for artists to spend their time and energies. And if what these artists did also enhanced the Obama administration's reputation, so much the better. That's called a win-win.

You have to wonder, though, how an artist's work might accomplish all that - and still remain a work of art.