What would give future generations a better idea of what American culture is like in the last half of the 20th century - an Andrew Wyeth painting or a Bill Clinton speech? Tony Kushner's play, "Angels in America" or the most recent version of the federal tax code?
It's unfair, of course, to assume that 20th century American art, music and theater might not be preserved without federal funds - but it is fair to say fewer Americans would be exposed to great works. Especially in rural areas and inner-city neighborhoods.Forget the crucifix-in-urine display of Andres Serrano and the shocking photography of Robert Mapplethorpe. Chalk them off as two mistakes - two grants out of 85,000. Listen instead to the stories of Syd Blackmarr, director of the Arts Experiment Station in Tifton, where Georgia's only multi-county arts alliance blossoms and grows, thanks to seed money from the National Endowment for the Arts.
There are no big patrons, no huge corporations to pick up arts funding in the five rural counties that belong to the alliance. The average income is $15,000. For three years, though, the people were blessed with nine chamber music groups in residency, part of an NEA pilot facilitated by the Georgia Council for the Arts. From the classical music experience of those small communities, great artists may or may not spring, but Black-marr can point to elementary school children from poor families who would never have picked up a violin, playing still in reinvigorated school music programs.
Last week a piano concert in Tifton drew 700 people on a Monday night, something that wouldn't have happened before. Now a historic church is being renovated to serve as a regional gallery to attract major visual arts exhibits. This time, it was a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that spurred local governments and businesses to contribute $250,000.
The Tifton area successes are like the NEA-spurred gems in Tugwater and Mule Junction, Wyo., that former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson referred to in a speech at a Washington event marking arts advocacy week in the nation's capital. A Republican with unassailable conservative credentials, Simpson made mincemeat of the "counterculture, anti-Christ" cries of right-wing extremists against the NEA. Some folks "want to cut the arts to shreds," he said, "because it is showing stuff about cadavers, body parts, excrement and genitalia. . . . Tell them that is not all of the art in America. That is not the state of art in America."
Simpson's speech, met with a standing ovation, was refreshing to arts supporters who often face a partisan lineup in Congress on the issue. In 1995, for example, every Georgia GOP House member voted to kill the NEH and to phase out the NEA in two years, while the state's Democratic members voted to save both.
Now, there's a glimmer of hope the partisan wall will crack. Arts leaders say they had a "very successful" meeting with GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Nobody knows exactly what that means, but it could mean the path back to non-partisan federal support in some form.
"Like politics," says Ned Rifkin, director of Atlanta's High Museum, "the arts are a form of representation, a statement of what we feel about our cultural heritage."
John Adams, our second president, once promised to work for "a social structure" that would allow his grandsons to become poets and painters instead of soldiers to save us in war. We still need soldiers, but we need artists too, to save our creative souls.